Amazonian Indigene Research Articles

Healthy food, unhealthy food: Indigenous perspectives on the nutrition transition

ABSTRACT Amazonian Indigenous Peoples are undergoing drastic changes in their ways of life including the quality and availability of food and its impact on their health and well-being. Indigenous populations have their own perspectives and interpretations of dietary changes unfolding in their communities. Based on in-depth interviews, observations and validation workshops we explored the way Awajún describe and problematise the concept of healthy and unhealthy food in the context of the nutrition transition. We learn that the characteristics of ‘good food' are informed by their capacity to give strength, protect health and enable them to be hardworking people. On the contrary, food that comes from the city weakens the body and may result in health problems. For the Awajún, chicken with hormones, fish preserved in cans, and powdered milk negatively affect their health. We argue that the dichotomy ‘healthy' and ‘unhealthy’ used to classify food provides information not only about Indigenous conceptualisations of health and die, but is also a critique of broader structural processes affecting their well-being. The terms, explanations and idioms used by the Awajún to talk about food, provide an insight into Indigenous perspectives and knowledge key to informing global health interventions in culturally appropriate ways.

Molecular Profile of Variants Potentially Associated with Severe Forms of COVID-19 in Amazonian Indigenous Populations.

Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is an infection caused by SARS-CoV-2. Genome-wide association studies (GWASs) have suggested a strong association of genetic factors with the severity of the disease. However, many of these studies have been completed in European populations, and little is known about the genetic variability of indigenous peoples' underlying infection by SARS-CoV-2. The objective of the study is to investigate genetic variants present in the genes AQP3, ARHGAP27, ELF5L, IFNAR2, LIMD1, OAS1 and UPK1A, selected due to their association with the severity of COVID-19, in a sample of indigenous people from the Brazilian Amazon in order to describe potential new and already studied variants. We performed the complete sequencing of the exome of 64 healthy indigenous people from the Brazilian Amazon. The allele frequency data of the population were compared with data from other continental populations. A total of 66 variants present in the seven genes studied were identified, including a variant with a high impact on the ARHGAP27 gene (rs201721078) and three new variants located in the Amazon Indigenous populations (INDG) present in the AQP3, IFNAR2 and LIMD1 genes, with low, moderate and modifier impact, respectively.

Pukllay pampa: Andean-inspired time-spaces for learning and unlearning

This article stems from a panel presentation at the 2022 Curriculum and Pedagogy Conference in State College, PA. Drawing on our shared experiences as curators of the Kawsay Ukhunchay Andean and Amazonian Indigenous Art and Cultural Artifacts Research Collection at The Ohio State University, in this article we explore decolonial pedagogies and alternative methods informed by Andean and Amazonian Indigenous epistemologies. The pedagogical approaches emergent in the alternative learning/unlearning space of the collection illustrate ways by which engaging with Indigenous perspectives and practices fosters critical questioning of Western categories and organizing principles and serves as a basis for cultivating openness to alternative worldviews and meaning making. We pair this conceptual stance with applicable, transferrable skill sets for “thinking otherwise” as pathways for day-to-day practices, applied alternative pedagogies, and cross-curricular methods amplification that begin to pave the way for decolonial approaches.

Molecular Profile of Variants in CDH1, TP53, PSCA, PRKAA1, and TTN Genes Related to Gastric Cancer Susceptibility in Amazonian Indigenous Populations.

Gastric Cancer is a disease associated with environmental and genetic changes, becoming one of the most prevalent cancers around the world and with a high incidence in Brazil. However, despite being a highly studied neoplastic type, few efforts are aimed at populations with a unique background and genetic profile, such as the indigenous peoples of the Brazilian Amazon. Our study characterized the molecular profile of five genes associated with the risk of developing gastric cancer by sequencing the complete exome of 64 indigenous individuals belonging to 12 different indigenous populations in the Amazon. The analysis of the five genes found a total of 207 variants, of which 15 are new in our indigenous population, and among these are two with predicted high impact, present in the TTN and CDH1 genes. In addition, at least 20 variants showed a significant difference in the indigenous population in comparison with other world populations, and three are already associatively related to some type of cancer. Our study reaffirms the unique genetic profile of the indigenous population of the Brazilian Amazon and allows us to contribute to the conception of early diagnosis of complex diseases such as cancer, improving the quality of life of individuals potentially suffering from the disease.

