Évènements

Since the colonial era, Indigenous people in lowland South America have formed alliances and partnerships with outsiders within an array of different circumstances that range from trade and other forms of economic exchange to missionization, warfare and predation. Drawing on historical encounters from Bolivia, Brazil, Colombia, and Guyana, Indigenous Alliance Making: Histories of Agency in Colonial Lowland South America (Whitaker & Harris ed., 2025) examines such cases across the continent. It contributes to a growing historiographical emphasis on Indigenous strategic relations with outsiders and highlights how Indigenous people have sought to steer or even control the content and direction of these relations despite adverse circumstances. This presentation will provide an overview of the book with a particular focus on the final chapter, “Makushi Alliances in Guyana: Partnerships against Predation.” It will focus on how Makushi people strived for mutualistic relations under circumstances variously characterized by symmetrical and asymmetrical dynamics. It will also explore how such ethnohistories can contribute to contemporary ethnographic research with Indigenous groups in Amazonia.

La présentation sera réalisée en anglais.