Author Description

"English translation of author's masterful and important study, originally published in French (Paris: Maison des sciences de l'homme, 1986) and translated into Spanish (1992). Provides ethnographic description and analysis of the symbolic and technical relations of the Achuar to the Amazon environment. This pioneering model of a synthetic ecological/symbolic approach investigates dynamic interactions between techniques used in socializing nature and the symbolic systems that sustain these interactions. Overcomes previous limitations of materialist ecological and conceptual symbolic analyses. The value of this contribution is its understanding of the Achuar process of domesticating nature and of the long-run implications of this process for resource use in the Amazon environment"--Handbook of Latin American Studies, v. 57.