Omens and effect: divergent perspectives on emerillon time, space and existence

When scientists present their versions of the world - in writing, maps, numbers, inventories, figures - they pose their imprint upon it. Like omens, their descriptions not only reflect the world, they do things, they have effect.

The author has worked with the Emerillon (Teko) of French Guiana since 1989, both as an anthropologist and as a filmmaker and collaborator in media productions.

Omens and Effect traces the tangible effects of established scientific descriptions in the daily life of the Emerillon, and explores the creative activities the Emerillon have engaged in to counter such omens, opposing them with their own inventive and optimistic descriptions of the world, and their place and possibilities within it.

What appears to be a classic monograph, establishing the veracity about Emerillon past and present, evolves into a playful analysis of a semiotic field of tension about what goes into the category "Emerillon", a struggle for definitions, for the right to make them - and to make them count.