Predation is central to the cosmology and lifeways of the Sanema-speaking Indigenous people of Venezuelan Amazonia, but it also marks their experience of modernity under the socialist “Bolivarian” regime and its immense oil wealth. Yet predation is not simply violence and plunder. For Sanema people, it means a great deal more: enticement, seduction, persuasion. It suggests an imminent threat but also opportunity and even sanctuary.
Amy Penfield spent two and a half years in the field, living with and learning from Sanema communities. She discovered that while predation is what we think it is—invading enemies, incursions by gold miners, and unscrupulous state interventions—Sanema are not merely prey. Predation, or appropriation without reciprocity, is essential to their own activities. They use predatory techniques of trickery in hunting and shamanism activities, while at the same time, they employ tactics of manipulation to obtain resources from neighbors and from the state. A richly detailed ethnography, Predatory Economies looks beyond well-worn tropes of activism and resistance to tell a new story of agency from an Indigenous perspective.
"Amy Penfield’s Predatory Economies: The Sanema and the Social State in Contemporary Amazonia examines how the Sanema, an Indigenous people of Venezuelan Amazonia, understand predation in a host of contexts. To the Sanema, Penfield argues, predation is complex and includes acts of seduction, entrapment, persuasion, and even subservience to a powerful other (think of how a parasite can be seen to be slowly predating its host). Like several other Indigenous Amazonian peoples, the Sanema hold predation to be a central part of how the cosmos works, as well as how they figure in it. In developing her account, Penfield builds on the vast literature on how predation in many Amazonian societies transcends hunting parties and warfare to function as a mode of relation. Predation is a concept useful to describe how people are positioned in regard to the bountiful forests that surround their villages, as well as to other ethnic groups. Predation and various connected concepts are also used to make sense of how shamans relate to spirits whose power they seek to harness, and how kin groups incorporate outsiders through capture or adoption. These cases make evident the ambiguity of predatory relations—it is often unclear who is the prey and who is the predator. Shamans and capturers, for instance, might think that they are in control of spirits and adoptees, but is it not the case that, in their attempts to control, seduce, or care for others, they also become controlled?"
Vinicius de Aguiar Furuie's full review of Amy Penfield's book can be found online.