Keywords

Ecuador, Quechua, Runa

Abstract

This paper attempts to weave together a number of strands of research conducted by the authors among Amazonian Quichua-speaking people in the Napo and Pastaza provinces of eastern Ecuador. We are attempting to elucidate something that we have both observed, which we are calling an earthy concreteness in the orientation of Runa, which privileges the contextualization of utterances, thoughts, and ideas to such an extent that statements about typical behaviors and generalizations are perceived to be both morally and aesthetically objectionable. This orientation is therefore highly problematic for hypothetical questioning, which is a major tool for social scientific research. In addition to describing this concrete orientation, we explain how it is made sense of, by recourse to the framework articulated by Viveiros de Castro’s concept of “perspectivism” (1998).

Original Publication Citation

Nuckolls, Janis B. and Swanson, Tod D. (2014). "Earthy Concreteness and Anti-Hypotheticalism in Amazonian Quichua Discourse", Tipití: Journal of the Society for the Anthropology of Lowland South America: Vol. 12: Iss. 1, Article 4, 48-60.