Living along oil roads

This photo essay explores the lives of Waorani people living along oil roads.  Waorani people, hunter-gatherers from Ecuadorian Amazonia, accepted peaceful contact in the late 1950’s; since then they have navigated a series of changes which are bodily experienced.

In Amazonia the theory that the body is socially made, and society is bodily constructed is well established. Thus, Waorani bodily changes are of particular relevance for their social reproduction. They perceive that their exposure to “chemicals” along oil roads affects their bodies, which Waorani people describe as  'becoming weaker'. Among the pollutants that Waorani people mention, they highlight: processed food, biomedicine, and oil-related noise and smoke.