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In 2009, the Colombian Constitutional Court issued ruling Auto 004, declaring 34 indigenous groups as being at risk of extermination due to the internal armed conflict and ordered the Colombian government, led by the Interior Ministry, to protect them. Since then, although the critical situation persists, the government has proven its compliance with the Court's order through a documentation process. The purpose of this article is to examine the role of documentation in mediating legal protection in a violent context. Based on yearlong participant observation at the Colombian Interior Ministry, the study approaches the production of the government's documentary response as an artifact. It addresses its formulation and context within the institutional setting, the discussions regarding what to include and what to exclude, and the decisions that shape its content. It highlights how the assembled document enchants, by skillfully combining the aesthetics and technical aspects. It illustrates how numbers that portray compliance are constructed and displayed in the document, while concealing the failure to make the changes that were ordered: a phenomenon termed here as complying incompliantly. The paper's originality lies in deconstructing the powerful governmental sophism of money invested as compliance with an obligation, through ethnographic attention to the document. Likewise, the analysis is part of the challenge dealt with by studies of the gap between law and reality, by suggesting that the problem lies not in a gap between well-intended law and the violent reality that overflows it but rather in the way this "gap" is filled by complex documenting processes. As such, the paper contributes to the anthropological studies on law, documentation and accountability. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Extractivist archaeological practices have been carried out in the Atacama Lickanantay territory, Antofagasta region, northern Chile, ever since the 19th century, excluding or denying the voice and/or participation of members of the local indigenous community. However, the beginning of the 21st century saw a change in this sense bringing new experiences of collaboration between Atacameños and archaeologists. Our goal is to reflect on the definitions and applications of collaborative methodologies in archaeological projects, through discussion focusing on the global, through the national and finally the local, from where we approach a particular collaborative project. The research, conducted between early 2021 and mid 2024, studies the history of the collection and patrimonialization of indigenous bodies in the Atacameño Lickanantay territory, and socializes this information among the local communities. Based on this work, we conclude that all research in the territory must involve and be authorized by the Atacameño communities. Also, we consider that the Atacameños should stop being the object of research and instead become researchers who lead or collaborate in the studies within their communities and in their territory. The originality of this paper lies precisely in the fact that it brings a global discussion of contemporary archaeology to a concrete case. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although ethnographic work has been premised on elucidating the nature and forms of social relations, the relational approach in social theory has opened up new lines and horizons of problematization to explore this topic from a different perspective. As we will discuss in this article, this orientation has had a significant impact on ethnographic practice, as it has reformulated its objects of study, its methods of inquiry and its narrative structure. In particular, we believe that this approach can be central to the understanding of contemporary ethnic recognition processes in women and men who identify with an indigenous people of the American continent. As such, this paper points out the possibilities of another way of dealing with social relations--relational pathways--which will contribute to the debate on ethnographic futures. We seek to elucidate the shifts in contemporary ethnographic practice, based on a methodological discussion of conceptual change, a reflection on the heuristic possibilities of this process in ethnography, and a case study from our own experience of working with the Mixtec population of Oaxaca, Mexico. We argue, in this paper, that based on the problematization of the uses and meanings of the notion of social relation and its implementation in current ethnography, styles, themes, and ways of understanding social phenomena have been renewed, while simultaneously offering other approaches to current ethnic processes, such as the one we are studying in the Oaxacan Mixtec region. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of this article is to describe and analyze the reconversion experiences of four social organizations to sustain the social bond and collective care in popular neighborhoods of the Metropolitan Area of Buenos Aires (AMBA), Argentina, during the Covid-19 pandemic. Based on qualitative research work with an ethnographic approach, conducted remotely between July and September 2020, we i) reconstructed the social context and characterized the activities of the socio-community organizations studied in AMBA, before and during the pandemic; ii) sketched images such as the collective "la olla" organization, which describe the community provision of care; and iii) showed how, in the context of restricted movement, the organizations had to deploy tactics to "contain," "accompany" and take care of themselves and others. In line with debates about an economy of care, which produces values surreptitiously appropriated by the rest of the economy, this paper focuses on those resulting from socio-community practices related to: food --"la olla" and "la fila"--, health, and socio-affective --"containment"--. This proposal is intended to contribute to the theoretical-political field of discussion, in which it is situated, on the paradox between the centrality of (socio-community) care, for the production of social welfare, and its insufficient recognition in economic, social, and political terms. Methodologically, the paper portrays the challenges --for social research-- of reading and interpreting practices when co-presenciality is technologically mediated. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The International Criminal Tribunal for former Yugoslavia (ICTY) was established in 1993. Intended to shed light on the events that occurred during the Yugoslav conflict (1992-1995) and to prosecute and convict those accused of crimes against human rights and international humanitarian law, it's mandate lasted until 2017. This paper was prompted precisely by this end. It takes stock of the contributions of archaeology and forensic anthropology to the Tribunal's investigations and argues that the work of these professionals provided evidence of the systematic attack in which civilians were killed as part of a state policy of extermination against ethnic and religious groups in the region. The authors also point out the importance of the involvement of Latin American professionals in this research, as well as how much this experience enriched research processes in Latin America itself. This work is based on a systematic bibliographic search, which includes, among other documents, archives that were reserved at the time, but are now open to the public. It also draws on information obtained from the authors' participation in the forensic operations conducted between 1999 and 2001, both in the field and in the morgue. