{"title":"Exiled From Their Own Lands: Indigenist Policies, Oil, and Colonial Plunder in 20th Century Venezuela","authors":"Gabriel Tardelli","doi":"10.1111/jlca.70042","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/jlca.70042","url":null,"abstract":"<p>This article examines the historical displacement of Indigenous peoples in Venezuela, focusing on the links between indigenist policies and the exploitation of natural resources, particularly oil, throughout the 20th century. Using a combined historical and ethnographic approach, it demonstrates how the formation of the Venezuelan nation-state involved expanding physical, economic, ethnic, and moral boundaries, shaping both the country's landscape and its sociocultural and political relations. While oil fueled economic growth, Indigenous communities were marginalized due to territorial expropriation and state-led integration and assimilation initiatives. By tracing the actions of successive governments and the persistent presence of military and missionary groups, the study explores the intersections of capitalism, imperialism, and colonialism in nation-building, showing how power dynamics conditioned who would be included in the projects of modernity and who would be excluded.</p>","PeriodicalId":45512,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Latin American and Caribbean Anthropology","volume":"31 2","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.6,"publicationDate":"2026-04-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://anthrosource.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1111/jlca.70042","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"147667978","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Wibana: How Bobonaza Runa and Forest Animals Know and Live With Each Other","authors":"James Beveridge","doi":"10.1111/jlca.70041","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/jlca.70041","url":null,"abstract":"<p>Runa women living along the Bobonaza river in the Ecuadorian Amazon raise captured forest animals, in a practice called <i>wibana</i>. Runa women are attentive to the particular ways the <i>wiba</i> (raised) animals interface with the world, and learn the wibas’ communicative repertoires and are able to “read” what wibas sense in the forest, including dangerous beings. Runa and wibas come to know each other through processes of mutual familiarization and taming. Using concrete, ethnographic examples, I demonstrate the everyday practices that bring wiba and Runa livelihoods into alignment with each other and engender an intersubjective, interspecies relationship. I highlight the ways that wibas actively produce and mediate the relationship, including maintaining appropriate distance and boundary work to carve out status, positionality, and access to resources within the larger more-than-human community.</p>","PeriodicalId":45512,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Latin American and Caribbean Anthropology","volume":"31 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.6,"publicationDate":"2026-03-13","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://anthrosource.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1111/jlca.70041","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"147637063","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Along the Silenced Footsteps of Latin American Pastoralists: From Mexico to Argentina, a Journey Through Pastoral Systems in Latin America","authors":"Greta Semplici, Pablo Manzano","doi":"10.1111/jlca.70040","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/jlca.70040","url":null,"abstract":"<p>Pastoralism worldwide faces a complex landscape of increased pressures and exclusion. Beyond ecological and economic challenges, pastoralists suffer eroding cultural identity, limited generational renewal, and political marginalization. Yet pastoral livelihoods are increasingly recognized as stewards of sustainable futures and amongst the best food producers in a post-fossil world scenario. In such a struggle for socio-ecological justice, voices of Latin America pastoralists remain unheard both within regional debates and pastoral scholarship globally. With this article we explore the Latin American context to push conceptual, economic, and political boundaries that pose constraints for sustainable rural development. Rising voices of Latin American pastoralists reveal local agency, resourcefulness, and resistance. Critical notions of identity and feeling to belong tied to rootedness and “sense of place” emerge as particularly relevant, in contrast with conventional framings focused on environmental and economic constraints.</p>","PeriodicalId":45512,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Latin American and Caribbean Anthropology","volume":"31 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.6,"publicationDate":"2026-01-24","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://anthrosource.