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 language | English |
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Journal | History and Anthropology |
Volume | 32 |
Issue number | 1 |
Pages (from-to) | 78-92 |
ISSN | 0275-7206 |
DOIs | |
Publication status | Published - 2021 |
Keywords
- Faculty of Social Sciences
- Amazonia
- revenge
- killing
- escalation
- citizenship