The pirarucu net: Artefact, animism and the technical object

Abstract

This article explores the decision of a group of Amazonian lake fishermen to ban the use of nets to catch the pirarucu fish as part of an official agreement. It discusses the approach to artefacts found in the agentive turn and in recent explorations of Amazonian animism in Anthropology. It adopts the concept of technical object influenced by the anthropological approach to technology and in line with the ontogenetic perspective of Gilbert Simondon. The main focus is the way in which the fishermen compare the different modes of existence of the harpoon and the net. For them, the pirarucu net is a poor way to catch fish since it captures by itself, which is a form of cowardice in relation to the fish and drives them away. The ethnography centres on the operation of these objects and the way in which different properties of the fishermen and fish emerge through these processes.