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1111/jlca.70040","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"146096600","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Another Four Women: AfroCubana Entrepreneurs as Womanist Praxis","authors":"L. Kaifa Roland","doi":"10.1111/jlca.70039","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/jlca.70039","url":null,"abstract":"<p>This article is focused on four Black women entrepreneurs in Cuba's lucrative bed and breakfast home-based tourism economy, asking: (1) what intersectional factors facilitated their entrepreneurial enterprises, (2) how they conceptualize success, and (3) how their narratives illuminate patterns involving gendered race in the country's increasingly market-oriented context, and what opportunities might be on the horizon? Their narratives provide a praxis that demonstrates how despite their distinct paths to <i>cuentapropismo</i> (self-employment), socialist values largely shape their conceptions of success. Nonetheless, historic tropes from the prerevolutionary era involving White (or foreign) patriarchal gatekeepers reveal themselves, even with evidence of potential patrons who were previously inaccessible due to similar social marginalization. By centering these Black women's voices and experiences, this project uses womanism as theory in action.</p>","PeriodicalId":45512,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Latin American and Caribbean Anthropology","volume":"31 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.6,"publicationDate":"2026-01-05","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://anthrosource.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1111/jlca.70039","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145983507","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Paternalism, Maternalism, and Ventriloquism as Colonial Legacies in Mexico and Ecuador","authors":"Carmen Martínez Novo","doi":"10.1111/jlca.70037","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/jlca.70037","url":null,"abstract":"<div>\u0000 \u0000 <p>Being “white-mestizo” in Mexico and Ecuador is not only about skin color or phenotype, but also a way of acting that provides advantages to some groups over others. This article explores the privilege of claiming to protect and speak for others through a discussion of the concepts of paternalism, “maternalism,” and ventriloquism. Maternalism is highlighted given the important role played by upper- and middle-class, White-mestizo women as mediators in interethnic relations. Like <i>mestizaje</i>, speaking for others and becoming their advocate is a problematic promise of inclusion. The contemporary behavior of dominant groups is traced to colonial social relations congealed in legal figures that have lingered in Latin American legislation until recently. The article argues that these legal constructs continue to shape contemporary inter-ethnic relations, showing a close relation between law and custom. Finally, the article shows how patterns of paternalist and “maternalist” domination came to constitute a coherent and lasting system for the management of racialized populations.</p>\u0000 </div>","PeriodicalId":45512,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Latin American and Caribbean Anthropology","volume":"31 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.6,"publicationDate":"2025-12-31","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145891128","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Ch'ul Mut: Sacred Bird Messengers of the Chamula Maya","authors":"Christine Kovic","doi":"10.1111/jlca.70036","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/jlca.70036","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":45512,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Latin American and Caribbean Anthropology","volume":"30 4","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.6,"publicationDate":"2025-11-11","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145750997","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Territorial Demands and Indigenous Memories in the Social Production of Victims in Humahuaca, Jujuy, Argentina","authors":"Guillermina Espósito","doi":"10.1111/jlca.70035","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/jlca.70035","url":null,"abstract":"<div>\u0000 \u0000 <p>This article explores the relationship between territorial claims and long-term indigenous memories, analyzing their articulation in processes of victimhood and political subject formation. Drawing on the case of a death during a land conflict in the Andean town of Humahuaca, Jujuy, Argentina, it shows how collective memories of dispossession and struggle were reactivated, producing a figure of sacrifice that condensed historical grievances and contemporary tensions. The case demonstrates that the victim is not merely a passive condition but a generative political force, one that reconfigures territorial demands beyond judicial arenas and reframes conflict through symbolic and affective registers. The sacrificial figure of the Humahuaca-born “Pato Condorí” thus emerged as both a landmark in long-term land struggles and a site where more recent dynamics—such as the patrimonialization of the region and the consolidation of politically salient indigenous identities—became entangled.