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Anthropology Colloquium Fall Series with Dr. Les Sponsel

The Yanomami Industry: Another Kind of Mining Invasion. The Yanomami in the Amazon of Brazil and Venezuela are one of the most fascinating, studied, and endangered Indigenous people in the world, yet often unethically misrepresented and seriously exploited. There is even something identified here as the Yanomami Industry, a second kind of mining invasion. It encompasses a broad and diverse complex as demonstrated in revealing cases, some shocking and disturbing. Examples identified and critically discussed include some publications in anthropology and for the broader public, photos, films, and a variety of products for sale. Many individuals and organizations are greedily exploiting the Yanomami for monetary profit without any compensation or reciprocity for them, a kind of colonialism that may be harmful. This is antithetical to Yanomami culture wherein reciprocity is the pivotal core value. The extraordinary world-wide fascination with the Yanomami facilitates this industry, and the industry generates the fascination as well. All of this raises very serious social, political, moral, and ethical concerns, including issues of cultural appropriation, cultural misrepresentation, and intellectual property rights. There may be parallels with other Indigenous peoples. Thus, the case of the Yanomami Industry can provoke serious consideration, and perhaps even some introspection, rethinking, and revisioning regarding ethnographic conduct in general. Leslie E. Sponsel, with the B.A. in geology from Indiana University and the M.A. and Ph.D. in biological anthropology from Cornell University, is Professor Emeritus at the University of Hawai`i in Manoa. From 1974 to 1981 Sponsel conducted field trips to the Venezuelan Amazon to research biological and cultural aspects of the ecology of hunting with Yanomami and other Indigenous societies. Since 1986 he usually visits annually Thailand to research Buddhist ecology and environmentalism, in recent years focusing on sacred caves. Among his numerous publications are the books Indigenous Peoples and the Future of Amazonia: An Ecological Anthropology of an Endangered World, and Yanomami in the Amazon: Toward a more Ethical Anthropology beyond Othering.

Event Sponsor
Anthropology, Mānoa Campus

More Information
Marti Kerton, 808-956-7153, anthprog@hawaii.edu, New Leslie Sponsel (PDF)