ANTHROPOLOGY COLLOQUIUM
Speaker: Juan Luis Rodríguez
RHETORICAL STRATEGIES AND POLITICAL GIFT GIVING
IN THE ORINOCO DELTA
This dissertation addresses the intersection of rhetoric and material exchange in the construction of
political alliance and conflict between the Waraos indigenous population and the non-indigenous institutions
and political actors in the Orinoco Delta, Venezuela. It deals with the discursive and material strategies used to
construct political reality at the moment of the emergence of one of the so-called new South American left wing
populist governments (Hugo Chavez presidency since 1998). These historical circumstances present an
opportunity to open a discussion bringing together the recent developments of discourse-centered approaches to
culture, language ideologies, and the most classical theories on material exchange. This research’s aim is to
understand how multiple sign systems (in this case language and material gifts) interact, contradict, and support
each other. In sum, this dissertation uses the advances of discourse-centered approaches to culture and the
anthropological theories of exchange to understand how language and gift giving has shaped history and
political imagination in the Orinoco Delta and Venezuela.
Tuesday, November 8, 2011
Hamilton College, Room 318
3:30 – 5:00 pm