INDIGENOUS PEOPLE OF THE AMERICAS’ COSMOLOGY, SHAMANISM AND ETHNOGRAPHY -- A POSTCOLONIAL CRITIC

Abstract

This paper reviews some general assumptions about the anthropological research on shamanism from a postcolonial approach. The latter aims at decentering the eurocentric locus of enunciation of the Western suject of knowledge, questioning the ontological neutrality of language and the givenness of ethnographic spaces which permeates anthropology’s field methods. A personal account of my ethnographic research among the Argentine Chaco Qom (Toba)shamanism is presented, assessing some field scenarios in which my questions about shamanic power, illness and therapy turned out to have unintended but negative effects on my interlocutors’ well being. For this reason, applying this perspective on the ethnography of shamanism could improve the epistemological and political awareness of this intersubjective process of knowledge construction.

Keywords

• Etnografía
• shamanismo
• modernidad
• crítica postcolonial.