Thinking through weapons: contributions to the study of material culture of the Gavião (Ikolen)

• Grant number: 11/05200-2
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Master
• Start date: August 01, 2011
• End date: July 31, 2013
• Field of knowledge: Humanities - Anthropology - Indigenous Ethnology
• Principal Investigator: Felipe Ferreira Vander Velden
• Grantee: Rodolpho Claret Bento
• Host Institution: Centro de Educação e Ciências Humanas (CECH). Universidade Federal de São Carlos (UFSCAR). São Carlos , SP, Brazil

Abstract

This project aims to research the field of material culture through the study of the social and political relations involved in the manufacture and circulation of weapons between Gavião(Ikolen) in Rondônia. We intend to study both the traditional weapons, as those incorporated after the interethnic contact, focusing primarily on social life of these devices. The study proposal is founded on relevant issues highlighted by recent ethnographies, which provide a set of hypotheses about the corporeality of war artifacts. We assume the existence of a potential agency of artifacts when these are singled out according to their condition and predator perspective, a feature that will require a number of precautions to control its deadly potential. Care that can be extended both for the movement out of non-indigenous contexts, such as for the incorporation of other goods outside the native culture but also endowed agency, such as the shotguns. (AU)