Monkey forest: a study of indigenous forms of action and thinking about primates and the forest in times of environmental crisis

• Grant number: 18/07793-0
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships abroad - Research
• Start date: January 20, 2019
• End date: September 19, 2019
• Field of knowledge: Humanities - Anthropology - Indigenous Ethnology
• Principal Investigator: Uirá Felippe Garcia
• Grantee: Uirá Felippe Garcia
• Host Investigator: Marisol de la Cadena
• Host Institution: Escola de Filosofia, Letras e Ciências Humanas (EFLCH). Universidade Federal de São Paulo (UNIFESP). Campus Guarulhos. Guarulhos , SP, Brazil
• Institution abroad: University of California, Davis (UC Davis), United States

Abstract

Based on ethnographic research, this project explores conceptual and comparatively recent issues on Indigenous Ethnology and the Multispecies Studies, in order to discuss animal knowledge practices in Amazonian socialities. The project focus on different forms of "hunting", "breeding" and "handling" the animals. Conceptually, the project fits into the more general debate of the criticisms raised by an anthropology interested in life / nature that the contemporary humanities and nonhumanities (and natures) think of as "interspecies entanglements," as Tsing (2015) points out. From a set of works that have been linked to "multispecies studies", I intend to reexamine - through my own ethnography as well as other research on ethnology - a central discussion in Amazonian sociality, which is the debate between hunting and breeding. Ethnographically, the project focuses on the forms of action and understanding of Guajá (indigenous peoples of the eastern Amazon) related to various species of primates - especially the howler monkeys (Alouatta belzebul) - in the face of the acute process of destruction of their territories.