Date of Award

2009

Degree Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Master of Arts

Program

Anthropology

Supervisor

Kim Clark

Abstract

This thesis examines the everyday life of the Piaroa people of Alto Carinagua, an Amerindian village in Venezuelan Amazonia, and their interactions with Venezuelan state officials and institutions. It provides ethnographic information about the Piaroa and explores the processes of state formation of the Venezuelan modern state as well as the integration of the Venezuelan Amazonian region to the national territory, and analyzes the everyday interactions between the Piaroa and the state which on occasions can fuse these two entities in complex ways. I argue that the Piaroa of Alto Carinagua are involved in processes of social and cosmological transformations that allow outside resources, including state resources and programs, to be integrated into the social realm of their community thanks to the specialized knowledge of their leaders

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