Technology Choice in Warrau Canoe Culture: An Ethnographic Case Study

Abstract Technology is selected at the societal level based on both functionally adaptive and socially meaningful considerations. Although the semiotic component of technology choice is frequently recognised in anthropological discourse, it tends to be ignored in ethnographic accounts of technology change in a maritime context, where change in nautical technology is usually interpreted in purely adaptive terms. This article uses a case study approach to explore both adaptive and nonadaptive factors influencing technology choices in the largely traditional maritime society of Imbotero, Guyana. There, Indigenous Warrau people maintain an economy based on horticulture and the exploitation of natural resources and rely upon watercraft for travel in the surrounding mangrove swamp and on adjacent creeks and rivers. During early stages of fieldwork, dugout canoes propelled with paddles were the village’s predominant watercraft type and played key roles in village life, underpinning mobility, the economy, social relationships, and mediating people’s relationship with the aquatic landscape. During subsequent fieldwork, outboard engines on canoes and speedboats were observed to be displacing human-powered propulsion, and the appearance of the first artificially-created, non-agricultural dry land in the village began to change the society’s relationship with its landscape. The symbolic messaging behind these changes is shown to exist alongside functionally adaptive considerations, demonstrating the dual nature of technological choice in an ethnographic maritime context.