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With the outbreak and devastating spread of the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic, different forms of containment methods have been implemented across Latin America that have radically and rapidly transformed public health approaches. The purpose of this paper is to provide a preliminary delimitation of the problem of person-to-person accusations and complaints in proximity contexts under the confinement regime in the metropolitan area of Buenos Aires (AMBA). This paper examines three issues: 1) anthropological perspectives on judicialization; 2) the broad-ranging consequences and paradoxical effects that accusations, denunciations, and judicializations have been proven to cause for the well-being, health, and survival of affected individuals and social groups; and 3) the particularities that anthropological work assumes in highly normatized, sanctioned, and criminalized contexts. This article addresses heterogeneous materials: historical background, anthropological arguments, research results, media information, regulations, etc., to analyze the case of the AMBA. Specifically, the text focuses on the practices employed during the months of the initial period of confinement in AMBA, from March 20 to November 9, 2020. This analysis sheds light on the ways in which proximity accusations and allegations lead to the fragmentation of social fabrics, deepen inequalities, and accentuate uncertainty about social responses to possible infection and death. They also compromise and distort epidemiological, preventive, and care strategies. While legal actions of the same type have taken place for other ailments and epidemics, proximity accusations and allegations, in this case, are understood as enabled and legitimized strategies that express and translate deep transformations --at the micro-scale of isolation-- of the links between public health, legislation and security forces in social confinement regimes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we analyze the changes in food consumption patterns throughout the lives of five individuals (n=5), one subadult and four adults, found in archaeological sites of El Remate, Bajo los Cardones and Finca Cruz. All of them are associated with the Formative period (ca. 2500 - 1000 years B. P.) and are located in the Quebrada de Amaicha (Tucumán, Argentina). We propose an analysis of the carbon and nitrogen isotopic composition in the dentin of different sections of the same tooth and in different teeth of the five individuals. This approach sheds light on the way in which the characteristics of children's diets affect their adulthood, as well as providing a more inclusive perspective on consumption patterns in the agropastoralist societies of the study area by integrating young individuals into the analysis. Little intravariation and intervariation was found, with a predominance of food resources framed in the C4 photosynthetic pattern. The exception is an individual, probably female, whose diet was based on C3 resources during the first period of life. This could be the result of the existence of a "childhood diet" or of a change in geographic residence, with both areas being isotopically distinguishable. Finally, we illustrate the methodological steps required to reconstruct life histories through the serial study of human dental pieces. This is a novel approach, which has been applied to human remains from the Argentine Northwest for the first time. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of this article is to analyze the practices of resistance and protests in the prisons of Córdoba in Argentina, and to reflect on the media representations of these practices. This article focuses on the social and historical constructions that have been reified over time in the media about a certain narrative on prisons, prisoners, and riots. The purpose of this paper is to propose local perspectives and discuss with the exclusivity of the riot as the only practice of resistance installed in the social imaginary. Accordingly, the native meanings are approached in their own context of use, through the analysis of situations in which the actors actualize their representations of their own social world. Following this intention, an ethnography with persons deprived of their liberty and their relatives is used as a starting point. It is concluded that local perceptions of prison protests do not necessarily coincide with the meanings attributed to them by the media. n this analysis, it is of interest to illustrate how the subjectivities historically constructed through the images that circulate in the media about prisons influence the constitution of the punitivist imaginary in the current situation of Preventive and Compulsory Social Isolation (ASPO) to tackle the Covid-19 pandemic. Conducted between July and October 2020, this work contributes to the deepening and complication of studies on the practices of protests and resistance in prisons, through the analysis of the meanings assigned to them by the protagonists. This text proposes a questioning, from an academic perspective, of the social classifications of persons deprived of their liberty in the media representations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recent years have witnessed a growing interest in examining the dynamics of the legitimation of science in light of the debate over the public undermining of its authority as a discourse of truth. This article explores the questions raised by this debate based on the analysis of a controversy recorded in the framework of ethnographic fieldwork in a research laboratory. This controversy pits scientific facts relevant to policy decisions about children’s cognitive development against each other. From the native’s point of view, the dispute revolves around two issues: (a) the misrepresented communication of knowledge about poverty and childhood development by outreach institutions, multilateral agencies, and various health and neuroscience professionals; and (b) the political use of such statements and knowledge to guide local level government actions. What is reconstructed throughout the paper, is the way in which the set of researchers mobilizes scientific evidence to dispute factual claims presented in the media as true. This is done by considering the dynamics of legitimacy that unfold around this controversy. Following the perspective of co-production, the analysis shows that the legitimacy of scientific knowledge goes beyond the proof of its truth and involves a plurality of contested perspectives in which both the weight of evidence and the different political imaginaries that the agents sustain come into play. This plurality exposes the inseparable relationship between epistemic, social, and normative aspects, while the ethnography highlights that science cannot be separated from society and politics. Science does not only serve to inform political decision-making; it is also produced in response to and in continuity with public discussion and acts in the co-production of a sense of the political and the social. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective/Context: The purpose of this paper is to discuss methodological aspects in order to understand political exiles, through feminist ethnography. Methodology: This research applies multi-sited ethnography with exiled women and is framed between 2008 and 2019. On the basis of the exploration of international forced migration from Colombian women to Barcelona, Spain, I propose to shed light on feminist ethnographies as an interstitial point, close to the private dimension of the subjects, and as a place of enunciation to claim a reflexive process of social research. Conclusion: The focus of this paper is to understand that ethnographic practice and the migrants trajectories, assume a conquering of the private and public worlds in the host societies. It also focuses on understanding the complexity for women to produce knowledge in a context of war and inequality. Originality: The paper develops three different aspects as follows: first, it explores bodies of the ethnographers and the travelers in movement. Second, it examines the private as a category that goes beyond the textual in order to approach the relation between bodies, sounds, and objects. Third, the work highlights the importance of reflexivity, which generates ethics of collaboration, feminine pacts, and ethnographies of contact. