Bioethics, Culture and Infanticide in Brazilian Indigenous Communities

I suspect that, among other effects, the article will produce a feeling of anachronism among readers that have accompanied the recent developments in the ethnology of South American indigenous cultures. It seems to me that this failure, certainly attributable in part to the limitations of perspective that constitute one of the prices and risks of disciplinary specialization, does not fundamentally jeopardize the position defended by the authors towards the public debates concerning infanticide practice among indigenous peoples. On the contrary, I even think that the type of intervention they defend gains relevance by offering a counterpoint to the antinomies entailed by the contraposition of culturalist and universalist partis pris which had informed the discussion on the matter. However, given the limitations of space provided for this commentary, I choose to offer here only an ethnological critique of the interpretations given by the authors, from the point of view of the ethnographic data presented in the article – a critique which I hope will be received as an incentive for future reevaluations of their arguments. When I refer to the feeling of " anachronism " that a possible reader may experience when reflecting on this article, I have in mind the postulate , openly recognized by the authors themselves , that an understanding of the cultural reasons for indigenous infanticide practices must be the point of departure for any debate focusing on indigenous infanticide. However, it seems to me that indigenous infanticide practices are not only better understood than the authors allow us to think, but also – and this is my main point – that they are understood in a significantly different way than that underpinned by the perspective in which the article situates them. Quite explicity in the typological grouping of motivations for infan-ticide with which the authors begin their argument (a quite generalist typological construction lacking explicitly cited ethnographic sources for its argumentation), but, in fact, throughout the entire article, there is a repeated reduction of the indigenous infanticide to a kind of birth control method and adaptation to adverse conditions for survival. The more general and evident implication of the reiteration of this type of procedure is the establishment of a functionalist image of indigenous societies, based on which exotic or horrific customs (according to the criteria of our own cultural sensitivity), like infanticide itself, are interpreted in terms of their practical usefulness for the given community. …