Contesting Extractivism through Amazonian Indigenous Artivism: Decolonial reflections on possibilities for crafting a pluriverse from within

This article provides an analysis of Amazonian Indigenous peoples’ “artivism” – understood as artistic expressions with activist orientation. It approaches artivism within the context of the emergence of Contemporary Indigenous Art in Brazil and its significance in the resistance against the centuries-long oppression of native peoples, illustrated by the advancement of extractivism in the Amazon. We focus on the artworks by four prominent Indigenous artivists: Jaider Esbell’s critical engagements with art history; Denilson Baniwa’s reanthropophagy movement; Daiara Tukano’s critique of articide; and Emerson Pontes’ transformation into Uýra, the Walking Tree. Altogether, the messages embedded in their artworks contest the dominant growth-oriented development narrative anchored on the pre-eminence of the human-nature ontological dualism, where Nature is reduced to economic resource, along with a view of development that positions western ways of knowing, being and living at the forefront of a civilizational continuum. We conclude by elucidating the central decolonizing role of Indigenous artivism and its potential to strengthen Indigenous’ voices and agendas which include exercising self-determination, resisting extractivism, and crafting more plural and just worlds.

The Expressive Forms of Amazonian Indigenous Peoples and Ayahuasca: the Huni Kuin and other Pano groups

AbstractI approach a set of processes that involve transformations, transpositions, and intermediations between different expressive forms of Amazonian Indigenous Peoples associated with the use of ayahuasca. I focus on groups of the Pano linguistic stock, particularly the Huni Kuin (Kaxinawa) and the example of the MAHKU (Movimento dos Artistas Huni Kuin), a new artistic collective created by some of these Indigenous People. I point to the complex meanings of the various expressive forms of these peoples, from traditional (oral narratives, graphics, visionary images linked to shamanic practices) to more recently adopted (figurative drawing and graphic recording in book format). I emphasize the importance of ayahuasca for the elaboration of these different expressive forms. By highlighting the meanings that imply the use of ayahuasca in certain Indigenous contexts, I also intend to contribute to the expansion of understanding of and broader debate about psychedelic experiences.

Challenging state authority and hierarchical power: A case study of the engagement of Peru's Amazonian Indigenous Peoples' organizations in the governance of REDD+

AbstractThe reducing emissions from deforestation and degradation (REDD+) mechanism is a climate change mitigation policy tool widely used in tropical forested countries that faces institutional and governance challenges in its implementation. Peru provides a particularly rich case study to analyze the agency of Amazonian Indigenous Peoples' organizations (IPOs) in the development of a national REDD+ policy. We examine the multi‐scalar interaction between the Peruvian State and IPOs in the governance of REDD+, identifying the role of Amazonian Indigenous groups in this process. Drawing on socio‐ecological governance and political economy approaches, we analyze data collected through interviews and participant observation. The article provides a case study of how IPOs work within the evolving governance system of REDD+ in Peru—both in responding to opportunities and in shaping the emergent system. Furthermore, it reveals that IPOs' rights and equity frame—deployed through several multi‐scalar strategies—has finally found a place in Peru's REDD+ governance. This has resulted in a more pluralistic mode of coordination between the State and IPOs and in the increase of the socio‐political empowerment of Indigenous Peoples. Our analysis suggests that Peru's REDD+ policies could progress toward more equitable outcomes through a true operationalization of cohesiveness and inclusiveness that encourages a meaningful relationship building between the state and Indigenous Peoples.

First report of the mammals of the Amazonian Indigenous Territory of Toñampade in Ecuador through camera traps and the application of Waodani ancestral knowledge.

First report of the mammals of the Amazonian Indigenous Territory of Toñampade in Ecuador through camera traps and the application of Waodani ancestral knowledge.

Animist Phytofilm: Plants in Amazonian Indigenous Filmmaking

Early films about plants offer a glimpse into the behavior of vegetal life, which had hitherto remained hidden from humans. Critics have praised this animistic capacity of cinema, allowing audiences to see the movement of beings that appeared to be inert and lifeless. With these reflections as a starting point, this article examines the notion of animist cinema. I argue that early movies still remained beholden to the goal of showing the multiple ways in which plants resemble humans, a tendency we often still find today in work on critical plant studies. I discuss the concept of animism in the context of Amazonian Indigenous societies as a springboard into an analysis of movies by Indigenous filmmakers from the region that highlight the plantness of human beings. I end the essay with an analysis of Ika Muru Huni Kuin’s film Shuku Shukuwe as an example of animist phytocinema.

