Branislava Sušnik in antropologija sprememb

The article provides an overview of Branislava Susnik’s linguistic, ethnographic and historical studies in Paraguay, arguing that much of her work can be understood as a far-reaching, multidisciplinary investigation of social change in indigenous societies. It shows how, in each field, her strictly empiricist approach, averse to disciplinary conventions and theoretical formulations, led her to delineate the same fluid, dynamic social matter, permanently crossed by several linguistic, experiential and historical vectors. Following the chronological development of her research, we first analyse her linguistic productions from her first experiences in the Argentine Chaco to her interest in the effects of contact with the colonising front on indigenous languages, and the progressive attention she paid to the phenomena of speech. As for her ethnographic production, the two field studies Susnik conducted among the Ishir (1956-57 and 1968-69) are contrasted, analysing the thematic drift between the emphasis on mythology and ritual life in the first and the lucid and meticulous study of social change in the second. A third section, devoted to her approach to changes in ethnonyms in the historical ethnology of the Chaco, analyses her reconstruction of the region as a dynamic field intertwined by perspectives, cultural and linguistic influences, that determined not only nominal denominations but also the very definition of social units. A final section identifies the methodological tools and central concepts of Sušnik’s anthropology (including her photographic production), designed to record, document and analyse an everchanging object of study.