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective/Context: The purpose of this paper is to provide an overture to the complex forms of social interrelation established by the Nahua people that inhabit the Northern Sierra in the state of Puebla (Sierra Norte de Puebla), with their surroundings; an interrelation guided by a singular logic. An example of this can be observed in the four different manifestations of water: sea and rain, spring and river. Methodology: Ethnographic data that supports this paper was obtained from a long-term study dating back to 1993 and which has remained focused on grasping the reality in which the Nahua people from Sierra Norte de Puebla develop their lives. This data was gathered directly by applying different techniques --including participant observation, ethnographic register and anthropologic interviews--during fieldwork in the Naupan, Xicotepec, Huauchinango and Tlaola municipalities. Conclusions: We strive to demonstrate, using ethnographic data, that different water manifestations are signified as persons or subjects with agency that act based on social norms ruled under a certain logic of cooperation and interdependence, which provides a basis for responsible management practices, and gives meaning to legislative models that could be applied in our country nationwide. Originality: This paper is relevant, in the sense that it can bring new aspects to a broader discussion regarding the nature-culture dichotomy, and it comes to show how the Nahua people connect --through an interdependence model-- with the social reality that encloses them. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This is the translation of a paper resulting from the lecture given by Mariza Peirano, professor emeritus at Universidade de Brasilia. The lecture was given at the commemoration of the 40th anniversary of the Social Anthropology Postgraduate Program run by Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul, in 2014. Based on a personal story, which draws the reader into the universe of the anthropology of politics, the author maintains that anthropology is the result of theoretical/ethnographic formulations recorded in monographs, in which estrangement, empiricism, and reflexivity are fundamental tools for the creation of lived theory that updates questions and of anthropology as theoretical storytelling. As it is intended to problematize the separation and hierarchy between theory, method and field work in the production of knowledge, this translation is essential for the training of new generations of anthropologists at undergraduate and graduate levels, as well as for wider audiences involved in the human and social sciences. Questioning the assumption of ethnography as just one method, widely spread in scientific and technical production, beyond anthropology, Peirano calls on the reader to think and cultivate an ethnographic attitude that values surprise (which puts the researcher into perspective) and makes it possible to open up and reformulate hypotheses based on field work experience. Thus, the "ethnographic method" implies that a rejection of a previously defined orientation, a theoretical strengthening based on the experience of the ethnographer, and a confrontation with new field data, creating ethnographic facts, which point to a permanent recombination and intellectual creation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

During the Peruvian internal armed conflict, military bases were installed in the communities of Manta and Vilca in order to maintain order in the area. However, soldiers began raping women on a daily and repeated basis. The purpose of this article is to reflect on how women survivors of sexual violence have come to understand these experiences. In the article, I examine the discourse contained in the testimonies given by women from the communities of Manta and Vilca to the Peruvian Truth and Reconciliation Commission (CVR). I then analyze the in-depth conversations I had with six of the nine women survivors of rape from the Manta community who are plaintiffs in the judicial process underway since 2016 against fourteen military personnel accused of being their aggressors. These conversations are part of my ethnographic work conducted in 2018 and 2019. By way of conclusion, I note that the meanings that women survivors have given to their experiences reflect subjectivities related to the historical context, but above all to the socio-cultural context. In turn, these subjectivities vary over time, resulting in resignifications of the experiences. This paper is also intended to capture women's voices through the use of the notion of rape survivor, which theoretically and methodologically seeks to highlight the agency and creativity of the women who are subjected to such experiences. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Migration has been approached from a predominantly spatial focus that has largely neglected its temporal dimension, although the reference to the future has been recognized as an expressive factor of the phenomenon itself. Approaches in anthropology that focus on the temporality of migration have recently warned that, in contemporary global circumstances, migration projects, particularly those of irregular migrants, seem to be marked by waiting and by the temporary suspension of their resolution. Such studies tend to emphasize the migrants' experience of time, subjected to a chronopolitics conditioned by the bureaucratic management of migration. In this paper, based on an ethnographic approach developed between 2012 and 2019 in Otomí-Hñahñu indigenous communities in the Mezquital Valley, in central Mexico, I follow anthropological concerns about the temporality of migration and waiting. However, I propose an alternative path to the one that has been developed in recent literature on the subject. At the same time, I explore the multiple ways in which the uncertain time of migration is managed among the communities of origin. I propose that these migrants co-participate in the migration project and its temporalities, by engaging in concrete practices to manage absence and waiting times. The Mezquital Valley communities, which have experienced intense migration to the United States since the end of the last century, are currently communities in waiting. A wait that, although marked by the chronopolitics of migration, does not cease to identify its promise for the future and temporarily steer migratory projects. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper is part of a study intended to elucidate the current modalities of social intervention on children at risk in Argentina, as part of what is known as child protection and from a rights-based approach. I attempt to comprehend these modalities of intervention by focusing on the actions of the institutional agents of a state organism for the protection of children's rights in a mid-range area of Buenos Aires. The material presented here stems from an ethnographic and narrative approach to the actions carried out by these agents in relation to the families with which they interact, in order to access some of the significant schemes that frame them. I conducted my fieldwork in 2018, during a fivemonth internship in the organization, using participant observation as the main research technique. I argue that the trust that permeates the bond between state agents and the families targeted by the interventions is conceived as a moral value that conveys the instructive work carried out, fundamentally, on womenmothers. This characteristic does not serve to make relationships more flexible, but rather reestablishes itself to stylize control and surveillance mechanisms. At the same time, families make use of available institutional rhetoric as a way of translating their social experience into the language of rights, thus effecting the expected transformation. This work shows how current models of intervention involving children and their families incorporate new elements such as trust and affection, which, however, are woven with enduring power mechanisms typical of the scope of the state's protective services. It also discusses the place of families in the interaction with state agents to enable an understanding of their actions based on the use and appropriation of the language of rights. