State healthcare and Yanomami transformations : a symmetrical ethnography / Jose Antonio Kelly.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Kelly, José Antonio.

Series:

First peoples (2010)

First peoples : new directions in indigenous studies

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Medical policy--Venezuela--Orinoco River Delta.

Medical policy.

Public health--Venezuela--Orinoco River Delta.

Public health.

Shamanism--Venezuela--Orinoco River Delta.

Shamanism.

Traditional medicine--Venezuela--Orinoco River Delta.

Traditional medicine.

Yanomamo Indians--Health and hygiene--Venezuela--Orinoco River Delta.

Yanomamo Indians.

Yanomamo Indians--Medical care--Venezuela--Orinoco River Delta.

Yanomamo Indians--Venezuela--Orinoco River Delta--Social conditions.

Orinoco River Delta (Venezuela)--Politics and government.

Orinoco River Delta (Venezuela).

Orinoco River Delta (Venezuela)--Social conditions.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (278 p.)

Edition:

1st ed.

Place of Publication:

Tucson : University of Arizona Press, c2011.

Language Note:

English

Summary:

Amazonian indigenous peoples have preserved many aspects of their culture and cosmology while also developing complex relationships with dominant non-indigenous society. Until now, anthropological writing on Amazonian peoples has been divided between "traditional" topics like kinship, cosmology, ritual, and myth, on the one hand, and the analysis of their struggles with the nation-state on the other. What has been lacking is work that bridges these two approaches and takes into consideration the meaning of relationships with the state from an indigenous perspective. That long-standing dichotomy is challenged in this new ethnography by anthropologist Jose Kelly. Kelly places the study of culture and cosmology squarely within the context of the modern nation-state and its institutions. He explores Indian-white relations as seen through the operation of a state-run health system among the indigenous Yanomami of southern Venezuela. With theoretical foundations in the fields of medical and Amazonian anthropology, Kelly sheds light on how Amerindian cosmology shapes concepts of the state at the community level. The result is a symmetrical anthropology that treats white and Amerindian perceptions of each other within a single theoretical framework, thus expanding our understanding of each group and its influences on the other. This book will be valuable to those studying Amazonian peoples, medical anthropology, development studies, and Latin America. Its new takes on theory and methodology make it ideal for classroom use.

Contents:

The upper Orinoco Yanomami and their context

Particularizing the Upper Orinoco health system

Epidemic diseases, Criollos, and the morality of being human

Becoming Napë and the Napë transformational axis

Making kin, making society, and Napë potential affinity

Being and performing Napë and Yanomami

Doctors and shamans

Two meetings and a protest

Changing tides and mixed feelings.

Notes:

Bibliographic Level Mode of Issuance: Monograph

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN:

1-299-19176-2

0-8165-0286-2

OCLC:

794902945