Sistemas interétnicos, mirada etnográfica e investigación histórica en el Nororiente de Venezuela durante la época colonial

Abstract

During the colonial times, the Northeastern Venezuela region was featured by the contrast between different ethnic and cultural groups. The reconstruction of these contrasts has required the projection of the theoretical bases of the ethnographic method towards scopes which imply both othernesses in time and in space. This paper illustrates how this method, more than a technique of data collection, is itself a theoretical look that allows the relativization of the analyst’s own culture and the approach towards world views that diverge with the observer’s point of view. In the first section, the relevance of the ethnographic looks for critiquing the analyst’s culture of reference, inside the historical study of the multicultural frontiers, is argued. In the second section, the application of this perspective on the Noreastern Venezuela’s frontiers, during the colonial times, is illustrated. In this main section, the focus is on the importance of this look as a resource of cultural self-critique; the approach of other ways of cultural irreflexivities; and the recognition of different ways of social complexity. Finally, this papers opens the reflection around the analytic limits of the separation between History and Anthropology, doubt their potential ethnocentric biases in the study of the past’s cultural differences.