Pyrotechnical Mastery and Humanization
Amazonian Cuisine, Care, and Craft in Evolutionary and Semiotic Perspective
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 2227798 |
|---|---|
| Authors | C Nahum-Claudel (0000-0002-3107-821X, London School of Economics and Political Science, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2020 |
| Volume | 61 |
| Issue | 4 |
| Pages | 418-440 |
| Publication date | 2020-08-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | No |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Current Anthropology (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0011-3204 • E-ISSN: 1537-5382 |
| Publisher | University of Chicago Press (PUBLISHER • US) |
| DOI | 10.1086/710356 |
| OpenAlex | W3048796138 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 1 |
| References cited | 37 |
In evolutionary biology, as in Amerindian origin myths, the mastery of fire makes us human. The Amazonian Enawenê-nawê are adept pyrotechnicians. Fire is the agent of transformation in their world. They master fire not only to cook food but also to bring health and balance to bodies and to fabricate key items of material culture like ornaments and containers. Demonstrating the analytical productivity of expanding our definition of cookery to encompass craft and care, this ethnographic analysis of fabrication processes suggests that pyrotechnical mastery is a privileged means by which humanity is established in an ongoing evolutionary dialectic between mind and world. This argument is developed through an original reading of Lévi-Strauss's structuralism that highlights commonalities with the semiotic theories of C. S. Peirce. In a broader sense, the article illustrates the potential of semiotic analyses to contribute to the study of evolved human capacities that set humans apart from other species
Anthropology: Ethics, History, Culture · Media, Communication, and Education · Psychology
Biosocial Becomings
The Symbolic Species
Sweetness and power
Distinction
The International Encyclopedia of Anthropology
Human adaptation to the control of fire
How Forests Think
The Falling Sky
Enawene-nawe ‘potlatch against the state’
Mushrooms and Economic Botany1
A Study of Cultural Bias in Field Guide Determinations of Mushroom Edibility Using the Iconic Mushroom, Amanita muscaria, as an Example
Catching Wrangham
On Anthropological Knowledge
Pandora's hope
Do Mito Grego Ao Mito Ameríndio
Bonnes raisons ou mauvaise conscience
The Mushroom at the End of the World
The Invention of Culture
Cosmological Deixis and Amerindian Perspectivism
Le Rôti et le Bouilli
Symmetry is a rare type of asymmetry
Transformation transformed
Old Wine, New Ethnographic Lexicography
The Anthropology of Food and Eating
Indigenous Cosmopolitics in the Andes
Control of Fire in the Paleolithic
The Extended Evolutionary Synthesis, Ethnography, and the Human Niche
The Rotten Renaissance in the Bering Strait
Domestication and Diversity in Manioc (Manihot esculentaCrantz ssp.esculenta, Euphorbiaceae)
Feasting on People
The Raw and the Stolen
The Expensive-Tissue Hypothesis
From the Milk River
Semiotics and the social analysis of material things
| Unique citing works | 1 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 0,33 |
| Citation span | 2023 - 2023 (1) |
| Citation velocity | historical |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 1 |