From Amerindian Perspectivism to the Real Indian

Abstract

This paper approaches some critical reviews addressed by senior ethnologists to the widely disseminated theory of “Amerindian Perspectivism”. These ethnologists characterize it as a by-product of late French Structuralism – understood as sheer formalism – as an overarching generalization about indigenous cosmologies, abusive in itself, or as an exoticising academic fad that harms indigenous public and political image. I argue that such critique emerges from misinterpretations of both Perspectivism and Structuralism, from some outdated notions about framing ethnographic subjects of study and, finally, from excessively conventional ideas about cultural respectability. Furthermore, I argue that, far from proposing a standard Amerindian cosmology, Perspectivism can be a key to renewing and diversifying ethnological analysis, insofar as it does not become completely absorbed by philosophical debate.