Extranjeros sin fronteras. Alteridad, nombre e historia entre los Yaminawa

Abstract

Taking as an example the indigenous Amazonian people known as the Yaminahua, this article discusses the concepts of identity and change found in some ethnic communities of the Pano group, considering the exchanges and the interethnic relationships within this "ethnolinguistic" group, with other indigenous peoples and with "Whites", as well as matrimonial alliances (between potential "enemies"), the relationships between "neighbours" and between relatives, and the constant schisms within a large section of the Pano. The author analyses the recognition of identifications by others as auto-identification and the ethnic-social classification of other Pano-speaking populations, both variable and complex, through analyses of the "nawa" concept and of ethnic-social designations that connect this concept with other elements, not as ethnological constructions, but as social resources of the indigenous peo-ples themselves, under various specific conditions concerning the construction of identity of their social nuclei.