I, native, we, Ialanawinai: Baniwa reflections on white alterity

Abstract

Fieldwork has implications that go beyond, in many ways, research objectives. In the anthropological experience, the researcher observes and experiences very different intellectual issues, and not only his. In this article, I describe and analyze, particularly, those that Baniwa - people who live on the banks of Icana River and its tributaries in the Northwest Amazon - posed with the intention of understanding myself during fieldwork. The attempt is to reveal a Baniwa anthropology and evaluate the possibility of understanding it as reverse, in the sense coined by Roy Wagner. The result of these considerations points to the understandings of Baniwa about white alterity, highlighting who we are, the Ialanawinai.