Counter-hierarchical movements in constitution process of collectives in the social network of Uaupés

Abstract

This project focuses on the collective constitution of the social network in the Northwest Amazon. Attempting to understand the lower position of the Yuhupdeh people, also known as Maku, in a social network where the Tukano people are situated on the higher levels, this research proposes a review of the equalitarian hierarchal equalitarian duality in the north-west Amazon social network. This perspective allows us to rethink about two different social figures. On the one hand, on the obverse of the network we have: the hierarchical, the sedentary, the rigid, the closed, the river indian, the idealized, the exogamic, the horticulturist and the 'complex'. On the other hand, on the verse of the network we find: equality, semi-nomadic, fluidity, opened, pragmatic, endogamic, forest Indian, hunter, rudimentary. This research will not deal with the verse/ obverse dichotomies or symmetric dichotomies. On doing this revision of those dichotomies we hope to change the way of seeing the issue of the collective constitution of the social network in Northwest Amazon.