Amazonian worlds and modernity: changes in values of Amerindians as they are displaced by hydroelectric dams in the Xingu basin, Brazil

Abstract

Amerindians of the Xingu basin, Brazil have been situated at the intersection of counterposed forces, efforts to commodify the Xingu River for hydroelectricity generation, on the one hand, and political action for the preservation of indigenous territory and self-determination on the other. The research synthesises the ethnographic record using the ontological turn, to investigate changes in values with transitions into the market due to displacement by hydroelectric dams. This is to contribute better understanding to the problems that cause negative social, cultural, and economic effects with integration. In traditional societies bodies and personhood were manufactured with substances and objects. Beauty was a preoccupation aspiring to the ideals of primordial spirits. Through a process of industrialisation, the valuing of beauty transformed into a valuing of money. Rather than being manufactured by Amazonian substances, bodies and persons were manufactured with money and consumer goods. Modernity was understood in the framework of an Amazonian cosmos in which spirits and animals have become modern just as humans have.