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of this article is to analyze different forms of agency assumed by children and young people with respect to child protection policies, specifically, in terms of adoption or foster care processes. To this end, I apply an ethnographic approach to describe and analyze the institutional logic behind the operation of certain residential homes, the guidelines and sanctions that regulate the behavior of the children and young people housed there, and how they, in turn, make sense of and heighten the monitoring and control of these institutions. Secondly, I examine the ways in which children and young people develop their capacity for agency by engaging in dialogue or confronting the officials of the entities that promote and protect their rights; how they attribute meaning to the official's decisions, and how they seek to avoid them or propose alternatives. This paper supports the production of knowledge on how children and young people contribute to shaping social life and, at the same time, is intended to deepen the government's analysis of this sector of the population. I maintain that far from considering state intervention on children and young people as homogeneous and totalizing, the cases reveal the different nuances assumed by child government and how this variability creates the conditions to enable them to carry out their projects. The materials I present and analyze here are the result of field work, carried out over ten years, between 2009 and 2019, in households and entities that promote and protect rights, in the metropolitan area of Buenos Aires, Argentina. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article explores the perceptions concerning waiting times contained in the stories of women who had abortions during the second and third trimesters of pregnancy, under the Colombian health care system and the terms of Ruling C-355 of 2006, between 2017 and 2018. A qualitative analysis of the interviews revealed that waiting times allowed the collection of data on the multiple temporalities and the women's complex relations with these institutions, from the time they entered the Entidades Promotoras de Salud (EPS) until the culmination of their Interrupción Voluntaria del Embarazo -IVE- (Voluntary Pregnancy Termination). This article explores the women's perceptions concerning how long they had to wait, during which time, some of the women interviewed felt that the support they received during pregnancy and abortion was satisfactory, and that the waiting times were appropriate. Others, in contrast, perceived that the institutions did not provide them with the necessary information and imposed excessive waiting times that ignored their needs. The analysis of this experience reveals that the women confronted the institutions, which lost their legitimacy, and that their fear of a septic abortion persisted. At the same time, there is evidence of voluntary expressions of waiting that show a non-unidirectional use of time. This paper contributes to the discussion on women who have abortions and their relationship with the Colombian health system, which establishes admission to the EPS as the only way to access this procedure during the second and third trimesters of pregnancy. It is also relevant for studies on temporalities in institutional contexts, as it explores the emergence of voluntary waiting. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper analyzes the epistemological limits of the narration resulting from the specialized work on memory. It is based, on the one hand, on fieldwork carried out in the stilt villages of Ciénaga Grande de Santa Marta (Colombia) between 2017 and 2018. The focus of the fieldwork was the local reception of the National Centre for Historical Memory (CNMH) report, published in 2014, on the paramilitary massacres that had occurred in that area. And, on the other, on the research team's participation in the writing of the CNMH report on anti-personnel mines in 2017. The strength of the text, a dialectical exercise between the anthropology of violence and the hermeneutical phenomenology, rests on it being a self-critical piece of work written from within the expert system. We propose the existence of a necessary representational distance (not contingent) between the account as a form of local expression and its translation into a narration that is projected outside the context in which local stories are produced. The article concludes that, beyond the very experience of violence represented in such accounts, it is the logic of the expert system that draws the contours of the politics of evidence in the field of memory. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In certain post-colonial societies, the metaphor of the successful recipe was and continues to be used politically when it comes to defining national culture, often represented in the form of a pot or kettle, where indigenous ingredients and knowledge are combined, effortlessly and without mediation, with other products and techniques from afar. The result is a product that is superior to any of its parts. This article questions the principles of symmetry, continuity and purity that characterize the culinary stories of the mestizo and multicultural nation, and shows how the presence of certain historical and social actors has been made invisible within the great cauldron. Based on field observations and analysis of historical sources and audiovisual productions, we present two case studies that take place in different periods, in Mexico and Peru. This journey from the 16th century to the present day shows how both nation-states have managed social and cultural differences within their territories throughout their history, using the concepts of mestizaje and multiculturalism as catalysts for control and domination. The stories of mestizo cuisine propose a false symmetry between cultural elements of social groups that were always far from being so. By proclaiming a supposedly balanced, reflexive and consensual fusion of cultures, they erase the historical complexity of culinary cultures, as well as the past and present expressions of colonialism. This paper constitutes a contribution to the studies concerning the nation from the perspective of food cultures. It reveals the conflicts of exclusion, power and hierarchy that run through the discourses on national cuisines, and some keys to interpreting the political agenda of the mestizo nation: neoliberal multiculturalism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Electronic equipment, which by now is omnipresent in urban life, poses a growing challenge in terms of post-consumer management due to the type and quantity of waste it generates. The aim of this paper is to analyze the valorization processes concerning the different social actors dedicated to the revalorization of Electronic Waste from Information and Communication Technologies (EWIT) in the city of Mar del Plata, Argentina, by examining their cultural and commercial links. This article is the product of an investigation that was deployed in several phases. First, we examined previous Latin American experiences that had studied the problem from the perspective of the actors. Then, we collected the information to be analyzed using techniques such as participant observation and open and in-depth interviews with local actors involved in the different stages of the commercialization of the RE-ICT. The results presented arise from the interrelations of the subjects related to the RE-ICTs valorization processes. Three subsystems were identified within these processes: i) the formality, ii) informality, and iii) extraformality of the State. The circumstances that each actor faces are based on structural conditions inherent to market, technical, and knowledge logics. There is no state or normative support that formalizes and articulates the different actors for an integrated management; however, the study proposes some sustainable local-level guidelines. There appears to be no record of any in-depth, systemic and comprehensive analysis of the social dynamics surrounding the valorization of electronic devices in the city. As such, this work constitutes a fundamental social contribution to a future management plan for this type of waste. