Аspects of Post-Structural Anthropology of Eduardo Viveiros de Castro (Postmodernism as a Language of the Description of Amazonian Tribes’ Mythological Reality: the Trickster’s Simulacra in Shamanism)
Concept: philosophy, religion, culture July 7, 2020 I. Davydov
The author traces the origins of Eduardo Viveiros de Castro's "poststructural anthropology" and assesses its applicability to Religious Studies in contemporary Russia. Using description, historical and comparative analysis, and modelling, the study creates a 3D model of "the shaman's universe" based on de Castro's work, tests its heuristic potential on werewolf beliefs, and examines whether postmodern language can describe Amazonian shamanic worldviews. The analysis concludes that de Castro's ideas derive primarily from Deleuze and Guattari, with background from British social anthropology and Lévi-Strauss's structuralism; postmodern concepts can adequately describe shamanic experience; and the shamanic model of the universe (Chaosmosis) has heuristic value for other religious, mytho-ritual, fantasy, fairy tale, and folklore phenomena.