Children of the Rainforest explores the lives of children growing up in a time of radical change in Amazonia. The book draws on ethnographic fieldwork conducted with the Matses, a group of hunter-gatherer forest dwellers who have lived in voluntary isolation until fairly recently. Having worked with them for over a decade, returning every year to their villages in the rainforest, Camilla Morelli follows closely the life-trajectories of Matses children, watching them shift away from the forest-based lifestyles of their elders and move towards new horizons crisscrossed by concrete paving, lit by the glow of electric lights and television screens, and centered around urban practices and people. The book uses drawings and photographs taken by the children themselves to trace the children’s journeys—lived and imagined—from their own perspectives, proposing an ethnographic analysis that recognizes children’s imaginations, play, and shifting desires as powerful catalysts of social change.
Review
"Children of the Rainforest traces cultural change over several decades in small communities of Matses speakers. The area encompasses the upper reaches of the Amazon in Peru and Brazil. The Matses have been buffeted by the usual outside forces affecting the indigenous peoples of Amazonia, but Morelli’s focus is on how change affects childhood and the reverse, how children contribute to change. She achieves a unique perspective having visited the Matses community annually since 2010. Her first-hand accounts are extended back in time through extensive ethnohistorical interviews with key informants. Another characteristic of Morelli’s work is the thoroughness with which she documents children’s perspectives using continuous observation, conversations, child-drawings and child-produced photographs and animation....
This brief summary of Children of the Forest barely conveys the significance of this grand accomplishment. Seldom has childhood been studied so thoroughly nor yielded so many original findings. This is a must read for anthropologists who study childhood and scholars across the spectrum interested in the process of social change."
David Lancy's full review is available for download on Research Gate.