Binary Thinking and the Study of Yoeme Indian Lutu'uria/Truth

Abstract

Arguing that anthropological uses of "supernatural" rarely provide accurate portrayals of others' lifeworlds, this essay historizes ethnographic tropes including decontextualization and binary thinking. Through decontextualization and binary thinking, anthropologists have remained insensitive to the epistemic violence working to peripheralize tribal ways of knowing. Drawing from fieldwork with the Yoeme Indians of northwest Mexico, this author demonstrates what is at stake and what can be gained by utilizing non-english words and concepts to understand better the standpoint of epistemologies grounded in indigenous ritual.