This author suggests new avenues for thinking about the relationship between formerly stateless societies and the state. It does so through a detailed study of one particular group, the Shuar, indigenous to the Ecuadorian Amazon. Formerly an acephalous society of hunter-gardeners, the Shuar now constitute a federation with a democratically elected, hierarchical leadership and are at the forefront of indigenous movements in Latin America. The author analyzes this transformation in the context of colonialism but argues that colonialism involves far more than the movement of people from one place to another or the extension of state authority over new territory. Rather, he reveals colonialism to hinge on the transformation of sociospatial boundaries. Such transformations were critical not only to Shuar ethnogenesis but also to Ecuadorian state-building. That is, colonialism involves a dialectical reorganization both of the state and of its new subjects.

No abstract

ResumenEste artículo explora las estrategias cambiantes de los misioneros salesianos entre los indígenas shuar de la Amazonía ecuatoriana. El artículo sostiene que cada etapa de la evangelización dotó a los shuar de nuevas formas de agencia. Así, la culminación de este proceso no fue la formación de una nueva población de católicos devotos, sino la creación de la Federación shuar. Palabras clave: shuar, misioneros, colonialismo, federaciones indígenas, política indígena AbstractThis article charts the changing strategies of Salesian missionaries among the shuar, indigenous to the Ecuadorian Amazon. It argues that each stage in evangelization provided shuar with new forms of agency. Thus, the culmination of this process was not the production of a new population of devout Catholics, but rather the shuar Federation.

No abstract

No abstract