Rethinking Uaupés's social structure (Northwest Amazon)

Abstract

This project aims an ethnographic research focusing the social life of indigenous peoples who inhabit the Uaupés River basin, northwestern Amazon, mostly belonging to the Eastern Tukano linguistic family. The main issue in this project is the dynamics of actualization and creation of units and subunits that make up the extensive regional social system, ie the production of internal differences in a large multiethnic, multilingual social complex, one that presents a remarkable sociological and cultural homogeneity. Among the topics to be addressed, there is the growth and multiplication of the collectives as well as the manner in which this phenomenon is related to the ritual sphere, affirming or reversing hierarchical relationships. (AU)