Gold and others: mining and contamination in Yanomami experiences and concepts

• Grant number: 20/12857-7
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Scientific Initiation
• Start date: February 01, 2021
• End date: January 31, 2023
• Field of knowledge: Humanities - Anthropology - Indigenous Ethnology
• Principal Investigator: Valeria Mendonça de Macedo
• Grantee: Julia Motta Siscar Salomão
• Host Institution: Escola de Filosofia, Letras e Ciências Humanas (EFLCH). Universidade Federal de São Paulo (UNIFESP). Campus Guarulhos. Guarulhos , SP, Brazil

Abstract

The project aims to gather information and articulate analyzes on the gold rush in Yanomami lands and its connections with experiences of illness and destruction of the forest and its beings. The research includes a historical reconstitution from the first records of the presence of miners in the Yanomami Indigenous Land to the present days, when the covid-19 to it were brought by the massive return of the garimpo. Anthropological works, journalistic reports, statements on social media, iconographic and filmic materials and other internet records concerning the Yanomami will be sources of the research. Yanomami concepts will be in focus, for whom the gold hunger of non-indigenous people is associated with their predatory power and passion for goods. The main reference will be the book The falling sky, written by the Yanomami shaman Davi Kopenawa in partnership with the anthropologist Bruce Albert. The work can be read as an astute counter-anthropology (or a reverse anthropology) of the Whites, the "people of the commodity". The shaman points out that not only the Yanomami, but the Whites and all beings on earth are threatened by the lust for gold, the destruction of the forest and the spread of diseases arising from the smoke that pollutes the air, rivers and bodies, threatening the very existence of the world. The current campaign "Fora garimpo, fora covid!" Will also be analyzed, in which the Yanomami participate with the Yekuana people and support organizations.