Pillsbury

October 18, 2017

Yukpa Reciprocity & Violence

Emic/Etic Challenges

-       We need to understand the cultural context as much as the biological implications

o   Privileging biology (direct violence = physical) over cultural context (structural and cultural violence = experiential)

o   We can imagine ourselves suffering from the biological implications (physical part)

o   But we cannot imagine ourselves inside the cultural context (experiential part) 

Theoretical Perspectives: not mutually exclusive

-       Anthropological perspectives emphasizing practice and conflict theory tend to see social structures, ideology, and inequalities as organizing themes

-       A little of both in the Yukpa chapter depending on how you analyze the information 

Violence as everyday practice and imagination

-       Imagination → ability to form mental images of something no currently able to be seen, heard, or sensed

-       Imagination → gives meaning to experience → fundamental way people make sense of the world → teaches values, reinforces culture

-       Training for imagination is listening to stories, myths, narratives to evoke known and unknown worlds

Yukpa Indians – in northwestern Machiques (in Zulia)

-       Carib speaking Indians, 6700 total

-       Shifting cultivation

-       Hunting & gathering

-       Coffee as cash crop

-       Some tourism

-       Location determines who they meet and what they know

-       Polygamous 

Yukpa: Their Identity is Their Land

-       War is a fundamental necessity for them

-       Halbmayer is interested in ideology (what makes us, us?)

o   Question: How are institutionalized forms of violence structured according to socio-cosmological contexts?

-       War, blood-feuding and ritualized duals

-       Stopped in 1964 by missionaries and formal leadership

-       Cosmology = origin and nature of the universe one lives in 

Yukpa Ideology Persists (not physical but still have violent thoughts)

-       Today violence is more symbolic but relates to the historical forms once enacted

-       Violence is a specific form of communication and interaction

-       Violence acts to reproduce and transform social organization

o   Maintains certain ideologies and shifts to bring people into others 

Yukpa Origins

-       Heat, double brightness – associated with chaos, disorder and cannibalism (incest, debauchery & general bad behavior)

-       Sun is mean and aggressive, moon is gentle and helpful and safe

Reciprocity and Negative Reciprocity – inside vs outside valley

-       Safe world Yu’pa (people)

o   Harmonious exchange of reciprocal relationships and identity

o   Marriage arrangements

o   Peaceful exchange

o   No incest

o   Punished for being drunk and bad

o   Safe, reciprocal world with father in law moon

-       Dangerous world Yuko (other)

o   Negative reciprocity and difference

o   Wife stealing

o   Illegitimate or violent appropriation

o   Incest – transform into animals

o   Dangerous, predatory, negative, social relations associated with the sun 

YUKPA = Yu’pa + Yuko

16 Subgroups not seen as single ethic group

Identical – Identity = group 

-       Yu’pa

-       Endogamous

-       Reciprocity

-       Supportive social relations

-       Individuals of the same body parts, or same “meat”

-       Inner space (inside)

-       Form within a form (Russian dolls)

-       Moon

Difference – Other = Enemies

-       Yuko

-       Negative reciprocity

-       War

-       Wife stealing

-       Difference in body parts

-       Surrounding space (outside)

-       Sun

What binds men together?

-       Father and his sons extended to father’s brother and his sons – reciprocity, protection, revenge

-       Incest based more on these formal kin relations

Social Context of Violence

-       Identity vs difference, non-incest vs incest, reciprocity vs negative reciprocity