Circulating between Rural and Urban Communities: Multi-sited dwellings in Amazonian frontiers

This article argues that processes of indigenous urbanization in Amazonia differ from other types of migrations in the region. Indigenous migrations rarely signify full-time absences or dislocations from communities of origin nor necessarily the permanent moving to towns, but rather individuals positioning themselves in various degrees as potentially indigenous urbanites, creating a wide series of active links between cities and communities. By indigenous urbanization I refer to both the increased presence of indigenous peoples in cities as well as the growth of cities due to indigenous populations and argue for more nuanced attention to unique aspects of indigenous urbanization processes. After providing an overview of the various relationships and residence arrangements that link different indigenous Ese Eja communities to their closest urban centers in Amazonian Peru and Bolivia I turn my attention toward one community and town, describing some of the detailed and nuanced interactions, attitudes and dynamics associated with a combined and complex rural-urban existence. I focus in particular on the ways in which people craft urban and rural aspects of self, and the strategic interactions that these positionalities might entail across different types of communities and towns as individuals fashion themselves both as ‘urban’ subjects and as ‘indigenous others’. Furthermore, this paper contributes to debates that reconsider the relationships between the city and the rural in emerging literatures on indigenous cosmopolitanism arguing that lived experiences of navigating cityscapes need to feature more prominently in Amazonian ethnographies.