Urban Imaginaries in Native Amazonia: Tales of Alterity, Power, and Defiance

Urban life has long intrigued Indigenous Amazonians, who regard cities as the locus of both extraordinary power and danger. Modern and ancient cities alike have thus become models for the representation of extreme alterity under the guise of supernatural enchanted cities. This volume seeks to analyze how these ambiguous urban imaginaries--complex representations that function as cognitive tools and blueprints for social action--express a singular view of cosmopolitical relations, how they inform and shape forest-city interactions, and the history of how they came into existence.

Featuring analysis from historical, ethnological, and philosophical perspectives, contributors seek to explain the imaginaries’ widespread diffusion, as well as their influence in present-day migration and urbanization. Above all, it underscores how these urban imaginaries allow Indigenous Amazonians to express their concerns about power, alterity, domination, and defiance.

Contributors
Natalia Buitron
Philippe Erikson
Emanuele Fabiano
Fabiana Maizza
Daniela Peluso
Fernando Santos-Granero
Pirjo Kristiina Virtanen
Robin M. Wright

Fernando Santos-Granero is a senior staff scientist at the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute. He is the author of Slavery and Utopia and the editor of Images of Public Wealth or the Anatomy of Well-Being in Native Amazonia and The Occult Life of Things.

Emanuele Fabiano is a postdoctoral researcher at the Centre for Social Studies at the University of Coimbra in Portugal and lecturer at the Pontifical Catholic University of Peru.