Anthropologica del Departamento de Ciencias Sociales

PRESENTATION — Anthropology of health and the defense of knowledge, cultural, political and territorial rights

2024-12-06T14:43:18-05:00

The People Help the People!

2024-12-06T14:43:17-05:00

We wonder how it was possible for the Matico Command to achieve such a quick and effective response in a context of confusion and fear of death. We propose to understand the way in which Comando Matico managed to manage the pandemic crisis, as an instance of cultural and political affirmation from which they updated ancestral knowledge, through their collective and organized action, in the care of Shipibo-Konibo patients with COVID-19 and comorbidities. Since May 15, 2020, they established a type of strategic indigenous health response, to achieve the acceptance of both, the population served and the DIRESA-U and the GOREU, especially during the first two years of the COVID-19 pandemic. We collected information through interviews with members of the Comando Matico, from its official Facebook page, and from interviews with third parties. We reach the conclusion that its effectiveness was based on the strengthening of its identity, of the indigenous organization, in the communication and dissemination in its mother tongue of its knowledge and practices in traditional health.

Mbya Guaraní Corporeality in Medical Consultations During Pregnancy

2024-12-06T14:43:15-05:00

This work aims to address the notions of the body during biomedical consultations of Mbya Guarani women in northern Misiones (Argentina). Through an ethnographic approach, it seeks to rethink aspects of Mbya corporealities in medical consultations that are not considered from the biomedical perspective. Biomedical notions are extrapolated to interethnic contexts, where they do not always align with Indigenous ones, yet the women do not completely reject them; sometimes, they give them new meanings. Thinking about the pregnant body from a biomedical perspective limits other aspects to be considered in these settings, such as shyness, which emerges as an expression of interethnic and gender relations, manifesting in particular ways during pregnancy and childbirth.

Anthropomorphic Figuration of the Virus and the HIV/AIDS Disease

2024-12-06T14:43:14-05:00

The hypothesis that viruses are not devoid of humanity is reviewed. This is done within the framework of what Latour defines as “scientific humanities”, which call into question the idea of autonomy of sciences and techniques The procedure followed consists of the analysis of documents produced to refer to the Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV) and the disease it causes, AIDS, paying special attention to how these discursive constructions fill it with humanity until it gives it an anthropomorphic figuration. The objective is to show that today living human life can no longer do without thinking and acting in relation to viruses, because they have entered the “surrounding world” of human beings, which has relevant political and social repercussions and that has been recently discussed from various disciplines. It would not be a solely medical relationship, restricted to laboratories, hospitals and treatments. Among the findings offered are, on the one hand, the evidence that viruses are not only scientific objects, but bearers of significance; and, on the other, the exhibition of how human beings trigger their symbolic-significant metamorphosis turning them into characters capable of modifying the social body, the imaginary, symbols, relationships between people, institutions, and even public policies.

PRESENTATION — Infrastructure Studies In and From Latin America

2024-12-06T14:43:13-05:00

Communities of Practice and Recursive Publics

2024-12-06T14:43:12-05:00

This article examines the development of digital fabrication in Peru, focusing on Lima Makers, the country’s first maker space. Through this case, the study explores the dynamics of socialization, collaborative identity, and innovation practices in a context where digital fabrication intersects with local artistic and technological culture. Utilizing the concepts of recursive publics, communities of practice, and infrastructuring, the analysis shows how Lima Makers fosters cohesion among its members and encourages creativity, while also facing challenges in forming active recursive publics involved in the governance of digital fabrication in Peru. Furthermore, the article argues that this local dynamic reflects a process of cultural appropriation and the creation of new technological identities in the global south.

Yeast Culture Collections as Infrastructures

2024-12-06T14:43:11-05:00

Culture collections can be interpreted as infrastructures whose role is the preservation, classification and research of microorganisms. Reference collections are cited in scientific articles and are sources of materials and information in research, development activities and in the industrial sector. This paper begins by addressing its use as a reference in scientific articles and then analyzes the problematization of collection managers in terms of the implications of the technologies associated with yeast identification and the emergence of biodiversity and ecology as themes. The conceptual axis of the article is based on the conceptualizations of infrastructure from Social Studies of Science and Technology. The article has a qualitative approach and uses document analysis, in scientific articles and handbooks, as well as consultations with researchers as a technical guide. The findings have to do with the transversal nature of the problem of insufficient data regarding ecology and other dimensions as pointed out by scientists in charge of reference collections, the emergence of biodiversity as a notion associated with international policies and global problems, and the scientific and technical effects of new identification technologies in research modalities.

