Partnerships and disputes between knowledge on the caiçaras plantations: an ethnography of political-scientific relations in Jureia (SP)

• Grant number: 17/14789-6
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Doctorate
• Start date: December 01, 2017
• End date: November 30, 2022
• Field of knowledge: Humanities - Anthropology - Rural Anthropology
• Principal Investigator: Mauro William Barbosa de Almeida
• Grantee: Rodrigo Ribeiro de Castro
• Host Institution: Instituto de Filosofia e Ciências Humanas (IFCH). Universidade Estadual de Campinas (UNICAMP). Campinas , SP, Brazil
• Associated scholarship(s): 20/16223-2 - Ethnography of the co-production of knowledge in Jureia (São Paulo-Brazil) and environmental policies in Latin America, BE.EP.DR

Abstract

The objective of this project is to study ethnographically the relations of cooperation and dissension between traditional knowledge and scientific knowledge in the context of social and environmental conflicts involving the caiçaras from Jureia, a region of the Atlantic Forest, located on the south coast of the State of São Paulo (SP). The proposed study represents an unfolding of the research carried out in the master's degree and is motivated by the ideas of political ecology and by the notion that social conflicts around ecological issues involve ontological disputes. The research problem is the environmental impact and social value of traditional plantations in a region inhabited for centuries by caiçaras that, through residents associations, established political-scientific partnerships with academic researchers from different areas of knowledge in order to substantiate the discussions on their rights of permanence and agree agreements with the managing institutions of Jureia territory. To reflect on the social reality focused, some questions are presented that are intended to be discussed with the accompaniment and description of the techniques and technologies mobilized in the realization of caiçara's agricultural system; with an analysis of the partnership between caiçaras and academic researchers, observing how traditional and scientific knowledge operate; through the characterization of the effects of the partnership in the elaboration of agreements with the environmental agencies. To this end, the project will rely on methods of ethnography that include participant observation, scientific coproduction, and life story writing.