Doctoral Dissertation Research: Indigenous Conceptions of Government and Relations with the Nation-State

弗吉尼亚大学博士候选人Lucas de Carvalho将在George Mentore博士的指导下进行美洲印第安人国家关系的研究。在世界许多地方，政府和土著人民之间长期存在冲突。本研究将探讨这些误解是如何通过政府实践与土著宗教和文化信仰之间的分歧而产生的。该研究人员将对居住在圭亚那亚马逊雨林的一个土著群体进行人种学数据收集。他试图理解用于概念化政府及其在社会和政治生活中的作用的模型。这项研究有可能改变人类学家和其他社会科学家将民族国家和治理理论化的方式。研究人员与这个土著群体的现有关系使他能够从事创新的数据收集方法，例如高度沉浸式的参与性观察，使他能够获得以前人类学调查无法获得的信息。更广泛地说，这项研究将提高对社会和政治组织以及宗教在社会生活中的作用的人类学理解。该项目将为土著人民和政府官员提供了解跨文化异议和政治冲突的有用模型，从而产生更广泛的社会影响。这项研究还将影响发展实践，特别是在卫生倡议方面。最后，这项研究还将扩大代表性不足的群体的参与。

University of Virginia doctoral candidate Lucas de Carvalho, under the direction of Dr. George Mentore, will undertake research on Amerindian-state relations. In many parts of the world, there have been longstanding conflicts between governments and indigenous people. This research will explore how these misunderstandings emerge through a divergence between government practices and indigenous religious and cultural beliefs. The researcher will conduct ethnographic data collection on an indigenous group of people who live in the Amazonian rainforest in Guyana. He seeks to understand the models used to conceptualize the government and their role in social and political life.The research has the potential to transform the way that anthropologists and other social scientists have theorized the nation-state and governance. The researcher's existing relationship to this indigenous group enables him to engage in innovative methods of data collection such as highly immersive participant observation that afford him to access information that has eluded previous anthropological inquiry. More broadly, the research will improve anthropological understandings of social and political organization and the role of religion in social life. The project will have broader social impacts by providing both indigenous peoples and government officials with useful models for understanding the cross-cultural dissidence and political conflict. The research will also influence development practice, particularly in the context of health initiatives. Finally, the research would also broaden the participation of an under-represented group.