The concept of paju in Napo, Ecuador: Scaling the healing powers of plants, objects and climate.
This article explores the Amazonian Kichwa concept of paju in Ecuador's Napo Province, contributing to discussions on the extension of individual bodies to social relations, economic exchanges, and environmental conditions. While anthropological scholarship has often contrasted paju with shamanic kn...
| Publicado en: | European Review of Latin American & Caribbean Studies no. 121; pp. 177 - 195 |
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| Formato: | Artículo |
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Centre for Latin American Research & Documentation (CEDLA)
Jan-Jun2026
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| Acceso en línea: | Ver este registro en EBSCOhost |
| fields | @attributes: recordID: 1 pdfLink: plink: https://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=ssf&AN=196102806&site=ehost-live header: @attributes: shortDbName: ssf uiTerm: 196102806 longDbName: Social Sciences Full Text (H.W. Wilson) uiTag: AN controlInfo: bkinfo: jinfo: jid: 09240608 LU9 jtl: European Review of Latin American & Caribbean Studies issn: 09240608 maglogo: N pubinfo: dt: Jan-Jun2026 iid: 121 pid: 12159 pub: Centre for Latin American Research & Documentation (CEDLA) artinfo: ui: 196102806 ppf: 177 ppct: 18 formats: fmt: @attributes: type: P size: 2.6MB tig: atl: The concept of paju in Napo, Ecuador: Scaling the healing powers of plants, objects and climate. aug: au: Panayiotou, Markos affil: Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München keyword: Amazonian Kichwa Ecuador healing money Napo non-humans dinero Kichwa amazónico no-humanos sanación Amazonian Kichwa Ecuador healing money Napo non-humans dinero Kichwa amazónico no-humanos sanación ab: This article explores the Amazonian Kichwa concept of paju in Ecuador's Napo Province, contributing to discussions on the extension of individual bodies to social relations, economic exchanges, and environmental conditions. While anthropological scholarship has often contrasted paju with shamanic knowledge by portraying it as feminine, cooperative, and oriented towards reciprocity, this article complicates this binary. By challenging the established masculine/ feminine opposition between shamanic knowledge and paju, the article offers a more nuanced account of Indigenous healing practices. Using ethnographic evidence, I demonstrate that paju, like shamanic practices, entails the accumulation of power and, at times, strategic control over knowledge. I argue that the differences between the two lie not in gender or competition but in the attribution of healing powers to different entities and the offering of distinct explanations for illnesses and climatic changes. pubtype: Academic Journal doctype: Article src: R language: English refInfo: copyright: @attributes: flag: N holdings: @attributes: islocal: N |
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