Indigenous Modernities in South America (Hardcover)

Indigenous peoples have been cast as representing modernity’s fading premodern Other. This volume starts from the opposite assumption, namely that contemporary indigenous peoples are specifically modern societies, profoundly shaped by their specific ways of dealing with, making use of and transforming the contexts imposed by nation-states, colonial systems and globalization. They do that from a position alternative to that of the modern West. The book aims to understand these processes and the resulting forms of indigenous modernities in Lowland South America through ethnographic case studies. It argues that there is more about indigenous modernities than the simple assertion that indigenous peoples are now modern too. Indigenous groups are modern in multiple, complex and alternative ways. As the contributions show this holds true for current forms of shamanism and indigenous Christian churches, new meanings of traditional clothing, as well as indigenous cosmologies that confront western concepts, technology and welfare programs. The notion of indigenous modernities refers to a space beyond old modernist dichotomies. The paradox, like the disturbing Otherness it brings to our attention, is the result of a relation in which assumptions we take ontologically for granted are confronted by other realities. Looking at the creative ways indigenous peoples’ practices subvert such assumptions may result in substantial irritation and is a starting point for a renewed reflection on classical assumptions about modernities and indigenous ways of both being modern and exceeding modernity in the face of long-standing power inequalities and the imposition of logics of Western ontology.

General

Imprint:	Sean Kingston Publishing
Country of origin:	United Kingdom
Release date:	August 2018
Editors:	Ernst Halbmayer
Contributors:	Anibal G. Arregui • Luiza Garnelo • Wolfgang Kapfhammer • Elke Mader • Anne Meiser • Dan Rosengren • Katinka Weber
Dimensions:	234 x 156 x 16mm (L x W x T)
Format:	Hardcover
Pages:	246
ISBN-13:	978-1-912385-01-0
Categories:	Books > Social sciences > General
LSN:	1-912385-01-5
Barcode:	9781912385010

Is the information for this product incomplete, wrong or inappropriate? Let us know about it.

Does this product have an incorrect or missing image? Send us a new image.

Is this product missing categories? Add more categories.

Review This Product

No reviews yet - be the first to create one!