Differential Use of Game Species in an Amazonian Indigenous Community: Navigating Economics, Subsistence, and Social Norms

Hunting is a key subsistence strategy and source of income and food security for rural communities throughout the world. Hunters often gift game meat to their friends or family in return for reciprocation or other social benefits. We used interviews to assess how hunters in an Amazonian Indigenous community navigate the economic, subsistence, and social aspects of hunting. We found that hunters typically sell the most valuable and preferred species whole, except for the head, gift better cuts of less-preferred species, and consume the lowest quality portions of non-preferred species. We conclude that hunters use species and portions of carcasses differentially to maximize profit and food security and fit the social norms of the community. Understanding the social systems surrounding wild game use in rural Amazonian communities provides insight into how the loss of wild mammals could influence food security and social relationships.

Highway Network and Fire Occurrence in Amazonian Indigenous Lands

The construction and expansion of highways aiming to improve the integration of the most isolated regions in Brazil facilitated the access to many inhabited areas in the Amazon biome, but had as a consequence assisted the degradation of many of these regions. Over the last two decades, we have observed in this biome a gradual diversification and intensification of land uses through vegetation loss and an increase in fire associated with deforestation and an increase in grazing areas. We used data from several active fires products derived from 14 different satellites, available on the Brazilian National Institute for Space Research (INPE). We evaluated the influence of highway infrastructure on fire occurrence inside and around Indigenous Lands (IL) located in the Brazilian Amazon biome, from 2008 to 2021. We classified 332 ILs into “cut by highways”, “without highways”, and “with highways in a 10 km buffer”. We performed: (a) the descriptive statistics of the fire occurrence by state, by season, and by type of land use and land cover (LULC) affected by fire; (b) the spatial distribution of the active fire density; and (c) a simple linear regression model between the fire occurrence and the IL area. Our results showed that in total, 16–46% of the fires occurred within the IL in most of the states, while the 10 km buffer was the region most affected by fire. We confirmed that in the last three years there was a significant increase in the number of active fires, representing anomalies in fire occurrence across the studied period. We discussed the result implications and the role of the highway network in environmental degradation inside and around the ILs located in the Brazilian Amazon.

Taking Care of Life from Amazonian Indigenous Cosmogony: Implications for Teaching Biology as a Cultural Practice

In Colombia–South America, there is an urgent need to address educational processes in culturally diverse contexts that permeate the understanding and contribution to the training of teachers in situated processes, because this is a multi-ethnic and multicultural country. From this perspective, we present the results of an investigation that analyzed the biology degree projects of Indigenous students from La Chorrera (Amazonas) at the National Pedagogical University of Colombia, in order to characterize the different epistemological and ontological aspects that underlie them and as a way of guiding the initial training of teachers. The methodological perspective of this research is critical hermeneutics, using documentary analysis as a strategy. As for the theoretical foundation, it is oriented from the approaches of critical inter-culturality and epistemological pluralism. In a nutshell, it is necessary to think about the teaching of biology as a cultural practice, which places in the debate the place of biology as a science of life and the living, its relationship with the contexts of students and the possibilities of empowering knowledge for the defense of territories and life itself. This implies the idea that as human beings we are constructed in relation to other organisms; hence, the importance of understanding the living from life, allowing respect for all forms of life and forging a world where there is room for biological, cultural, epistemic, and ontological diversity.

“Amazonizing” world cities through paintings: Indigenous cosmovisions encountering urban centers for the lost balance

Currently, Peruvian Amazonian Indigenous artists are receiving unprecedented attention as they exhibit their paintings in galleries worldwide. In this context, I focus on three paintings of world cities as Havana, Miami, and Paris by Bora artist Brus Rubio (born 1984). Unfortunately, these paintings have not been analyzed from Indigenous studies and Amazonian Indigenous cosmologies. I argue that the paintings manifest Rubio’s Amazonian resilience by offering a new imaginary of the urban space associated with Indigenous cosmologies, which facilitates the preservation of Indigenous lands, rights, and traditions for the globalized world. In this vision, the Western and the Indigenous worldview find harmony when the human and the non-human encounter and celebrate a balanced cohabitation as in Bora’s narratives. This is his way of amazonizing the world or claiming his right to world citizenship and proposing a new understanding of globalization.

