Out of the three major cultural groups of Amazonia—tribal Amerindians, recent settlers form other areas and locally born non-Indians—the latter group is the most substantial, yet understudied. Chibnik considers the locally born, non-tribal residents in the tropical lowlands of Bolivia, Brazil and Peru in his attempt at finding workable definitions for the terminological categories used to describe them: caboclo, camba, cholo and ribereño. He reviews how anthropologists over the years have attempted to define the term, ‘ethnic group’ itself noting the particular challenge of distinguishing ethnicity from class. In trying to distill the meanings of the four ethnicities discussed here, Chibnik finds that occupational and regional associations bear significant influence on ethnic groupings. In some cases, he finds that boundaries and contrasts, especially concerning history and demography, can be more useful for defining a group than describing the group itself.

Providing the historical contexts of colonization per country, and using research methods that rely in part upon the analysis of last names, Chibnik outlines the dynamic and evolving meanings of each quasi-ethnic group, including the similarities and differences among them. The over-arching definition for a Brazilian caboclo in the Amazon is a poor, rural or urban, non-Indian and non-recent settler. A loose definition of a Peruvian ribereño sees them as exclusively rural, of any social class and non-Indian. A Peruvian cholo is a detribalized, acculturated, unassimilated Indian that does not generally marry out of his or her group. The term, cholo is regarded as derogatory and is not used for self-description. In Bolivia, camba has two meanings, either denoting anyone from the country’s eastern lowlands or signaling a lower-class, mestizo small farmer living near the city of Santa Cruz. The author concludes that conventional notions about what constitutes ethnicity are almost totally inapplicable to these groups.

Prepared by Megan Glore