The making of environmental subjects: the Ecuadorian huaorani
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.17533/udea.boan.v30n49a02Keywords:
huaorani, Ecuador, Actor-Network theory, environmental subjects, environmental conservation, territory management, ecotourismAbstract
After long nomadic identity transitions between warriors, isolated people and environment destroyers, the huaorani in the Ecuadorian Amazon have turned into the “quintessential environmental subjects”. In this article I analyze this process, building on the ethnographic data I obtained during my fieldwork in Yasuní and Arajuno (Ecuador) as well as secondary sources. I describe how the intervention of exogenous actors, through devices such as indigenous land management policies and sustainable development, has gradually assimilated to environmental conservation, shaping attributes and skills of the inhabitants of the Amazon rainforest. I draw both from notions such as “assemblage” and “mapping controversies” (Actor-Network Theory) that belong to the sociology of translation and from Agrawal’s concept of “environmental subjects” (2000) in order to reflect on the ambiguity inherent to the scientific construction of humans (local and scientific) and nonhuman in the tropical rainforest.
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