The goal of this thesis is to explore the recent changes in the social landscape of a Wapishana village, due to long-term separation from kin. I consider the impact of a recent educational shift from small scale community based education to regional boarding schools on family life and community structure amongst Amerindian people in the hinterland of Region 9, Guyana. Furthermore, the project analyzes an emergent form of spirit possession that affects almost exclusively young women who live in the dormitories, locally referred to as the sickness. Using the sickness as an analytical lens, the thesis examines the ways in which young Amerindian women navigate a shift in expectations from their parents and communities as well as how they experience this rapid social change and transformation. Various vantage points employed in the analysis of the sickness help to illustrate the complexities of the current lived reality of Amerindian life. By exploring the experience of kinship and community in the Wapishana village of Sand Creek, it is possible to demonstrate how these relationships are produced and reproduced in everyday life through the sharing of space and substance. Furthermore, it is necessary to consider different aspects of the Creole and Amerindian notions of the spiritual world and their intervowenness in Wapishana lives, drawing out human and non-human agency and how they effect change in the world. Additionally, drawing on the anthropology of education, the thesis identifies the influence the state has on people's lives through institutionalized education, and locates this process within the wider context of historical indigenous residential schools. The ethnographic data on the experience of the sickness is put in dialogue and contrasted with other conceptions of spiritual vulnerability in Amerindian communities, examples of ‘mass hysteria' in schools or other institutional settings in other parts of the world, and the Afro-Caribbean experience of spirit possession. Finally, through an analysis of the etiology of the sickness, the final chapter draws on Amazonian literature to examine the embodiment of gender and the local gendered history of knowledge production in the area. The sickness is a phenomenon that permeates life in Southern Guyana for Amerindian youth, their families, and their communities. Undoubtedly, these various themes found in Wapishana young women's lives influence one another, irrespective of an ultimate manifestation of spirit possession. In the concluding section I show how these themes can be placed in the wider Amazonian framework of alterity and ‘Other-becoming', illustrating how this phenomenon provides a productive tool for the analysis of the experience of rapid social change among Amerindian youth and the impact of these transformations throughout the region.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Chicago, Dept. of Anthropology, 2001. / Includes bibliographical references. Also available on the Internet.

Orientador: Jose Luiz dos Santos / Tese (doutorado) - Universidade Estadual de Campinas, Instituto de Filosofia e Ciencias Humanas / Made available in DSpace on 2018-08-05T18:27:09Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Silva_CarlosAlbertoBorgesda_D.pdf: 4248231 bytes, checksum: c7257d0d5f589cc01341ecffa9328332 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2005 / Resumo: A Revolta do Rupununi, acontecida em 1969, no sul da Guiana, foi um movimento armado preparado por fazendeiros com objetivo de criar um novo país na região. Apoiada pela Venezuela, que através do auxilio militar dado aos fazendeiros, anteviu a possibilidade de recuperar a Zona en Reclamación, a Revolta contou com a participação de alguns índios, principalmente aqueles tidos como parentes de H. P. C. Melville, o primeiro estrangeiro a criar gado no Rupununi. Depois de dois dias de iniciado o movimento, alguns fazendeiros, acompanhados por um grupo de índios, retiraram-se para a Venezuela na condição de exilados, outros fugiram para o Brasil ou foram capturados pela Guyana Defense Force, chamada por Forbes Burnhan, presidente da Guiana, para sufocar o movimento armado. A preparação, a organização, o desfecho e o fracasso do movimento explicam relações políticas e sociais densas entre a Venezuela e a Guiana, fazendeiros e índios, bem como revelam disputas étnicas conseqüentes da colonização britânica no país / Abstract: The Revolt of Rupununi, happened in 1969, in the south of Guyana, it was an armed movement prepared by farmers with the objective of creating a new country in the area. Leaning to Venezuela, the military help the farmers that saw the opportunity to recover the zona en reclamación, the Revolt counted with the participation of some Indians, mainly those had as relatives of H. P. C. Melville, the first stranger to grow up cattle in Rupununi. Two days after the movement, some farmers, accompanied by a group of Indians, left for Venezuela as political exiles', others fled to Brazil or were captured by the Guyana Defense Forces, which were ordered by Forbes Burnhan, president of Guyana, to quell the armed movement. The preparation, the organization, the ending and the failure of the movement revealed the profound relationship regarding the political and social sphere between Venezuela and Guyana, also between the farmers and the Indians, as well reveals the consequent ethnic disputes to the British colonization period / Doutorado / Doutor em Ciências Sociais