Bittersweet

Abstract

ABSTRACTFor Uitoto communities in the borderlands of the Colombian Amazon, ordinary sociality depends on the effective rendering of sweet social relations from a universe of bitterly antisocial possibilities. Human personhood and kinship must be continually materialized through the transformation of bitter substances and sensations into sweet ones, and the incorporation of sweetness as a sensible quality of moral personhood. In a context where the sensorium is frequently transposed into a moral register, taste qualities both index and transmit the moral qualities of persons, and the bittersweet potentialities of kinship relations are mediated through botanical instruments of moral transformation. This paper explores the qualities of dulzura (sweetness) and amargura (bitterness) as key terms of value in the moral economy of Uitoto horticulturalists—experts in the management of bitter manioc (manihot escualenta) and bitter feelings alike.