Between yards and gated communities: a study on the relationship between humans and animals in Quilombola Community of Carmo (São Roque/SP)

• Grant number: 15/01893-4
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Scientific Initiation
• Start date: May 01, 2015
• End date: April 30, 2016
• Field of knowledge: Humanities - Anthropology - Anthropology of Afro-Brazilian Populations
• Principal Investigator: Geraldo Luciano Andrello
• Grantee: Luisa Amador Fanaro
• Host Institution: Centro de Educação e Ciências Humanas (CECH). Universidade Federal de São Carlos (UFSCAR). São Carlos , SP, Brazil

Abstract

This research aims to conduct a study on the relationships between the inhabitants of quilombo community of Carmo (located in São Roque / SP) and animals - pet, working, breeding, wild and others - taking by ethnographic focus the social life and quilombolas' daily activities in which occur practical and symbolic interactions between humans and animals. For such purpose, the research will have as background the widespread environmental degradation in the region, caused by the expansion of the urban area of São Roque, central point that, it suggests, was and is responsible for all a transformation of the very native notion of nature and the relationships between humans and animals. The symbolic presence of animals, both on the stories of the past as in present religious, cultural and policy practices, can configured itself as a way of territoriality reconstruction of the quilombo that, right now, awaits the necessary anthropological studies for its territorial recognition. Furthermore, in order to sustain the discussion about human-animal relations, will be sought-throughout this study the native notion of what we call environment/nature, since Carmo's inhabitants certainly interweave different relationships and construct different narratives about what we call the natural world. This research focus will be, then, learn how Carmo's quilombolas and animals interrelate, in order to find out what are animals and what can they in a rural-quite urbanized neighborhood that has the specificity of being a quilombola territory. Note that we know very little, yet, on relations with animals in Brazilian quilombola communities.