Shamanic alliance in the touristic borderzone: Strategic hospitality at Surama Eco-Lodge in Guyana

Abstract

This article explores how villagers in Surama form alliances with outsiders through strategic hospitality within the touristic borderzone. Surama is a primarily Makushi village in Guyana. Tourism began during the 1990s and is now central to the village economy. Villagers' efforts to form relationships with certain visitors (particularly tourist leaders) as partners or yakos through hospitality reflect an ontological framework associated with shamanism. This involves relational modes of interaction that are common across Amazonia but have been underexamined in the context of tourism. However, Makushi alliances with outsiders in Surama are unique in their emphasis on mutuality and symmetry, which stems from past Makushi experiences of enslavement during the colonial encounter and antipathy towards asymmetric relations. Based on fieldwork involving interviews and participant observation in Surama, this article links debates in Amazonian ethnology and the anthropology of tourism to examine how villagers in Surama manage relations with tourists to obtain external resources.