Ecology of Silence: perception, transformation and ethnography in isolated Amazon's indigenous collectives

• Grant number: 15/12658-6
• Support Opportunities: Regular Research Grants
• Start date: September 01, 2015
• End date: February 28, 2018
• Field of knowledge: Humanities - Anthropology - Indigenous Ethnology
• Principal Investigator: Uirá Felippe Garcia
• Grantee: Uirá Felippe Garcia
• Host Institution: Escola de Filosofia, Letras e Ciências Humanas (EFLCH). Universidade Federal de São Paulo (UNIFESP). Campus Guarulhos. Guarulhos , SP, Brazil

Abstract

This research project has a triple purpose: the first is of ethnographic order, the second, of conceptual order, and the third of methodological order. The ethnographic objective is the study of existing relations between "in villages" and "in isolation" groups of an Amerindian collective, the Awá-Guaja, where such phenomenon can be found. The conceptual reflection aims the study of ideas such as "voluntary isolation" and "isolated people", for the construction of several hypotheses capable of lightening a theme that until recent, has been little explored in South-American ethnology. Finally, the methodological purpose aims to formulate a study mechanism from the Awá-Guajá's concepts on the subject - something like a meta-ethnography -, in order to build up a theoretic-ethnographic basis about groups that live in voluntary isolation. The intent is to focus on a particular empirical point of view, which, according to this project, seems to be the best tool for the understanding of people that refuse contact. (AU)