Abstract

SILLA, Rolando. Marcelo Bórmida and Ayoreo Objects: A Pioneering Analysis of the So-Called Ontological Turn in Latin American Anthropology. Rev. colomb. antropol. [online]. 2026, vol.62, n.1, e3012.  Epub Jan 01, 2026. ISSN 0486-6525.  https://doi.org/10.22380/2539472x.3012.

The tautegoric ethnology developed by Marcelo Bórmida (1925-1978) represents the first—and perhaps the only—distinctive anthropological approach originating in Argentina. Its fundamental premise is that myth is essential for understanding culture and should not be regarded as an allegory, but rather as something true for those who articulate it. In this article, I focus on Bórmida's final research projects, conducted during the 1970s, in which he carried out a phenomenological analysis of Ayoreo material culture in the Northern Bolivian Chaco. These studies make it clear that it is not feasible to ask what a particular object means for this indigenous group; instead, what that object is for them. In this way, Bórmida anticipates what we now refer to as the ontological turn.

Keywords : Marcelo Bórmida; Ayoreo; myth; material culture; phenomenology; ontological turn.

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