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the work of Gerardo Reichel-Dolmatoff, after recent information about his past related to nacional socialist movements in Germany. This paper focuses in his work, not his life, as a response to the call to re examínate his academic production in light of the new information regarding his past. It is proposed that to describe his work as a product of national socialist does not resist any academic analysis. His work, it is proposed, is more the product of ideas regarding race and cultural in Colombia and the post war World. There is a New World experience, both academic and social that cannot be ignored, and marked Reichel's work as both complex and contradictory. It is emphasized that Reichel's personal past cannot be ignored, but neither his academic production. Gerardo Reichel's work is far from perfect. The rise of Colombian anthropology was influenced by racial and cultural theories that need to be examinated and criticized, and Reichel's work was part of it. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective/context: This paper once again brings the iconographies of Tiwanaku (Titicaca high plateau, Bolivia) and La Aguada (Northwest of Argentina) into discussion, more than 40 years after the works of Rex González and Ponce Sanginés. It does so in an entirely different context with a decolonial emphasis. Objects, images, ethnographic information and archaeologists from both sides of a border between "nations" are assembled with the clear intention of questioning very deep underlying assumptions of archaeology. Methodology: Beginning with the paths posed by images and colors, these knots also bind humans and things, shamanic experiences and meteorological phenomena. Conclusions: After bringing La Aguada and Tiwanaku into dialogue, based on our research trajectories, the discussion leads to a reflection on the present consequences of naturalizing segmented and functionalist gazes of the animal and plant worlds in the past, which originate in the ontological underpinnings of our own modernity. Originality: The text aims to approach decolonial criticism from the study of concrete cases and to contribute to these debates on the basis of archaeological materiality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective/context: In this paper, we discuss the importance of studying museum collections in new light of anthropological theories, using the allegory of excavating the museum as an archaeological site, retrieving new information about objects and about new contexts and assemblages. We believe that this practice of "excavating" will bring us closer obviously to the artifacts, but also to an archaeology of the contemporary past that can open up new means of interacting with material culture and our society. Central to this debate are the collections and archives that can be used to disseminate the history of different disciplines, such as anthropology and archaeology. Methodology: Through various university museums in Argentina, we discuss the history and formation of collections in the history of archaeology, focusing on the von Hauenschild collection at the Museo de Antropología (Facultad de Filosofía y Humanidades, Universidad Nacional de Córdoba). The collection, which we have studied and analyzed on several occasions, originates in Santiago del Estero. Conclusions: We argue that, while being careful not to reproduce a colonial paradigm in this context, new ways of interpreting collections, using ethnographic and indigenous knowledge and working with communities of origin, allow us to create new relationships with objects and highlight other life histories that can be incorporated into the museum environment. We believe that collections "speak" about the people who excavated, catalogued, classified, studied, and interpreted them at some point in time. Originality: To conclude, we propose a research agenda to study collections in museums, by "excavating" archival material and re-examining archaeological artifacts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective/Context: The purpose of this paper is to examine ontological differences articulated by people as a result of the operation of an open-pit mine called Conga that would affect lagoons of utmost importance for local residents. In this context, peasants from El Tambo hamlet in northern Peru, a 3-hour drive away downstream from the Conga project area, have organized themselves to protect the lagoon against the mining expansion. Methodology: Based on ethnographic research between 2012 and 2014 in El Tambo, I argue that the relationality between the peasants and Mamacocha lagoon emerges from the reality of peasants' experiences with water that started to become scarce. The concept of "nourishment" and "being born" appear in dialogues with the peasants, emphasizing the relationship between food crops, irrigation channels, artisanal channels, natural water springs and the lagoons. Conclusions: This study shows how different practices enact a world with radical differences. In this case, peasants design "on" the land and "with" the land respecting protocols with other entities, rejecting the idea that they are prepared to harvest potatoes at any cost and with any water. In the end, the inhabitants of El Tambo nourish themselves with water that carries the vitality of being born at the top of the lagoons. It is not a mere dispute in which water is considered a reality that is simply out there. Originality: This research shows that present conflicts, sometimes categorized as environmental conflicts, are really about fundamental premises about the world and life. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While exploring the literature available about the Pastos people, this paper describes the alleged tensions between academic narratives and oral history. This paper argues the existence of "politics of memory" within chronicles, essays, papers, books, dissertations, and other sources written about the subj ect. However, from the author's point of view, this literature dives into a permanent dialogue with other non-official narratives, being answered, subverted and resignified by the same people it represents. Throughout the article, several narratives collected during ethnographic fieldwork carried out by the autor together with members of the Pastos community, show that oral history is one of the crucially important non-official narratives for the history and memory of their people. