Life on the riverside: quilombola perceptions about the water cycles and their transformations in time

• Grant number: 19/10919-8
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships abroad - Research Internship - Doctorate
• Start date: July 27, 2019
• End date: January 24, 2020
• Field of knowledge: Humanities - Anthropology - Anthropology of Afro-Brazilian Populations
• Principal Investigator: Felipe Ferreira Vander Velden
• Grantee: Izadora Pereira Acypreste
• Supervisor: Mark Harris
• Host Institution: Centro de Educação e Ciências Humanas (CECH). Universidade Federal de São Carlos (UFSCAR). São Carlos , SP, Brazil
• Institution abroad: University of St Andrews, Scotland
• Associated to the scholarship: 16/07212-1 - Trees and plants: an ethnography of daily life in the black rural communities of Sertão of Northern Minas Gerais, BP.DR

Abstract

This project intends to propose carry out a research internship abroad for six months (from July 2019 to January 2020) in the Department of Social Anthropology at the University of St. Andrews, in the United Kingdom. The aim is to develop, under professor Mark Harris's guidance, activities related to my ongoing Doctorate degree research with quilombolas who live on the left bank of São Francisco river, in Januária city, in the north of Minas Gerais state. I intend to specifically discuss part of the ethnographic material concerning the riverside (beira do rio) way of life - the supervisor's main investigation focus - bringing questions originated from the sanfranciscan context to dialogue with the amazonian context and seeking subsides to understand the interconnections among river, people, animals, plants and the transformations caused by the changes in tempo (time). From the ethnographic data, especially those that present how the people's life is captured and constantly adapted by the water rhythms, the proposal is to progress in the anthropological literature and in the reflections about the topic during the internship abroad. Thus, the performance of BEPE at St. Andrews may contribute to the deepening of reflections about the riverside life, especially because of the approximation with the discussions elaborated by the supervisor, who has reflected about the roles of the rivers as agents which shape the lives of the groups that live throughout their courses.