Markos Panayiotou
Healing in times of the Gold Rush:
The perspectives of Napo Runakuna in Amazonian Ecuador
After more than a decade of mining concessions, the Ecuadorian state has transformed the Province of Napo into a major gold-mining region. This has dramatically affected the health of local communities and environments. The largest Indigenous group in the region, the Kichwa-speaking Napo Runaguna (lit. people of Napo), has sought to come to terms with these changes. In their efforts to gain access to mestizo worlds and foreign markets, members of Runa communities are held accountable for local catastrophes. In local healing practices, these responsibilities are extended to the worlds of shamans and spirits.
How can these patchy scales of more-than-human relationships be captured ethnographically? I seek to understand how bodies become intertwined with biotic and abiotic environments, especially rivers and minerals. In this context, hands emerge as key mediators of local practices, including engagement with the land, the construction of personhood and community, and making ethnographic positionalities visible.
