Cosmology and tourism among the Taurepáng

• Grant number: 17/19647-5
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Master
• Start date: December 01, 2017
• End date: August 31, 2019
• Field of knowledge: Humanities - Anthropology - Theory of Anthropology
• Principal Investigator: Geraldo Luciano Andrello
• Grantee: Caio Monticelli
• Host Institution: Centro de Educação e Ciências Humanas (CECH). Universidade Federal de São Carlos (UFSCAR). São Carlos , SP, Brazil

Abstract

This project focuses on the participation of the Taurepáng in the tourist activity that has been consolidating in Indigenous Land in the north of the state of Roraima. The research will be conducted in the community of Bananal, located in a forest region, surrounded by many waterfalls and at the foot of the mountain range of Pacaraima, which marks the border between Brazil and Venezuela. With experience in receiving tourists, this community is a local reference because some of its residents are formed as drivers of visitors through natural landscapes. However, tourism among the Taurepáng still raises many internal controversies. It turns out that they have not yet been able to equate precisely certain variables in question: in addition to devotees to Seventh-day Adventism, who imprinted a rhythm proper to community life, the spaces that tourism seeks are conceived by the Taurepáng as the abode of a diversity of spirits , and therefore dangerous. As this new activity is getting more prominent in the regional scenario, especially with the growing interest of specialized agencies, it is intended to approach the following issues: (1) how the Taurepáng intend to operate tourism through places and trails that do not attend without a series of care, because they are the home of other beings? (2) to what extent does this activity, in the context of a self-centered community, correspond to too much openness to the outside, and can then threaten local daily rule? (3) why stories about Kanaimé, a category of secret killer using witchcraft to kill, have been intensifying in parallel with current debates about tourism? (AU)