Rethinking Venezuelan Anthropology

Abstract

The articles presented in this special issue of Ethnohistory are the result of a concerted effort made by a group of anthropologists from the Venezuelan Institute for Scientific Research (Instituto Venezolano de Investigaciones Científicas []). 1 As the initial compiler and as the guest editor of this issue, I hope that this publication will serve as a first step for other anthropologists working with Venezuelan indigenous or other ethnic groups to redouble the efforts toward the reformulation and reintegration of the discipline in Venezuela.Also, I hope that this publication generates open forums, as these contribute to the continuous growth and maturity of the discipline.This development of Venezuelan anthropology is essential to the preparation of adequate responses to future academic demands and public interest issues at the national and international levels.2 The publication of this issue does not deny any previous efforts made by other anthropologists living in Venezuela and abroad on behalf of Venezuelan anthropology; nor does it imply that there has been either an absence of or an academic disregard for salient anthropological studies done in Venezuela.Rather, this special issue of Ethnohistory represents, on the one hand, the first concerted effort to publish abroad a group of essays about Venezuelan oral-based cultures that embraces some of the distinct subdisciplines of anthropology and is written by anthropologists living in situ.On the other hand, it contains richly empirical studies that have been undertaken, for the most part, by a new generation of anthropologists in Venezuela and are based on an academic tradition that searches for new models or paradigms of and for theorizing culture and representation.3 This latter point is important in that such theoretical and methodological re-Ethnohistory :- (summer-fall )

Cite this work

No public copy is stored for this record, so only the metadata is cited.

Stored only when both papers are in the corpus — 6 citations exist upstream.

Papers that cite the same references — the relational fallback while embeddings are still backfilling.