Humanity, personhood and transformability in Northern Amazonia

In this chapter we offer an explanation of the difference between humanity and personhood based on observations of the importance given by native Amazonians to a certain capacity of subjects to transform themselves. This implies that humanity is a power to be feared as well as to be cultivated, and represents a challenge to the traditional view of human beings as constituting a convivial community synonymous with kinship. Meanwhile, it supports previous theoretical interpretations of the Amazonian social subject as lacking a centre, not only a hybrid but also composed of recursive or nested oppositions corresponding to the relationship between consanguinity and affinity.