The spear as measure: Rage, revenge spear-killing and the transformation of indigenous citizenship in Ecuador

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Abstract

This article takes its ethnographic point of departure revenge killing among the Huaorani and Tagaeri-Taromenane (a group in voluntary isolation) living in the Ecuadorian Amazon. It describes an accelerating inter-household conflict, and especially its relation to a heated public debate, fuelling the proliferation of the initial conflict. By thinking with a cultural artefact, the spear, the article shows how the public debate became characterized by competing sense-making projects that scaled revenge killing differently. As an effect, the process entailed a change of change (escalation) occasioned by the intersection of competing, but incomensurable scales. This ended up transforming the relation between the Huaorani and State.
Original languageEnglish
JournalHistory and Anthropology
Volume32
Issue number1
Pages (from-to)78-92
ISSN0275-7206
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 2021

Keywords

  • Faculty of Social Sciences
  • Amazonia
  • revenge
  • killing
  • escalation
  • citizenship

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