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article seeks to reveal and problematize transnational conditions and practices based on a reading of the working papers and identity documents of Chilean Merchant Marine crewmen from the small port city of Corral (Region of Los Ríos, Chile). The documents discussed are the minimum papers needed to permit and guarantee the embarkation of crewmembers. Throughout the text, I distinguish the particularities of the documents themselves, some historical background information regarding them, and the processes for obtaining them. In revealing the condition of work and displacement through an analysis of these documents, we can show nuances of the intersections of scales of interaction, spaces- places and policies, that end up affecting persons in concrete places and specifc times. Furthermore, the documents allow us to problematize the transnational conditions in relation to the work and fow of the crewmembers, as citizens and as workers, thus situating the margins of the state and the hierarchies of subordinations among transnational, national and local planes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of this article is to explore the concept of research-creation and its applicability within anthropology, focusing on the creation of plastic-sensorial artifacts as a valid source of knowledge. To this end, we first present a bibliographical review to contribute to the articulation of a field of methodological experimentation within anthropology, highlighting its interdisciplinary nature and the dialogue with other knowledge from sociology, design, and media arts. Next, we present and critically discuss the concept of research-creation, indicating its relevance in conducting research whose results go beyond the textual, while producing knowledge that is inscribed in plastic-sensory artifacts. Three interconnected dimensions are proposed to understand a process of research-creation from anthropology: a methodological one, referring to the creation of records or data during fieldwork; a curatorial one, concerning at the possible combinations of the collected material; and a third public dimension, focusing on the circulation and agency of the outcomes of these research-creations. Finally, we investigate and describe an ethnographic case study with family members of people deprived of their liberty in Chile, a collaborative research-creation process that culminated in a sound installation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since the beginning of the 21st century, Ecuador has been a point of transit but also of residence for migrants from around the world. While the attraction of this country resides in the flexible regulations of migration which stem from its policy of universal citizenship, the economic conditions there do not encourage migrants to stay. The starting point of this article is a previous study of the concept of errance which emerged from listening to the stories of Africans who were waiting in Dakar, Senegal, as they sought a way to leave from the continent from Africa. The article contrasts their experiences with those of other Africans who manage to cross the Atlantic and land in Quito. There are two options available for them: to either continue the journey toward the United States or remain in Ecuador. In both cases, migration policies, immigration papers and socialities are factors which shape their experience as travelers. For those who continue on their journey to the United States, the risks they run become a proof of their worthiness to be granted asylum. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper is a case study of the multiple meanings which archaeological materials acquire at the present time. We combine both an archaeological and anthropological approach to investigate the relationships that people establish with archaeological materials, and to discuss whether they allow for/prevent reflections on their past and present. On that basis, we reflect on the appropriation of archaeological knowledge and its link with local history. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents the results of an analysis of fish remains from the pre-Hispanic coastal settlement of Xcambó, Yucatan, Mexico dating from the Early to Late Classical period (350-750 AD). This is one of the first ichthyoarchaeological studies in a Mayan settlement with a dominant presence of fishes in the zooarchaeological assemblage. The results showed an abundance of estuarine species such as sharks, snooks and catfishes, which were particularly important for the ancient inhabitants of Xcambó. Fishing was practiced near coastal and estuarine environments using simple, but highly productive, technological tools. In paleoecological terms, the ichthyofauna indicated healthy coastal environments where the presence of species currently absent and threatened represents an important source of ecological data. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this article, I propose to explore how borders between we/others are (re)created and disputed in the City of Buenos Aires, Argentina, through an ethnographic analysis of the production of space in the Cementerio de Flores, a public area of great importance for the "Andean" migrants who reside in this city. To carry out this task, I describe and analyze the contrasting uses and representations of this public space promoted by agents of the government of the City of Buenos Aires, on the one hand, and "Andean" migrants, who are mainly of Bolivian origin, on the other. Then I present the different ways in which State agents respond to what they consider an "inappropriate" way of using this public space by "Bolivians". The paper seeks to develop the potential of the analysis of the production of space in order to investigate the historical (im) possibility of recognizing certain social sectors as legitimate participants in public metropolitan life, and to detect in an early way changes in the State treatment of the migratory issue. The materials I present and analyze are the result of research into newspapers and documents, as well as the fieldwork that I did for about a decade (2005-2013) in the Cementerio de Flores and in offices of the government of the City of Buenos Aires which are involved in these concerns. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Studies of lithic taphonomy emphasize the need to understand the history of artifacts from the time they were discarded up to their recovery by archaeologists. This allows us to understand the archaeological record and the factors involved in it. To achieve that, this paper studies the main agents and taphonomic processes acting on the lithic assemblages in the gulf coast of San Matías (Río Negro province, Argentina). We analyze their effects on the different types of rocks found in the area and evaluate the alterations detected in different sectors of the coast. The results indicate that both the raw materials under study and the geoform where the assemblages are located have conditioned the way that the taphonomic agents act on lithic materials and the effects which can be measured. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper we seek understand and explain a particular social phenomenon: the reshaping of the social and moral behavior of a group of fans of the "Club Atlético Belgrano" soccer team of Córdoba, Argentina, which is known as Los Piratas (The Pirates). In more specific terms, we aim to show that it became possible for those fans to change their habitually violent behavior to one that is relatively peaceful now. For this purpose, the first section discusses the effectiveness of certain symbolic acts which helped to overturn the fans' tolerance of violence in the most important sector of the moral universe of Los Piratas: the tribunal popular or section of the stadium, with the cheapest tickets, where young fans sit. The second section relates the "case of Belgrano" to broader social phenomena in the context of violence by young soccer fans, policies for safe sports events and the mechanisms of social control used by our contemporary societies. An approach to these social phenomena cannot be reductionist and simplistic, hence our study follows an integral and combinatory approach which links a situational and ethnographic analysis of the fans of the Belgrano team with a holistic one. We do not refer to "representativeness" or a linear relationship between the "micro" and the "macro": instead, we think of it in terms of an "interactive overlap" of such processes (Geertz 2006, 53). We likewise propose a methodological triangulation, where quantitative and the qualitative techniques complement each other. