The death of the "watu": approximations between the Krenak and the Rio Doce disaster

• Grant number: 17/23598-0
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Scientific Initiation
• Start date: March 01, 2018
• End date: December 31, 2018
• Field of knowledge: Humanities - Anthropology - Indigenous Ethnology
• Principal Investigator: Joana Cabral de Oliveira
• Grantee: Bianca van Steen Mello Laurino
• Host Institution: Instituto de Filosofia e Ciências Humanas (IFCH). Universidade Estadual de Campinas (UNICAMP). Campinas , SP, Brazil

Abstract

The present project proposes an approximation between ethnographic literature regarding the indigenous Krenak people with scientific and academic productions on the Rio Doce disaster. In this way, we intend to better understand how this population was affected by the largest Brazilian ecological disaster in recent times and what are the dimensions implicated in the "death of watu" - the manner in which the Krenak refer to the consequences of the bursting of the Fundão dam and the consequent billions of liters of mud and mining refuse spilled out into the river bed. Through the perspective of anthropology of science, as well as anthropological studies in ecology, the research here proposed intends to collaborate in the mapping of this tragedy, articulating aspects of krenak cosmology. (AU)