Children of the Rainforest: Shaping the Future in Amazonia

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.

Author: Camilla Morelli
Publisher: Rutgers University Press
Published: 06/16/2023
Pages: 170
Binding Type: Paperback
Weight: 0.70lbs
Size: 8.90h x 5.90w x 0.60d
ISBN13: 9781978825215
ISBN10: 1978825218
BISAC Categories:
- Social Science | Children's Studies
- Social Science | Indigenous Studies
- Social Science | Ethnic Studies | Caribbean & Latin American Studies

About the Author
Camilla Morelli is a lecturer in social anthropology at the University of Bristol, UK.

Roldán Dunú Tumi Dësi is an Indigenous Amazonian anthropologist with a degree in anthropology from the Universidad Nacional de la Amazonía Peruana (UNAP) in Iquitos, Peru.