Dissertation Research: Linguistic Exogamy and Ethnonationalism in Northwestern Amazonia

论文研究：亚马逊流域西北部的语言异族通婚与民族主义

• 批准号: 0514430
• 负责人: Gregory Urban
• 金额: $ 1.09万
• 依托单位: University of Pennsylvania
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2005
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2005-09-01 至 2007-08-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=0514430&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Dissertation; Research; Linguistic; Exogamy; Ethnonationalism

Language shift, a change in the primary language of an ethnic or social group, has been characterized in the New World by a shift from indigenous languages to colonial vernaculars like English, Spanish and Portuguese. In the Northwest Amazon of Brazil, indigenous urbanization has been accompanied by a different kind of language shift, in which the many different indigenous languages of the region as a whole are reduced to just two or three which, along with Portuguese are spoken in the urban public sphere. To understand this rather different kind of language shift - here a shift between different indigenous languages - it helps to know that linguistic differences are the primary markers of ethnic differences in the region. Linguistic exogamy, where marriage occurs only between speakers of different languages, is the characteristic social institution of the Northwest Amazon, and ensures that multilingualism was (and still is) the status quo in the region. Using the ethnographic literature on the region as a comparative basis, this dissertation research project by a cultural anthropologist examines the social, spatial and linguistic organization of urban indigenous communities in terms of these related ideologies of language and ethnicity as they are united in the marital practices of urban immigrants. The research will be focused on three indigenous neighborhoods of Sao Gabriel da Cachoeira, and will involve participant observation, focused interviews, digital video records of interactions, and a survey of residence and marriage patterns. The project serves as a good case study to counter unidirectional understandings of the "acculturation" of indigenous peoples seen to occur through institutionalized contact with the nation-state, integration into capitalist networks and urbanization. Such processes, as they appear across the globe, are often thought to have their necessary endpoint in a monolingual speech community that divides the nation-state and its citizenry from the indigenous population, if at all, by a "race" based understanding of ethnicity. In the indigenous urban centers of the Northwest Amazon these three elements - nationstates, capitalism and urbanization - are all in play and yet multilingualism still thrives, as does a vision of ethnicity linked to language. The study hopes to offer a more nuanced account of how native beliefs and institutions condition the forms in which indigenous peoples become citizens of and residents in the nation.

语言转移是指一个民族或社会群体主要语言的变化，在新大陆的特点是从土著语言转向英语、西班牙语和葡萄牙语等殖民地方言。在巴西亚马逊河的西北部，土著居民的城市化伴随着一种不同的语言转变，在这种转变中，该地区许多不同的土著语言作为一个整体减少到只有两种或三种，这些语言和葡萄牙语一起在城市公共领域使用。要理解这种相当不同的语言转换——这里是不同土著语言之间的转换——有助于了解语言差异是该地区种族差异的主要标志。语言上的异族通婚，即婚姻只发生在讲不同语言的人之间，是西北亚马逊地区特有的社会制度，并确保了该地区的多语言现象过去是（现在仍然是）现状。本文以该地区的民族志文献为比较基础，由一位文化人类学家进行的研究项目，从语言和种族的相关意识形态的角度，考察了城市土著社区的社会、空间和语言组织，因为他们在城市移民的婚姻实践中是统一的。研究将集中在圣加布里埃尔达卡乔埃拉的三个土著社区，并将涉及参与者观察，重点访谈，互动的数字视频记录，以及居住和婚姻模式的调查。该项目是一个很好的案例研究，以反对对土著人民的“文化适应”的单向理解，这种理解被认为是通过与民族国家的制度化接触、融入资本主义网络和城市化而发生的。在全球范围内出现的这种过程，通常被认为在一个单语语言社区中有其必要的终点，这个社区将民族国家及其公民与土著人口分开，如果有的话，是基于对民族的“种族”理解。在亚马逊西北部的土著城市中心，这三个因素——民族国家、资本主义和城市化——都在发挥作用，但多种语言仍然盛行，与语言相关的种族观念也同样盛行。这项研究希望提供一个更细致入微的描述，说明土著信仰和制度是如何影响土著人民成为国家公民和居民的形式的。