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University of California Press

Under a Watchful Eye

Self, Power, and Intimacy in Amazonia

by Harry Walker (Author)
Price: $75.00 / £63.00
Publication Date: Nov 2012
Edition: 1st Edition
Title Details:
Rights: World
Pages: 252
ISBN: 9780520273597
Trim Size: 6 x 9
Illustrations: 11 b/w photographs, 1 map
Series:
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1.

Spaces of Refuge

Person and Being

This book is about the shared nature of human existence: how we live our lives in the close company of others, in whose very being we come to participate. We come into the world accompanied, and this remains our defining condition: who we are, how we come to experience ourselves as conscious subjects, with the capacity to act on the world, are fundamentally conditioned by our constitutively accompanied nature. This mutuality does not undermine individuality but precedes it and is its condition of existence. Typically grounded in intimate but often asymmetrical relations of care and protection, mutuality nevertheless also establishes a certain vulnerability. This can manifest as a willingness to be dominated, if our continued sense of identity, our sense of self, can thereby be assured.

The Urarina, a hunting and horticultural people of the Peruvian Amazon with reference to whom these arguments are developed, recognize and elaborate these relational qualities of human experience to a high degree. Yet they never lose sight of the importance of individuality and uniqueness. A range of factors have shaped this dual emphasis on mutuality and autonomy, from low population density and the immediate, largely face-to-face nature of the social environment to limited access to modern technologies and manufactured goods to the exuberant, formidable expanse of the seemingly endless jungle, teeming with diverse forms of life. Then there is the extraordinary, turbulent history of the Amazon basin itself, marked by complex networks of trade and warfare, demographic expansion and contraction, high mobility, and brutal clashes between radically different civilizations. The struggle for survival of the indigenous inhabitants of the region has not diminished over the centuries, and their enemies today remain as powerful as ever. Despite historical trajectories and environmental conditions that are in many ways unique, peoples such as the Urarina also grapple with answers to fundamental existential conundrums that apply equally to us all, concerning what it means to be alive, to be human, and to live with others.

Despite the commonality of our human predicament, the responses that Urarina have developed-not to mention the distinctive cultural forms through which these are expressed-are their own, and must be understood with reference to the social and cultural milieu in which they are embedded. Careful analysis of a diverse range of practices and events together with commentaries and explanations offered by my hosts and interlocutors over the course of fieldwork reveal a set of basic assumptions and presuppositions, often more or less taken for granted, about the nature of the self and its coming into being through relations with others. How well these square with our own theories or intuitions may vary co

About the Book

What does it mean to be accompanied? How can autonomy and a sense of self emerge through one’s involvement with others? This book examines the formation of self among the Urarina, an Amazonian people of lowland Peru. Based on detailed ethnography, the analysis highlights the role of intimate but asymmetrical attachments and dependencies which begin in the womb, but can extend beyond human society to include a variety of animals, plants, spirits and material objects. It thereby raises fundamental questions about what it means to be alive, to be an experiencing subject, and to be human. From the highly personalized relationships that develop between babies and their hammocks, to the demonstrations of love and respect between spouses and the power asymmetries that structure encounters between shamans and spirits, hunters and game animals, or owners and pets, what emerges is a strong sense that the lived experience of togetherness lies at the heart of the human condition. Recognizing this relational quality of existence enables us to see how acting effectively in the world may be less a matter of individual self-assertion than learning how to elicit empathetic acts of care and attentiveness by endearing oneself to others.

About the Author

Harry Walker is Lecturer in Anthropology at the London School of Economics and Political Science.

Table of Contents

List of Illustrations
Acknowledgments
Prologue: Learning to Stand-Leaned-Together
1. Spaces of Refuge
2. Vital Shields
3. Conceiving the Conjugal Body
4. Mutuality and Autonomy
5. Authority and Solidarity
6. Mastering Subjection
Epilogue: An Accompanied Life
Notes
Bibliography
Index

Reviews

"A joy to read, very thoughtful, and well written."
American Anthropologist
"[Walker] weaves elegantly his ethnography with a number of strands in Amazonian anthropology."
Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute
"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

"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