Eyes On Amazonia

The Amazon extends across nine countries, encompasses forty percent of South America, and hosts four European languages and more than three hundred Indigenous languages and cultures. Eyes on Amazonia is a fascinating exploration of how Latin American, European, and US intellectuals imagined and represented the Amazon region during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. This multifaceted study, which draws on a range of literary and nonliterary texts and visual sources, examines the complex ways that race, gender, mobility, empire, modernity, and personal identity have indelibly shaped how the region was and is seen. In doing so, the book argues that representations of the Amazon as a region in need of the civilizing influence of colonialism and modernization served to legitimize and justify imperial control. Eyes on Amazonia operates in cultural geography, ecocriticism, and visual cultural analysis. The diverse and intriguing documents and images examined in this book capture the modernizing project of this region at a crucial juncture in its long history: the early twentieth-century rubber boom.

In this well-written, comprehensive, reasonable yet passionate volume, Emilio Moran introduces us to the range of human and ecological diversity in the Amazon Basin. By describing the complex heterogeneity on the Amazon's ecological mosaic and its indigenous populations' conscious adaptations to this diversity, he leads us to realize that there are strategies of resource use which do not destroy the structure and function of ecosystems. Finally, and most important, he examines ways in which we might benefit from the study of human ecology to design and implement a balance between conservation and use.

The Amazon extends across nine countries, encompasses forty percent of South America, and hosts four European languages and more than three hundred Indigenous languages and cultures. Eyes on Amazonia is a fascinating exploration of how Latin American, European, and US intellectuals imagined and represented the Amazon region during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. This multifaceted study, which draws on a range of literary and nonliterary texts and visual sources, examines the complex ways that race, gender, mobility, empire, modernity, and personal identity have indelibly shaped how the region was and is seen. In doing so, the book argues that representations of the Amazon as a region in need of the civilizing influence of colonialism and modernization served to legitimize and justify imperial control. Eyes on Amazonia operates in cultural geography, ecocriticism, and visual cultural analysis. The diverse and intriguing documents and images examined in this book capture the modernizing project of this region at a crucial juncture in its long history: the early twentieth-century rubber boom.

"In this beautifully written study of Urarina mastery of life, Walker demonstrates the continued importance of careful ethnographic attention to historically emergent forms of subjectivity. Walker's perceptive attention to social values and organising principles helps us understand how the Urarina transcend predation, identity and difference. We are transported to the heart of a society both more individualising and more communalist than the ones we have grown up in."—Laura Rival, author of Trekking through history: The Huaorani of Amazonian Ecuador>/i> "A celebration of Urarina understandings of the individual and the social world, Under a Watchful Eye unveils the many paradoxes of native Amazonian sociality. Well-written and finely crafted, the book critically engages with issues raised by perspectivism, incorporation theory, and constructional approaches, proposing novel and stimulating insights on indigenous notions of living well."—Fernando Santos-Granero, author of Vital Enemies: Slavery, Predation, and the Amerindian Political Economy of Life "This book is based on the sensitive and multi-layered ethnography which only real, long-term participant observation can produce. We are convinced by detailed supporting evidence and never lost, as is the case for some Amazonian ethnography, in formulations, which having acquired an academic life of their own, seem impossibly remote from the experience of shared human practice."—Maurice Bloch, author of How We Think They Think: Anthropological Studies in Cognition, Memory and Literacy

In this well-written, comprehensive, reasonable yet passionate volume, Emilio Moran introduces us to the range of human and ecological diversity in the Amazon Basin. By describing the complex heterogeneity on the Amazon's ecological mosaic and its indigenous populations' conscious adaptations to this diversity, he leads us to realize that there are strategies of resource use which do not destroy the structure and function of ecosystems. Finally, and most important, he examines ways in which we might benefit from the study of human ecology to design and implement a balance between conservation and use.

In 1956, a group of Waorani men killed five North American missionaries in Ecuador. The event cemented the Waorani's reputation as ""wild Amazonian Indians"" in the eyes of the outside world. It also added to the myth of the violent Amazon created by colonial writers and still found in academia and the state development agendas across the region. Victims and Warriors examines contemporary violence in the context of political and economic processes that transcend local events. Casey High explores how popular imagery of Amazonian violence has become part of Waorani social memory in oral histories, folklore performances, and indigenous political activism. As Amazonian forms of social memory merge with constructions of masculinity and other intercultural processes, the Waorani absorb missionaries, oil development, and logging depredations into their legacy of revenge killings and narratives of victimhood. High shows that these memories of past violence form sites of negotiation and cultural innovation, and thus violence comes to constitute a central part of Amazonian sociality, identity, and memory.

This study brings to light the diversity of Amazonian societies. It looks at land use and kinship dynamics, peasantry, ethnic communities and industry and extends anthropological work beyond its traditional limit of Amerindian societies.

In this volume, the Amazon and its adjacent rainforest are presented in all their important facets: First, there is the vast river system itself, with its network of white, black, and clear water rivers. The different water qualities have an enormous impact on people, animals and plants. On the other hand, the people who live along this "Rio Mar," the ocean river, are described. They are the Caboclos, the descendants of the European immigrants and the indigenous people, and it is the different indigenous peoples who have mostly settled along the riverbanks, since the rivers here replace the roads and make contact with other people possible in the first place. Although these ethnic groups have been in contact with Western civilization for generations,they have surprisingly preserved a number of remarkable traditions that are described here. The treasure of the Amazon is its plants and animals. Therefore, the most fascinating flowering plants, including numerous medicinal plants, trees, epiphytes and lianas from different habitats are described in detail and illustrated with excellent photographs. Finally, it is the animals, especially in and around the river, that have always fascinated Alexander von Humboldt. Not only is the lifestyle of the legendary pink dolphins, piranhas and tarantulas explained here, but the impressive amphibians, reptiles and mammals of the jungle are also discussed.epiphytes and lianas from different habitats are described in detail and illustrated with excellent photographs. Finally, it is the animals, especially in and around the river, that have always fascinated Alexander von Humboldt. Not only is the lifestyle of the legendary pink dolphins, piranhas and tarantulas explained here, but the impressive amphibians, reptiles and mammals of the jungle are also discussed.epiphytes and lianas from different habitats are described in detail and illustrated with excellent photographs. Finally, it is the animals, especially in and around the river, that have always fascinated Alexander von Humboldt. Not only is the lifestyle of the legendary pink dolphins, piranhas and tarantulas explained here, but the impressive amphibians, reptiles and mammals of the jungle are also discussed. This book is a translation of the original German 1st edition Faszination Amazonas by Lothar Staeck, published by Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature in 2019. The translation was done with the help of artificial intelligence (machine translation by the service DeepL.com). A subsequent human revision was done primarily in terms of content, so that the book will read stylistically differently from a conventional translation. Springer Nature works continuously to further the development of tools for the production of books and on the related technologies to support the authors.