Scattered Things: Virtue Ethics and Objectness in Indigenous Amazonia

This article seeks to extend the enduring focus on the body and bodily substance in Amazonia, which have historically eclipsed other forms of relatedness and ethical practices. Among the Venezuelan Sanema, for instance, morality is enacted predominantly through manufactured items rather than solely corporeal expressions of relatedness. While objects of all forms are receiving increased recognition in the region, they are often explored within a non-dualist frame that foregrounds inalienability, ownership and subjectification. Yet, the Sanema ethnography reveals that dissolving dualisms in this way elides the existence of important categories such as objects. Focusing on how ethical practices are enacted through partible beads and diesel-powered generators in particular, it becomes clear how alienable goods among the Sanema are valued precisely for their ‘objectness’ rather than their personified qualities.