The Current Impact of Motorcycle Motorisation on Amazonian Indigenous Peoples

During the last century, the indigenous South American Lowlands have been colonized by steamboats, railways, trucks, chainsaws, fire-weapons and electric generators introduced by missionaries, extractive industries, armies, development projects, and NGOs.

However, anthropological and historical research has largely neglected this mechanic colonisation of indigenous life by focusing on topics such as ideologies of personhood, kinship, cosmology, and relations with animals, religious missions and non-human spirits.

Aiming at understanding social change, some studies have dealt with some of the new materialities that model everyday experience: t-shirts, outboard motors, solar panels, and cell phones.

Nevertheless, not even a single study has analysed a conspicuous fact of the modernization of these marginal territories: the current tide of motorcycles that during the last few decades altered dramatically the interethnic landscape, and its social, economic and environmental repercussions which are significantly reshaping current indigenous reality.

Therefore, the goal is to develop a ground breaking and interdisciplinary analysis of the effects of motorcycle dissemination among the indigenous peoples of Bolivian Amazonia, and to achieve practical impact regarding public policies on road safety and prevention of accidents in marginal contexts.

By accomplishing the Work-Packages in my host institution Ca’ Foscari University (UNIVE), the project will therefore fill a significant gap in anthropological studies regarding indigenous modernity, while at the same time consolidating my position as a professor and researcher with updated capacities on visual and environmental anthropology, gender issues, science and technology studies, and digital humanities.