Abstract

The first book to address the classic anthropological theme of property through the ethnography of Amazonia, Ownership and Nurture sets new and challenging terms for anthropological debates about the region and about property in general. Property and ownership have special significance and carry specific meanings in Amazonia, which has been portrayed as the antithesis of Western, property-based, civilization. Through carefully constructed studies of land ownership, slavery, shamanism, spirit mastery, aesthetics, and intellectual property, this volume demonstrates that property relations are of central importance in Amazonia, and that the ownership of persons plays an especially significant role in native cosmology.

Marc Brightman is Lecturer at the Department of Anthropology, University College London.

Carlos Fausto is Professor of Anthropology at the Museu Nacional, Federal University of Rio de Janeiro, and Senior Fellow of the National Council for the Development of Science and Technology (CNPq).

“The ethnographies close… culminating a unique and important challenge to conventional conceptions of property and ownership in Western society. They… definitively demonstrate that ownership and property are not foreign to indigenous or ‘traditional’ societies, that… ownership and property are diverse and culturally constructed notions. These insights are welcome in anthropology and should alter how we think about and research objects and economic practices in ‘traditional’ and modern societies alike.” • Anthropology Review Database

“Ownership and Nurture makes a stimulating contribution to general anthropological theory and to specific recent debates in lowland South American ethnology. . . I have no doubt it will provoke lively and engaged debate.” • Kathleen Lowrey, University of Alberta

Vanessa Grotti is Part-time Professor at the Robert Schuman Centre for Advanced Studies, European University Institute.