Download or read book In Amazonia written by Hugh Raffles and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2014-09-15 with total page 319 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Amazon is not what it seems. As Hugh Raffles shows us in this captivating and innovative book, the world's last great wilderness has been transformed again and again by human activity. In Amazonia brings to life an Amazon whose allure and reality lie as much, or more, in what people have made of it as in what nature has wrought. It casts new light on centuries of encounter while describing the dramatic remaking of a sweeping landscape by residents of one small community in the Brazilian Amazon. Combining richly textured ethnographic research and lively historical analysis, Raffles weaves a fascinating story that changes our understanding of this region and challenges us to rethink what we mean by "nature." Raffles draws from a wide range of material to demonstrate--in contrast to the tendency to downplay human agency in the Amazon--that the region is an outcome of the intimately intertwined histories of humans and nonhumans. He moves between a detailed narrative that analyzes the production of scientific knowledge about Amazonia over the centuries and an absorbing account of the extraordinary transformations to the fluvial landscape carried out over the past forty years by the inhabitants of Igarapé Guariba, four hours downstream from the nearest city. Engagingly written, theoretically inventive, and vividly illustrated, the book introduces a diverse range of characters--from sixteenth-century explorers and their native rivals to nineteenth-century naturalists and contemporary ecologists, logging company executives, and river-traders. A natural history of a different kind, In Amazonia shows how humans, animals, rivers, and forests all participate in the making of a region that remains today at the center of debates in environmental politics.
Download or read book Sustainable Development in Amazonia written by Kei Otsuki and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2013-03-12 with total page 194 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book argues against the assumption that sustainability and environmental conservation are naturally the common goal and norm for everyone in Amazonia. This is the first book focusing on agency, reflexivity and social development to address sustainable development in the region. It discusses the importance of looking into societal dynamics in order to deal with deforestation and sustainable development policies through the ethnography of an Amazonian settlement named New Paradise. This book demystifies utopian and overtly conservationist views that depict the Amazon rainforest as a troubled paradise. Engaging with social theory of practice with particular focus on emergentist perspectives and Foucault’s analysis of ‘heterotopia’, the author shows that Amazonia is a set of settlement heterotopias in which various local and external initiatives interact to make up real, lived-in places. The settlers’ placemaking continually rearranges power and material relations while the process usually emphasises utopian developmentalist and conservationist policy intervention. This book explores in detail how, as power relations are arranged and governance reshaped, sustainable development and construction of a green society also need to become a goal for the settlers themselves. The book’s insights on the relationship between the sustainable development frameworks used in environmental policy, and ongoing societal development on the ground inform debate both within Amazonia, and in comparable communities worldwide. It also offers institutional pathways to realise new, more engaging, policy intervention for development professionals and policy makers.
Download or read book Warfare and Shamanism in Amazonia written by Carlos Fausto and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2012-03-19 with total page 369 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Warfare and Shamanism in Amazonia is an ethnographic study of the Parakanã, a little-known indigenous people of Amazonia, who inhabit the interfluvial region in the state of Pará, Brazil. This book analyzes the relationship between warfare and shamanism in Parakanã society from the late nineteenth century until the end of the twentieth century. Based on the author's extensive fieldwork, the book presents first-hand ethnographic data collected among a generation still deeply involved in conflicts. The result is an innovative work with a broad thematic and comparative scope.
Download or read book Regional Cooperation in Amazonia written by Maria Antonia Tigre and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2017-08-28 with total page 604 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In Regional Cooperation in Amazonia: A Comparative Environmental Law Analysis, Maria Antonia Tigre provides a broad overview of the international, regional and national law applied to the Amazon rainforest and investigates efforts at regional cooperation for the protection of the Amazonian ecosystem. For the last four decades, cooperation among the eight countries in which the rainforest lies was primarily induced by the Amazon Cooperation Treaty (ACT). Originally adopted to ensure national sovereignty, the ACT gradually evolved towards a framework for sustainable development. Based on the challenges faced by the treaty and its subsequent instruments, Maria Antonia Tigre analyzes ways in which the ACT can be more effectively applied, leading to practical results that reduce deforestation. These specifically relate to the enforceability of the right to the environment, the implementation of protected areas, and the development of financial mechanisms to fund initiatives.
