Anthropological work in Amazonia has traditionally focused on Amerindian societies --and more recently, development projects, colonists, and the resource base represented in the humid neotropics. Receiving far less attention is the Amazonia of caboclos (people of mixed Brazilian Indian, European, and African ancestry), river traders, rum distillers, immigrant communities of Lebanese, Japanese, and Jews, quilombos (settlements formed by escaped slaves), ornamental fish trappers,and others whose long presence in the region defies the stereotypes of a frontier inferno verde. These other Amazonians present a vivid refutation of stereotypical views about the social landscape. This book brings to light the diversity of Amazonian societies and contributes to the extension of anthropological work beyond its traditional limits.
Contributors include Rosa Elizabeth Acevedo Marin, Edna De Castro, and David McGrath (Nucleo de Altos Estudos Amazonicos, Federal University of Para, Brazil), Scott Anderson (Tide-Energy Project in the Amazon), Neide Esterci (Federal University of Rio de Janeiro), Deborah Lima (Fluminense Federal University), Raymundo Heraldo Maues (Federal University of Para, Brazil), and Gregory Prang (Wayne State University).