Yanomami: An arena of conflict and aggression in the Amazon

✍ Scribed by Leslie E. Sponsel

• Book ID: 101266152
• Publisher: John Wiley and Sons
• Year: 1998
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 102 KB
• Volume: 24
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 0096-140X
• DOI: 10.1002/(sici)1098-2337(1998)24:2<97::aid-ab2>3.0.co;2-p

✦ Synopsis

The Yanomami of Venezuela and Brazil have become an arena of conflict and aggression in the Amazon in at least three respects: their internal aggression; the aggression among anthropologists and others concerned with them; and the external aggression against the Yanomami from Western society. As such, the Yanomami provide a microcosm of several aspects of the anthropology of conflict and aggression. After some background, a critical analysis is developed of 10 problem areas that call into serious question the scientific status of Yanomami as one of the most violent human societies ever known in anthropology: the Yanomami as "the fierce people"; documentation of their aggression; inflation of their aggression as warfare; neglect of cross-cultural perspective; modern warfare as reversion to tribalization; the negative concept of peace; male sexist bias; the Yanomami as "primitive"; the character of debates; and research priorities and professional ethics. The analysis has more general implications for the epistemology of the study of aggression.