</p>\u0000 </div>","PeriodicalId":45512,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Latin American and Caribbean Anthropology","volume":"30 4","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.6,"publicationDate":"2025-11-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145750444","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Amazonia's Cassava and Manioc Through Historical Times","authors":"Laura Rival","doi":"10.1111/jlca.70034","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/jlca.70034","url":null,"abstract":"<p>This provocation calls readers to think more deeply about the role anthropology could play in radically disrupting plant blindness. Thanks to Environmental Humanities, the natural world is no longer apprehended as a mere backdrop to human activity. The taken-for-grantedness of plants has given way to a recognition of their biological complexity. However, a preference for “relational” over “classificatory” thinking, linked to a desire to pay greater attention to nonhuman agency, has resulted in portraying “humanity” as a homogenous category. A rush to let vegetal voices be heard could lead to the silencing of forms of collective existence organized around values perceived to be essential for life to flourish. This risk can be avoided by applying the lessons of twentieth-century historical anthropology to the analysis of contemporary communities, whose assertions of the good life wax and wane according to complex historical and ecological dynamics. To show how anthropological methodology could best contribute to Environmental Humanities, I interrogate my early work on manioc domestication through a new kind of ethnographic exploration. A journey I took with two Waorani friends to a ribeirinho community on the Upper Rio Negro forms the starting point for a more intimate and intersubjective interrogation of the creative potential of cross-cultural exchange. On the basis of ethnographic insights triggered by this encounter, I revisit explanations of the historical and spatial divide between manioc brewers and manioc flour makers. I also re-analyze the historical role played by manioc flour during the rubber boom. I underscore the importance of history as lived and remembered. I conclude that environmental humanistic sensibilities may not be sufficient to explain the resilience of agrifood systems. The biological plasticity of manioc matters, but manioc becomes a protagonist only when people carry their memories through.</p>","PeriodicalId":45512,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Latin American and Caribbean Anthropology","volume":"30 4","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.6,"publicationDate":"2025-10-20","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://anthrosource.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1111/jlca.70034","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145739790","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Embodied Borders: Navigating Transit Migration Through Darién, Panama","authors":"Madeline Baird, K. Michelle Ordaz, Amanda Gabster","doi":"10.1111/jlca.70033","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/jlca.70033","url":null,"abstract":"<div>\u0000 \u0000 <p>The Darién Province separating Panama and Colombia has experienced unprecedented movement of people across its border since the easing of COVID-19 border restrictions in 2021. Panama established the “controlled flow” migration strategy in 2016 to manage “irregular” migration within its national borders as this flow rapidly increased in Darién Province. This policy provided basic services while containing people in reception centers after their journey across the Darién Forest. Based on ethnographic fieldwork in Darién Province, we elucidate how the Panama-Colombia border transcends its geopolitical boundaries and shapes embodied borders based on the experiences of people excluded from legal migration pathways to North America. We examine how the “controlled flow” infrastructure in Panama constructs new systems of control and surveillance, embodied health impacts, and regimes of agency and migrant refusal after crossing one of the most treacherous borders in the world.</p>\u0000 </div>","PeriodicalId":45512,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Latin American and Caribbean Anthropology","volume":"30 4","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.6,"publicationDate":"2025-10-20","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145739789","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Religiosidad entre migrantes latinoamericanos en la producción de bienestar: Intensificaciones, transformaciones y porosidades","authors":"Javier Jiménez-Royo","doi":"10.1111/jlca.70032","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/jlca.70032","url":null,"abstract":"<div>\u0000 \u0000 <p>The literature on the relationship between religion and migration has focused on how religion plays a key role in migrant adaptation processes. In this article, I focus on the importance of religious and spiritual practices for Latin American migrants seeking asylum in the United States before and during their journeys, as well as in the context of their entrapment in the city of Tijuana. To do so, and to show the complexity with which religiosity is expressed, I analyze cases in which people engage in practices that violate the boundaries between religious confessions and spiritualities. Given the difficult circumstances that push them to leave their homes and the adversities they encounter on their journeys, migrants frequently engage in practices to experience and produce well-being. On the other hand, religiosity in the migratory context intensifies, transforms, and becomes porous.</p>\u0000 </div>","PeriodicalId":45512,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Latin American and Caribbean Anthropology","volume":"30 4","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.6,"publicationDate":"2025-09-20","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145751274","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}