When the Forest Does Not Sing Anymore. Cuerpoterritorio Approach of Amazonian Indigenous Women to the Concepts of Conflict and Violence

Based on an ethnographic study, this paper investigates the process of indigenous women in Colombia who are members of the organisation OPIAC and underpins the narratives and situated knowledge they propose in order to understand what conflict and violence mean from their personal and community experiences. The research identifies how cuerpo-territorio is an epistemological starting point that emerges from reinterpreting their worldviews and helps explain the ontological relationship between body, territory, identity, and spirituality. Unpacking this premise, the cuerpo-territorio approach to peace and conflict implies a more reflective and holistic understanding, including other dimensions and ethos. Dispossession of ancestral lands, exploitation of territory, forced displacement and violence against women constitute personal and collective harms that create imbalance and disharmony. Finally, the analysis states that by adopting intersectional and decolonial approaches in critical peace studies, we can shed light on what is silenced by dominant approaches and challenge the limits of institutional and anthropocentric conceptions. Likewise, this “inclusion” must nevertheless be accompanied by material conditions since, despite the signing of the Havana Peace Agreement, indigenous peoples remain under the crossfire of armed actors in their ancestral territories.

Environmental vulnerability assessment of Brazilian Amazon Indigenous Lands

Amazonian Indigenous Lands (ILs) are human-environment systems facing a multitude of environmental threats. Yet, the resulting vulnerability of these systems are to date unknown. We adopt the theoretical vulnerability framework of the IPCC to assess the environmental vulnerability of Brazilian Amazon ILs for two periods (2001–2010 and 2011–2019) and overall (2001–2019). Vulnerability is deemed a function of exposure (EX), sensitivity (SE) and adaptive capacity (AC) of a system to threats. Sensitivity (threats within IL) and exposure (threats in IL’s buffer zones) indicators are changes in forest cover, economic activities, and road access, quantified using data of deforestation, forest degradation, land-use, fire, roads and mining. Adaptive capacity indicators represent Indigenous self-organization, education and access to knowledge, land ownership, external incomes, and institutional arrangement. We find a concentration of ILs with high vulnerability in the Arc of Deforestation and South, and advancing in Pará and Roraima states. A strong relationship (Spearman r = 0.79) between EX and SE indicates the strong pressure exerted by external processes. An increase in EX (73.9% of the ILs) and in SE (64.8% of the ILs) in 2011–2019 compared to 2001–2010 signals a worrying rise in vulnerability recently. We advise the adoption of policies by the State, such as combating illegal activities, and strengthening National Policy for Environmental and Territorial Management of ILs. Herein, our vulnerability quantification can prioritize help to certain ILs, and the understanding of the contribution of the underlying dimensions can direct these policies, possibly according to the vulnerability profile of each IL.

Naturalness Is in the Eye of the Beholder

World conservation discourse concentrates on forests of high naturalness, which are variously termed intact forest landscapes, primary forests, pristine forests, and wilderness. In this essay, we bring Amazonian Indigenous perspectives to this discussion, both because Amazonian Indigenous Peoples have the right to be in the discussion and because they have a lot to teach us about naturalness. It is essential to understand that Indigenous ontologies do not distinguish culture from nature, since all beings, humans and non-humans, are part of a network of social-ecological interactions. Hence, forests are not natural, but the domus of different beings who inhabit, care for and cultivate them. Each part of the forest mosaic in different stages of social-ecological succession has different owners: when people open swiddens, they must respect other – non-human – forest residents to do so, and when they fallow their swiddens, these other forest residents reassume their original roles as managers and conservers of that part of the mosaic. Each stage of the succession also contains cultivated and domesticated plant populations, so we can think of a different kind of conservation: that of genetic resources. From this perspective, swidden-fallow represents on farm conservation, while less anthropogenic parts of the forest mosaic represent in situ conservation. We believe that reframing forest conservation and learning from Indigenous People can inspire innovative conservation science and policies.

