The Forest and the Factory: Culture, Environment, and History in the Amazon Basin

The Amazon basin encompasses large portions of nine different South American nations - Brazil, Bolivia, Peru, Ecuador, Colombia, Venezuela, Guyana, Suriname, and French Guiana - which together comprise one of the most important centers of cultural, linguistic, and ecological diversity in the world. However, portrayals of the Amazon as either a pristine natural landscape or repository of cultural otherness all too often obscure the basin's centrality as a site of conflict, labor struggle, and social change. From pre-colonial mound-building to 19th century rubber extraction and modern-day environmentalism, rural and urban Amazonians have altered the course of global events through their engagements with their natural and social environment. This seminar surveys Indigenous, colonial, and post-colonial perspectives on the Amazon basin to center its residents as key actors on the world stage. It attempts to provide participants with an introduction to the historical materialist method of inquiry, as well as the utility of a regional perspective towards understanding the drivers of contemporary social and environmental change. During this course, we will engage critically with ethnographic and scholarly texts as a means of understanding the history and social organization of a key global region and its peoples.
Course Attributes: AS HUM; AS LCD; EN H

The Forest and the Factory: Culture, Environment, and History in the Amazon Basin

ANTHROPOLOGY 3097

Section 11