Anthropological work in Amazonia has traditionally focused on Amerindian societies and, more recently, development projects, colonists, and the resource-base represented in the humid neotropics. Receiving far less attention is the Amazonia of caboclos (people of mixed Brazilian Indian, European, and African ancestry), river traders, rum distillers, immigrant communities of Lebanese, Japanese, and Jews, quilombos (settlements formed by escaped slaves), ornamental fish trappers,and others whose long presence in the region defies the stereotypes of a frontier inferno verde. These other Amazonians present a vivid refutation of stereotypical views about the social landscape. This book brings to light the diversity of Amazonian societies and contributes to the extension of anthropological work beyond its traditional limits.
About the Author
Stephen Nugent is reader in Anthropology at Goldsmiths College, University of London, and the Institute for the Study of the Americas, University of London. He is the author of Big Mouth: The Amazon Speaks (San Francisco, 1994) and has written widely on Amazonia and its inhabitants.
Mark Harris teaches at the University of St. Andrews. He is the author of Life on the Amazon (Oxford University Press, 2000).