The Long-Durée of the Andean Roads and the Local Dimension of Infrastructure in the Construction of the Piura Region in Peru

2024-12-06T14:43:09-05:00

The network of pre-Hispanic roads used by the Incas has been proposed as the result of a political project directed by them, although based on earlier experiences. In this narrative, the road network was a product of Inca state planning and primarily served an administrative purpose. This state-centered interpretation of the Inca road network remains influential and is used to support the modern Peruvian state’s narrative, which learns from the lessons of the past and considers itself the heir to the Inca political project. However, several authors argue that this interpretation oversimplifies the complex and gradual development of the network, which involved various actors beyond centralized political institutions, claiming the need to identify the agency of local communities. In this context, the revaluation of pre-Hispanic roads can either generate domination or be a mechanism of integration and social restructuring that promotes local identities. This article uses the concepts of route and layout to analyze the road networks in the Piura region, providing a long-term regional perspective. It challenges the dominant Inca-centered narratives by highlighting the local importance of the roads and demonstrating the continuity of the infrastructure, rooted in daily experiences that transcend state control.

Development, Urban Infrastructure and Class-Based Ordering in Cordoba City (Argentina)

2024-12-06T14:43:08-05:00

The article engages the connections between development and infrastructure in an area of the city of Córdoba, Argentina, called the Fifth Section. From an ideological critique approach, the research examines three urban interventions inaugurated during 2018 and 2019, oriented to achieve fast circulation, urban safety, and social inclusion. The proposal, on one hand, presents a field of interrogations around the concepts of development, ideology and cities. On the other hand, it analyzes three urban infrastructures that materialize social horizons and expectations with a class perspective. The methodological strategy is qualitative and based on journalistic sources, images, official documents and interviews made during field work. The article arrives at conclusions regarding an ideological operation that, based on the idea of development, presents infrastructure as an undeniable benefit that transforms spaces, seals social conflict, and produces social separations/unifications.

Shamanism and Evangelism Among the Shipibo-konibo of San Francisco

2024-12-06T14:43:07-05:00

In regular contact with urban civilization and the market economy, Shipibo-Konibo society today experiences a phenomenon of religious pluralization between, on the one hand, a marketing, in some villages, of vernacular shamanism aimed at a public of Western tourists in search of mystical and hallucinogenic experiences and, on the other, a growing implantation of protestant churches of different denominations. If, at first sight, this evolution can be analyzed as a form of acculturation, in the light of ethnography, the resulting religious cohabitation reactivates on the contrary a certain predation complex specific to the past, through both ontological and statutory rivalries that would be linked to a close proximity of the approaches of the two institutions.

Indigenous Intellectuals, History Writing and Native Epistemes

2024-12-06T14:43:06-05:00

The following article aims to analyze some epistemic keys in the way in which indigenous Diaguita intellectuals approach the writing of history. These writings put into play, on the one hand, the ethnic identity of the indigenous intellectual and the question about the subject and the place of enunciation from which his epistemic-political positioning is constructed. On the other hand, they propose a project of criticism and decolonization of history, to the extent that their writings propose a direct and open confrontation with the hegemonic (colonial) versions of history. From these two dimensions, we are interested in reflecting on the possibility that these writings configure a native episteme for the rewriting and rereading of indigenous history.

Themes of Anthropology, Autoethnography and Anti-Racist Pedagogies at a Peruvian University

2024-12-06T14:43:05-05:00

This article analyzes the ethnic-racial debate proposed by the subject «Topics I: Race, Ethnicity and (Counter)Mestizaje in Peru’s Bicentennial», in the Bachelor of Anthropology of the Faculty of Social Sciences of a public university in the capital of Peru, Lima, carried out in 2021. The theoretical-methodological debate is anchored in the theory of ethnic-racial relations on the production of knowledge around race, racism, anti-racism, miscegenation and other recurring themes. The work focuses on a reflection on issues of race, racism and anti-racism in a course taught by the author as a guest professor in collaboration with another professor at the institution. With the participation, the author can reflect with students on how to produce knowledge about race, racism, and anti-racism from a perspective of critical autoethnography oriented toward antiracist education. The work carried out indicates that the course provided the possibility of immersion in multiple debates, concept proposals, theoretical analyzes and historical experiences to address issues related, in particular, with race, racism and anti-racism in higher education in Peru in favor of anti-racist education.

Gutmann, Margitt. (2023). El Qanchi Machu aún vive. Cuentos orales quechuas de Pomacanchi: Estudio etnolingüístico en una comunidad campesina de los Andes peruanos. Ediciones El Lector, 2023, 1029 pp.

2024-12-06T14:43:04-05:00

El libro de Margit Gutmann es producto del trabajo de toda una vida. Nos presenta una obra etnolingüística innovadora que añade al gran rigor académico las muestras de su amistad con las personas que la apoyaron en su larga estadía en el pueblo cusqueño de Pomacanchi.