Doctoral Dissertation Research: Indigenous Conceptions of Government and Relations with the Nation-State

University Of Virginia Main Campus, Charlottesville VA

Investigators

Abstract

University of Virginia doctoral candidate Lucas de Carvalho, under the direction of Dr. George Mentore, will undertake research on Amerindian-state relations. In many parts of the world, there have been longstanding conflicts between governments and indigenous people. This research will explore how these misunderstandings emerge through a divergence between government practices and indigenous religious and cultural beliefs. The researcher will conduct ethnographic data collection on an indigenous group of people who live in the Amazonian rainforest in Guyana. He seeks to understand the models used to conceptualize the government and their role in social and political life. The research has the potential to transform the way that anthropologists and other social scientists have theorized the nation-state and governance. The researcher's existing relationship to this indigenous group enables him to engage in innovative methods of data collection such as highly immersive participant observation that afford him to access information that has eluded previous anthropological inquiry. More broadly, the research will improve anthropological understandings of social and political organization and the role of religion in social life. The project will have broader social impacts by providing both indigenous peoples and government officials with useful models for understanding the cross-cultural dissidence and political conflict. The research will also influence development practice, particularly in the context of health initiatives. Finally, the research would also broaden the participation of an under-represented group.