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Religiosities with a strong "emotional" component had strong visibility in Argentina over the past decades. This paper analyses the crying in groups linked to the New Age spirituality and revivalist Catholicism in the broader context of the so-called "new spiritualities". It also aims to reflect on the affinities between sacred and emotionality as a research focus in the social sciences and what the relational approach has to say about the broader field of affect studies in the analysis of religiosity. Especially when the most widespread analysis understand "emotionalism" as a contemporary crisis of the "social" or as a locus of "subjective experience". In short, the article intend to emphasize how considering native theories about the causes of emotion, as a relational and situated process that considers human and non-human agents, ideas of cause and efficacy, could be a complementary strategy to analyse emotions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper gives an account of a conceptual exercise of interpretation which lies between philosophy and anthropology. Its approach is the idea that, in contrast with notions of symbolic association, as a state of becoming, the descriptions which still persist in the Inga and Kamëntsa indigenous communities of the relationship between their sabedores ("knowers"/wise men/ shamans) and "jaguars" may be understood as the affective relations of men who experience forces that are not theirs and that during that process, they summon something which is especially creative in themselves as a way of achieving a trans-codification between the animal and the human in the creation of individuation. Its approach is based on the conceptual framework of the contemporary philosophy of Deleuze and Guattari, with the aim of establishing a dialogue between that philosophy and anthropology's understanding of the "being a jaguar" phenomenon and providing an interpretation of the zooanthropomorphic occurrence with the use of the concept of becoming. Towards that end: i) the construction of individuations is determined by an analysis of the accounts of sabedores of the Inga and Kamëntsa indigenous communities, which; ii) reveals the conceptualization of this particular relationship as becoming in the light of some developments which are in line with the notions of "the jaguar man" of the anthropologist Reichel Dolmatoff; iii) Finally, the effects of becoming as a creation of meaning are explained. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim of this article is to explain the importance of the Spondylus spp. on the northern coast of Peru during the development of the Chimu and Lambayeque cultures (800-1450 A.D.). Through the study of archaeological sources in the north of Peru, this paper analyzes the places where these shells were collected and their ritual use. When humans gathered them, they were helped by the gods and the relationship between them was condensed by the malacological material. When the rituals were held, the Spondylus spp. helped to unfold the condensed relationship and once again, establish a communion between humans and gods. This relationship resulted in the creation of two different worlds, one that belonged to humans and another that was beyond their control. These two worlds were so closely connected that both owed their existence to that constant interaction. In this sense, both realities inter-existed due to the relationship which rested on the communion, through the Spondylus spp., between beings from the two spheres: humans and gods. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper reviews the controversy around anthropologist Gerardo Reichel-Dolmatoff from a particular standpoint. I intend to question how and by which conceptual artifacts Reichel-Dolmatoff was enthroned as the "father-figure" of Colombian Anthropology. Thus, I examine the collective elaboration of a life-history, professor Reichel-Dolmatoff's life-history, based upon the exegesis of his published biographies and an analysis of his own auto-biographical attempts. My aim is to propose an "Anthropology of Anthropology" in order to better understand the relationship between Reichel-Dolmatoffs life and work. I conclude with the argument that professor Reichel-Dolmatoffs figure, contradictory since he arrived in Colombia, was dotted by silences and partial revelations which shaped his academic life. Meanwhile, his followers made of him a father-figure thought in terms of a totemic "Great Jaguar" through a canonic biography that oscillates between plausibility and verifiability. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper analyzes the funerary practices developed at a household of the prehistoric site known as the Pucará de Tilcara, in order to evaluate attributes of social belonging among the different types of inhumations, so far detected and excavated. We also present the characterization of the sepultures identified in the so called Residential Unit 1. During the Inca occupation, when the Pucará de Tilcara became the political head of the region, this house functioned as a household and, as a workshop mostly dedicated to ceramic and specialized metallurgical production. Once abandoned, it suffered different transformations in order to be used as a mortuary place. The study of funerary behavior allowed us to reveal the relationship between the living and the death at the domestic sphere of the archaeological village. At a broader intrasite scale, the authors will compare this case to other mortuary contexts in Pucara de Tilcara. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper introduces an ethnographic study focused on the milongas of Buenos Aires (Argentina), seeking to explore the interrelations developed between dancing spaces and certain public policies. This article reflects upon the political and organizational processes that enable the deployment of this kind of dance events, pointing out agreements, conflicts and demands raised by the milongas organizers against the actions of public policies. To analyze these processes, I will focus on closures carried out in 2005 that affected the normal functioning of the milongas. This research shows the articulations and changing relations that the milongas organizers established with public policies, highlighting some issues and contradictions that emerge around the management of the intangible cultural heritage by the power of State. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper argues that 'heritage' is not an object, place or intangible event, but rather it is a performance or cultural process concerned with negotiating, creating and re-creating cultural memories, values and meanings. This process is obscured by the Authorized Heritage discourse (AHD). The paper critically analyses the AHD and draws on three case studies from England to illustrate some of the cultural work that the heritage performance undertakes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper David Harvey explores the existing relation between the problem of surplus capital allocation and the increasing transformations of urban space The paper, written before the world economic crisis was declared, offers a spatial analysis which anticipates the crisis and examines the consequences that the current economic model will have for future urban life. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper focuses on the way the ette, an indigenous group of north Colombia, conceive and experience dreams. For this purpose, some aspects of the concept of person, the notion of dreaming and the phenomenology of dream experience are described and analyzed. The article concludes that Indians conceive dreams as real events, based on a type of noncorporal activity in which the person begins to participate of an alternative mode of existence and perception. These characteristics allow to dreamers to take advantage of their experience to acquire culturally legitimated knowledge. In the same way, the paper allows to note the importance of dreams in the course of the reproduction of social life. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

