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Modernity and the Politics of Identity in an Amazonian Society
Author(s) -
RIVAL LAURA
Publication year - 1997
Publication title -
bulletin of latin american research
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.24
H-Index - 33
eISSN - 1470-9856
pISSN - 0261-3050
DOI - 10.1111/j.1470-9856.1997.tb00047.x
Subject(s) - indigenous , sociology , politics , modernity , identity (music) , cultural identity , gender studies , collective identity , latin americans , anthropology , social science , political science , aesthetics , law , ecology , negotiation , philosophy , biology
— Recent work in the anthropology of practice shows that cultural transmission is a complex and active process rooted in everyday activity. It follows that cultural continuity depends more on understanding in practice than on the internalisation of collective representations. These insights are used to examine critically the provision of state bilingual education to the Huaorani, a small group of Amazonian hunter‐gatherers. It is generally hoped that bilingual programmes for indigenous minorities will protect their linguistic and cultural rights. However, by neglecting ‘culture in practice’ and reducing culture to language, these programmes foster the emergence of a discursive identity at odds with the cultural continuity of nomadic and egalitarian indigenous groups. This case study is used to discuss some recent analyses of the politics of cultural identity and difference. It is argued that current thinking fails to recognise that culture is acquired and transmitted within communities of practice. 01997 Society for Latin American Studies.