Ecology beyond nature: possible connections between the notions of Gaia and Terra-floresta (Urihi a)

• Grant number: 21/14483-0
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Scientific Initiation
• Start date: July 01, 2022
• End date: December 31, 2023
• Field of knowledge: Humanities - Anthropology - Theory of Anthropology
• Principal Investigator: Renato Sztutman
• Grantee: Moises Souza de Sena
• Host Institution: Faculdade de Filosofia, Letras e Ciências Humanas (FFLCH). Universidade de São Paulo (USP). São Paulo , SP, Brazil

Abstract

This research aims to investigate, from an anthropological point of view, how some of the recent discussions promoted by ethnology and the field of Science Studies rethink the ecological issue beyond the modern idea of Nature. Based on contemporary problematizations of the nature/society distinction, we seek to understand the extent to which anthropology can contribute to ecological thinking in terms of opening up to the various ways of thinking about the Earth and environmental collapse. For this, two notions are mobilized: Gaia and Earth-forest (Urihi-a). The first concerns the use that Bruno Latour and Isabelle Stengers make of the scientific theory of Gaia to raise the question of the multiplicity of worlds and existents; the second refers to the notion mobilized by the shaman Davi Kopenawa to describe the Earth and its inhabitants in terms of Yanomami cosmology, as opposed to Western concepts.(AU)