What does a feminist ethnography touch? What is the nature of this contact? Returning reflectively on our ethnographic approach to the handcraft embroidery of Cartago (Colombia), in this paper we focus on the ways in which the ethnographic experience is shaped by contacts that take place and are unfolded in the space of everyday life. We delve into three types of touch: touch that happen in and by the body of those who do ethnography, touch taking place around the embroidery and the materialities associated with this task, and lastly the recording technologies and their effects on ethnographic experience, emphasizing in some careful strategies to mitigate such effects. We conclude with some speculations about what it means for the ethnographic practice and its theoretical reflection, the attribution of an active role to materialities in the construction of the ethnographic space and experience. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim of this paper is to discuss the origin of a series of cavities from an area of the Atlantic coast in the Pampean Region known as the Caracolero from Claromecó (Tres Arroyos County, Buenos Aires Province, Argentina) which, have been interpreted as human footprints. They are located on a rock that outcrops on the littoral abrasion platform. The discovery of the footprints and their ascription of a high antiquity ca. 30.000 years 14C BP was initially disclosed to the media, where they first had an impact. The lithological studies carried out allowed to establish that the features of rocky substratum consist of an arenite with carbonate cement linked to deposits from the Pleistocene transgression dating back to 120.000 years BP. The morphological features of the abrasion platforms cavities match those produced by natural carbonate dissolution and are mainly defined as "pans" and "pits" in the geological literature. Finally, according to the available information, it is concluded that the cavities from Claromecó do not have a clear anthropic origin. Therefore, they cannot be taken into account in the archaeological debate about the early peopling of the Americas. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The reading hypothesis that has guided this paper is that the work of Gabriel Tarde offers a solution to the individualism-holism alternative that still dominates the social sciences, because it tends to conceptualize the social as a third term that exceeds both the individual and society. The concept of the social here is the plural and heterogeneous field of interactions in which individuals, groups and social systems are produced, reproduced, transformed and eventually diluted. Supported by this hypothesis, and reconstructing Tardes conceptual syntax on the basis of it, we seek to clarify some fundamental elements of the theory of the individual outlined in various passages of his work. We also attempt to account for his ideas regarding the masses and the public, and we have proposed a re-reading of his concept of the multitude. Finally, we have tried to show some of the ethical-political consequences arising from that hypothesis and that syntax. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper seeks to contribute conceptually to an anthropological approach to politics and power situated ethnographically. The starting point is a review of everything from classical debates about the relationship between anthropology and ideology to contemporary discussions on ethnographic theory. Then, with the discussion limited to the study of political processes involving the state, it focuses on a case from contemporary Argentina that expresses and materializes the political dimension of public infrastructure. It examines significant associations between infrastructure and federalism established and mobilized by political actors committed to creating an interprovincial regionalization among the provinces of Cordoba, Entre Rios and Santa Fe. This corpus of data, from which the observations and arguments presented arise, is the result of a decade of research developed from an ethnographic perspective with a methodology that privileged fieldwork based on participant observation and open interviews. Finally, it proposes a response to the theoretical and methodological question of how to complement ethnographical study of the concrete material effects of the state with the productive and creative dimensions of politics by building bridges between the politics of meaning and the politics of value. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper analyzes the main youth employment policy In Argentina: the Youth with More and Better Work program. Based on the paradigm of active employment policies, this program Illustrates a new form of management and state regulation regarding the problematic question of employment among the poorer sectors of the population. For our analysis, we begin by exploring the theoretical possibilities opened up by Foucault's notion of the "device," and then point out some disarray concerning the logics, the division between "domestic" and "work" areas, and models of person (individual or linked) that this policy seeks to impose In the labor practices and trajectories of young people in low-income sectors. Finally, we note the need to Incorporate the notion of "Instruments of reproduction" and "social capital" to account for the singular character of the practical logic these young people apply In order to enter into and to be in the world of work. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper is about the representations, practices and cultural expressions carried out by groups of Bolivian immigrants and their descendants in the cities of Olavarria, Tandil and Azul in the province of Buenos Aires, Argentina. For this purpose, the three case studies presented are analyzed based on the theoretical notions of identities and ethnic groups proper to the field of social anthropology. It thus seeks to contribute to knowledge about the construction of the identities of Bolivian immigrants in Argentina and, especially, to the discussion of those perspectives that propose the cultural assimilation of these groups into the host society. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The intention of this paper is to analyze the social debt contracted by women in southeastern Ciudad Juarez (Mexico), within the theoretical framework of feminist economic anthropology based on ethnographic data collected there during 2012 at a Nutrition Club where Herbalife is served. Affections, prestige and honor all circulate as women care for themselves, as material, symbolic, emotional and corporal exchanges take place, thus initiating specific forms of sociality and new relationships. Gifts, as a system of reciprocities, generate and sustain bonds of trust; debt itself can become ambivalent, like the femininity of these women, which is questioned and reconstructed amid oppressive contexts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Urban anthropological research on the review of previous experiences in Colombia is scarce. This paper presents a retrospective analysis of two different moments in the author's research experience: one, in an initial period, and another one, over a period of more than two decades, at a later time. The case study is presented in the periphery of Popayán, more precisely, in Commune 7 in the south of the city, in what is known today as the Solidarity neighborhood, but which was originally considered an "invasion." The article examines the consolidation of ideas such as community organizing, urban identity, and social change from the time the neighborhood first appeared, in the wake of the 1983 earthquake, to the beginning of the 21st century. The experience presented constitutes a vital reference point for highlighting the importance of critically "looking back" on the ethnographic experience of the past, at the same time that it allows us to highlight the importance of this type of ethnographic exercise in different settings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]