Download or read book Gender in Amazonia and Melanesia written by Thomas A. Gregor and published by Univ of California Press. This book was released on 2001-11-01 with total page 403 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: One of the great riddles of cultural history is the remarkable parallel that exists between the peoples of Amazonia and those of Melanesia. Although the two regions are separated by half a world in distance and at least 40,000 years of history, their cultures nonetheless reveal striking similarities in the areas of sex and gender. In both Amazonia and Melanesia, male-female differences infuse social organization and self-conception. They are the core of religion, symbolism, and cosmology, and they permeate ideas about body imagery, procreation, growth, men's cults, and rituals of initiation. The contributors to this innovative volume illuminate the various ways in which sex and gender are elaborated, obsessed over, and internalized, shaping subjective experiences common to entire cultural regions, and beyond. Through comparison of the life ways of Melanesia and Amazonia the authors expand the study of gender, as well as the comparative method in anthropology, in new and rewarding directions.
Download or read book Ergativity in Amazonia written by Spike Gildea and published by John Benjamins Publishing. This book was released on 2010-05-19 with total page 327 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This volume presents a typological/theoretical introduction plus eight papers about ergative alignment in 16 Amazonian languages. All are written by linguists with years of fieldwork and comparative experience in the region, all describe details of the synchronic systems, and several also provide diachronic insight into the evolution of these systems. The five papers in Part I focus on languages from four larger families with ergative patterns primarily in morphology. The typological contribution is in detailed consideration of unusual splits, changes in ergative patterns, and parallels between ergative main clauses and nominalizations. The three papers in Part II discuss genetically isolated languages. Two present dominant ergative patterns in both morphology and syntax, the other a syntactic inverse system that is predominantly ergative in discourse. In each, the authors demonstrate that identification of traditional grammatical relations is problematic. These data will figure in all future typological and theoretical debates about grammatical relations.
Download or read book Contested Frontiers in Amazonia written by Marianne Schmink and published by Columbia University Press. This book was released on 1992-06-24 with total page 436 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An interdisciplinary analysis of the process of frontier change in one region of the Brazilian Amazon, the southern portion of the state of Pará.
Download or read book Histories and Historicities in Amazonia written by Neil L. Whitehead and published by U of Nebraska Press. This book was released on 2003-01-01 with total page 268 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Anthropologist Neil L. Whitehead presents a collection of recent fieldwork and the latest theoretical perspectives that illuminate how a range of Native communities in the Amazon River basin, and those they encounter, use the past to make sense of their world and themselves. In recent decades, scholars have become increasingly aware of the role the past plays in the construction of culture and identity. Not only can the past be represented and codified overtly in various ways and media as a history, it also operates more fundamentally and pervasively in cultures as a mode of consciousness or way of thinking about the world, a historicity. ø In addition to examining the particular foundations and significance of history and historicity in such communities as the Guaj¾, Wapishana, Dekuana, and Patamuna, the contributors to this volume consider more broadly how different natural and cultural features can help shape historical consciousness: landscape and territory; rituals such as feasting; genealogy and kinship; and even the practice of archaeology. Also of interest are activist uses of historicity to promote and legitimize the cultural integrity and political agendas of Native communities, especially in contact situations past and present where multiple and often competing forms of history and historicity play important political roles in articulating relations between colonizers and the colonized. ø As this volume makes clear, understanding the powerful cultural role of the past helps scholars better appreciate the inherent dynamic quality of all cultures and recognize a rich resource of agency that can be used both to comprehend and to transform the present
Download or read book Gender and Sociality in Amazonia written by Cecilia McCallum and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2020-05-11 with total page 221 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This is the first book to focus directly on gender in Amazonia for nearly thirty years. Research on gender and sexual identity has become central to social science during that time, but studies have concentrated on other places and people, leaving the gendered experiences of indigenous Amazonians relatively unexplored. McCallum explores little-known aspects of the day-to-day lives of Amazonian peoples in Brazil and Peru. Taking a closer look at the lives of the Cashinahua people, the book provides fascinating insights into conception, pregnancy and birth; naming rituals and initiation ceremonies; concepts of space and time; community and leadership; exchange and production practices; and the philosophy of daily life itself. Through this prism it shows that in fact gender is not merely an aspect of Amazonian social life, but its central axis and driving force. Gender does not just affect personal identity, but has implications for the whole of community life and social organization. The author illustrates how gender is continually created and maintained, and how social forms emerge from the practices of gendered persons in interaction. Throughout their lives, people are 'being made' in this part of the Amazon, and the whole of social organization is predicated on this conception. The author reveals the complex inter-relationships that link gender distinctions with the body, systems of exchange and politics. In so doing, she develops a specific theoretical model of gender and sociality that reshapes our understanding of Amazonian social processes. Building on the key works from past decades, this book challenges and extends current understandings of gender, society and the indigenous people of Amazonia.
