Between houses and lakes: ethnography of the production of water-lily salt among the aweti people (Tupi) of the Upper Xingu river (MT, Brazil)

• Grant number: 20/04333-8
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Master
• Effective date (Start): June 01, 2020
• Effective date (End): May 31, 2022
• Field of knowledge: Humanities - Anthropology - Indigenous Ethnology
• Principal Investigator: Marina Vanzolini Figueiredo
• Grantee: Yuri Werner Biguetti Winkler
• Host Institution: Faculdade de Filosofia, Letras e Ciências Humanas (FFLCH). Universidade de São Paulo (USP). São Paulo , SP, Brazil

Abstract

This research project has as its main goal to discuss the notions of kinship and ownership among the Aweti people, tupi-speakers who inhabit the Upper Xingu River region. Through an ethnographic approach of the production of native water-lily salt, we aim to: 1. Investigate the relations between humans and plants with an interest in rethink dichotomies such as wild/domesticated and not planted/planted. 2. To understand what roles notions like affinity and consanguinity play in the relations between humans, and between the latter and non-humans. 3. To look carefully at a type of relation that is recurrent in the region, known as ownership, which is connected to broader issues involving the tensions between symmetry and asymmetry in the lowland south american ethnology. Therefore, we intend to amplify not only our knowledge about the Aweti people, but to take part in the current discussions about human-plant relations in the various amazon socio-cosmologies. (AU)

Academic Publications

(References retrieved automatically from State of São Paulo Research Institutions)

WINKLER, Yuri Werner Biguetti. Gardens of children and affines: agriculture and kinship in amerindian athnology. 2023. Master's Dissertation - Universidade de São Paulo (USP). Faculdade de Filosofia, Letras e Ciências Humanas (FFLCH/SBD) São Paulo.