Teaching Properties Re: Borofsky, Robert.

Teaching Properties

Re: Borofsky, Robert. (2005) Yanomami: The Fierce Controversy and What We Can Learn From It. Berkley: The University of California Press.

An open letter to the AAA:

Robert Borofsky's 2005 text, Yanomami: The Fierce Controversy and What We Can Learn From It, highlights how the serious human rights abuses that occurred while researching the titular Amazonian tribe are emblematic of the problems inherent in the discipline of anthropology. This tribe's status as a seminal test case, as noted in Borofsky makes the case of the Yanomami not simply a compelling humanitarian issue, but an issue of note for academic study. The Yanomami provide a textbook case of how not to conduct an investigation and research study according to AAA standards. (Borofsky, 2005, p.4)

The Yanomami have long and erroneously been characterized as a tribe of slash and burn agriculture and a people who exist in a state of constant warfare. (Borofsky, 2005, p.5) Yet, comparatively speaking, anthropologists have contended with such a reductive view of the Yanomami. The tribe actually, according to Patrick Tierney "have a low level of homicide by world standards of tribal culture" (Borofsky, 2005, p.30) Tierney accused one of the original anthropologists who chronicled the Yanomami, James Neel, to have forgotten appropriate styles of fieldwork and research. Instead, Neel "went for adventure, violence, sex, and, of course, the films," that were the result of his writings on the tribe. (Borofsky, 2005, 44) One of the films of the tribe that were conducted after Neel's work depicted the cremation ritual of a recently deceased woman. But the film crew had provided no medical assistance to the woman while the woman was dying. (Borofsky, 2005, p.32)

At present, the Yanomami have serious health problems that have nothing to do with their military ideology, mythological or real, and the AAA not followed through on its commitment to devise appropriate responses to the current and future conditions of the Yanomami. It has a responsibility to clear the tribe's reputation and to provide the tribe with appropriate health care and support. Despite the fact Neel has financially profited from his work, the tribe did not, and suffers from malaria, flu, and a higher rate of diabetes, like many indigenous peoples. (Borofsky, 2005, p.64)