Download or read book A Walk to the River in Amazonia written by Carla Stang and published by Berghahn Books. This book was released on 2009-07-01 with total page 239 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Our lives are mostly composed of ordinary reality — the flow of moment-to-moment existence — and yet it has been largely overlooked as a subject in itself for anthropological study. In this work, the author achieves an understanding of this part of reality for the Mehinaku Indians, an Amazonian people, in two stages: first by observing various aspects of their experience and second by relating how these different facets come to play in a stream of ordinary consciousness, a walk to the river. In this way, abstract schemata such as ‘cosmology,’ ‘sociality,’ ‘gender,’ and the ‘everyday’ are understood as they are actually lived. This book contributes to the ethnography of the Amazon, specifically the Upper Xingu, with an approach that crosses disciplinary boundaries between anthropology, philosophy, and psychology. In doing so it attempts to comprehend what Malinowski called the ‘imponderabilia of actual life.’
Download or read book Soil Biodiversity in Amazonian and Other Brazilian Ecosystems written by F. M. S. Moreira and published by CABI. This book was released on 2006 with total page 296 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The loss of biological diversity has become an increased concern over recent years and is now enshrined in international conventions. Most biodiversity in fact occurs in the soil. Soil organisms (especially bacteria, fungi and soil invertebrates) play a major role in the formation of soil structure and are primary agents of decomposition and are drivers of nutrient cycling, and hence agricultural production.This book reviews soil biodiversity in one of the key biodiversity hotspots of the world, i.e. the Amazon and nearby regions of Brazil. It covers both the tropical savannah and rain forests . The work reported is based on a project "Conservation and Sustainable Management of Below-Ground Biodiversity", executed by TSBF-CIAT with co-financing from the Global Environment Facility (GEF) and implementation support from the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP). The book represents a major contribution to the literature and will interest those in biodiversity conservation, soil scienceand ecology and biodiversity conservation.
Download or read book A Balancing Act for Brazil s Amazonian States written by The World Bank and published by World Bank Publications. This book was released on 2023-01-11 with total page 321 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Social deprivations coincide with vast deforestation in Brazil's Legal Amazon, or Amazônia. Poverty reduction and sustainable development require renewed efforts to protect the region's exceptional natural wealth, coupled with a shift from an extractive to a productivity-oriented growth model.
Download or read book The Biogeochemistry of the Amazon Basin written by Michael E. McClain and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2001-11-08 with total page 378 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: With a complex assemblage of largely intact ecosystems that support the earth's greatest diversity of life, the Amazon basin is a focal point of international scientific interest. And, as development and colonization schemes transform the landscape in increasing measure, scientists from around the world are directing attention to questions of regional and global significance. Some of these qustions are: What are the fluxes of greenhouse gases across the atmospheric interface of ecosystems? How mush carbon is stored in the biomass and soils of the basin? How are elements from the land transferred to the basin's surface waters? What is the sum of elements transferred from land to ocean, and what is its marine "fate"? This book of original chapters by experts in chemical and biological oceanography, tropical agronomy and biology, and the atmospheric sciences will address these and other important questions, with the aim of synthesizing the current knowledge of biochemical processes operating within and between the various ecosystems in the Amazon basin.