Knowledge and Circulation of Plants: Unveiling the Participation of Amazonian Indigenous Peoples in the Construction of Eighteenth and Nineteenth Century Botany

Abstract This article gives visibility to Amazonian indigenous peoples in the global process of plant circulation and associated knowledge. The first part highlights the indigenous role in cultivating and collecting native plants, and in the processing of natural products over the second half of the eighteenth century. The second part shows that these activities were influenced by internal colonial dynamics, as well as by international relations. The case of the ayapana herb is analysed in detail. This plant became known worldwide at the beginning of the nineteenth century thanks to the interactions among indigenous knowledge, Portuguese colonial politics and the performance of military and naturalists of different nationalities. Examples like this show that, in the process of building botany, which occurred concurrently with the globalization of plants, indigenous peoples provided not only specimens that circulated around the world, but also knowledge related to cultivation, transportation and uses.

Kuwamai: Historic Epidemics and Resilience of Cariban-Speaking Peoples, Northern Amazonia

How Amazonian Indigenous Peoples combatted emergent epidemic diseases in colonial times, and their innovative responses to epidemiological crises, has not received sufficient attention. This study outlines a clash of cultures and an entanglement of places and people related to pandemic diseases and epidemic death in the Eastern Guiana Highlands, northern Amazonia. By means of archival and historical sources, the article provides eyewitness insight into multiple waves of highly contagious epidemics that affected Cariban-speaking communities in Eastern Guiana – Suriname, French Guiana, and Brazilian Amapá – over the past 550 years. The paper commences with some general statements on illness and healing. Hitherto unpublished journal entries by the Governor of Suriname of an outbreak of the pox during the winter of 1743-1744 set the scene, these are followed by rare nineteenth and twentieth century historical accounts, and a novel interpretation of Wayana oral history – posited to be the first account of the spread of a viral disease in Amazonia in July 1542. The paper concludes with responses to the current COVID-19 pandemic from an indigenous etiology which demonstrates indigenous historical consciousness of the social present as related to events from the past.

Environmental Threats over Amazonian Indigenous Lands

This study investigates the main threats related to environmental degradation that affect Amazonian Indigenous Lands (ILs). Through a cluster analysis, we group ILs according to the set of common environmental threats that occur within and outside their limits. The results show that most of the 383 ILs are affected internally by a combination of different environmental threats, namely: deforestation, forest degradation, fires, mining, croplands, pastures, and roads. However, the ILs affected by multiple and relatively severe threats are mainly located in the arc of deforestation and the Roraima state. The threats related to forest loss (deforestation, forest degradation, and fires) are more intense in the ILs’ buffer zones than within, showing that ILs effectively promote environmental preservation. In the cluster analysis, we identified seven clusters that are characterized by common environmental threats within and around their limits, and, based on these results, we have outlined four environmental policy priorities to be strengthened and applied in Amazonian ILs: protecting ILs’ buffer zones; strengthening surveillance actions, and combating illegal deforestation, forest degradation, and mining activities in ILs; preventing and fighting fires; and removing invaders from all ILs in the Amazon. In this study, we warn that the threats presented make the Indigenous peoples in the Amazon more vulnerable. To guarantee indigenous peoples’ rights, illegal actions in these territories and their surroundings must be contained, and quickly.

Rethinking Climate Governance: Amazonian Indigenous Climate Politics and Integral Territorial Ontologies

This paper analyzes the Amazon Indigenous Initiative to Reduce Emissions from Deforestation (RIA), a climate change mitigation strategy created by the Coordinator of Indigenous Organizations of the Amazon Basin. Critical geographers have argued that neoliberal climate governance can commodify nature and perpetuate extractive development. In the context of Amazonia, they have centered on struggles over the resources and meanings of the territories. But analyses of Indigenous-led transnational and interethnic climate strategies are scarce in the literature. To analyze RIA, I further engage with the literature on ontological politics, which allows an understanding of politics that emerge from diverse lifeways and incorporate morethan-human agency. I argue that RIA is founded on what I call integral territorial ontologies, or common conceptions of territories as indivisible entities or lifeworlds that encompass multiple relationships not only between humans and nature, but also among more-than-human beings. By incorporating these ontologies and more-than-human agency, RIA effectively introduces a form of radical alterity to global climate politics. As such, RIA is tied to territorial defense and challenges understandings of forest/territorial vitality and ordering; as well as the processes that facilitate the commodification of nature. I conclude by reflecting on the possibility of decolonizing what we understand as global politics and practices to respond to climate change.