ANTHROPO-DIALOGUES
Anthropologists usually communicate their research through highly specialized texts that are beyond the reach of the general public. This is a shame because both the worlds they encountered and the personal experiences they had are of great interest. With Anthropo-Dialogues, we bring the research of some of the most important Amazonian ethnographers to a colloquial level and, in addition, we get to know the person behind the researcher.
Jorge Gasché and the Forest Society
Jürg Gasché is one of the anthropologists who best understood the tensions between Amazonian societies and the market economy. In his theory of the Sociedad Bosquesina, he offered a series of concepts and examples that would allow agents of economic development to understand the local dynamics, to avoid the cemetery of projects that can be found in any indigenous community. Swiss, based in Iquitos until his death in 2020, Gasché conducted fieldwork in Colombia, Peru and Ecuador. In this interview, Jorge gives an account of his trajectory and the basic ideas on which his theory of the Forest Society is based.
Jean Pierre Chaumeil and Yagua shamanism
Few anthropologists have been able to depict Amazonian shamanism as fascinating (and raw) as Jean Pierre Chaumeil did in his essential ethnography Voir, Savoir, Pouvoir. He began fieldwork among the Yagua of the Peruvian Amazon in the 1970s; fifty years later, he still maintains strong ties with the people who welcomed him at that first moment and has witnessed both changes and continuities in Yagua society. He upholds anthropology as the most valid tool for understanding the Other.