Download or read book Amazonian Dark Earths Wim Sombroek s Vision written by William I. Woods and published by Springer Science & Business Media. This book was released on 2008-11-16 with total page 512 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Amazonian soils are almost universally thought of as extremely forbidding. However, it is now clear that complex societies with large, sedentary populations were present for over a millennium before European contact. Associated with these are tracts of anomalously fertile, dark soils termed ‘terra preta’ or dark earths. These soils are presently an important agricultural resource within Amazonia and provide a model for developing long-term future sustainability of food production in tropical environments. The late Dutch soil scientist Wim Sombroek (1934-2003) was instrumental in bringing the significance of these soils to the attention of the world over four decades ago. Wim saw not only the possibilities of improving the lives of small holders throughout the world with simple carbon based soil technologies, but was an early proponent of the positive synergies also achieved in regards to carbon sequestration and global climatic change abatement. Wim’s vision was to form a multidisciplinary group whose members maintained the ideal of open collaboration toward the attainment of shared goals. Always encouraged and often shaped by Wim, this free association of international scholars termed the “Terra Preta Nova” Group came together in 2001 and has flourished. This effort has been defined by enormous productivity. Wim who is never far from any of our minds and hearts, would have loved to share the great experience of seeing the fruits of his vision as demonstrated in this volume.
Download or read book Resource Management in Amazonia written by Darrell Addison Posey and published by New York Botanical Garden Press. This book was released on 1989 with total page 302 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Theoretical approaches to resource management. The culture of amazonian forests. Models of native and folk adaptation in the Amazon. Resource management in Amazonia before the conquest: beyond ethnographic projection. Process as resource: the traditional agricultural ideology of Bora and Huastec resource management and its implications for research. Use, perception, and manipulation of resources. Use of plant resources by the Chácobo. Rainy seasons and constellations: the desâna economic calendar. Yanoama horticulture in the Parima highlands of Venezuela Ka'apor case. Management of a tropical scrub savanna by the Gorotire Kayapó of Brazil. Preliminary results on soil management techniques of the Kayapó indians. Ecological basis of Amuesha agriculture, Peruvian upper Amazon. How the Machiguenga manage resources: conservation or exploitation of nature? Succession management and resource distribution in an Amazonian rain forest. Managing rivers of hunger: the Tukano of Brazil. A neglected human resource in Amazonia: the Amazon caboclo. The perception of ecological zones and natural resources in the Brazilian Amazon: an ethnoecology of Lake Coari.
Download or read book Ecological Disorder in Amazonia written by Leszek A. Kosiński and published by . This book was released on 1992 with total page 224 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Commercialization of Non timber Forest Products in Amazonia written by E. M. Richards and published by Hyperion Books. This book was released on 1993 with total page 36 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Human and ecological background. Rubber and extractive reserves. Other extractive products. Brazil nuts. The current crisis and future prospects. Babaçu. Changes in tenure and land use. Impact of commercialization and processing changes. Products from the Varzea. Açai juice. Palm hearts. Impact of market expansion for açai products. Aguaje. Camu camu. Essential oils and flavouring products. Rosewood oil. Copaiba balsam. Cumaru nuts. Fatty oils. Ucuuba. Andiroba. Exudates. Impact of commercialization. Impact on welfare. Socio-political factors. The commercialization system. The stage of the product's boom-bust cycle. Impact on extractive resources. Impact on biodiversity conservation. The future of extractivism. Limitations. The case for extractivism. Subsidies. Integrated forest management. Avoiding the middleman. The potential of green consumerism. Research and development priorities.
