"Field Burners and Cheese Makers: Reverberations between Pyropolitics and (Agro and Micro)Biodiversity in the Production of Artisanal Cheeses in the Serra da Canastra"

• Grant number: 24/03138-8
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Post-Doctoral
• Start date: September 01, 2024
• End date: August 31, 2026
• Field of knowledge: Humanities - Anthropology - Rural Anthropology
• Principal Investigator: Guilherme Moura Fagundes
• Grantee: Leonardo Vilaça Dupin
• Host Institution: Faculdade de Filosofia, Letras e Ciências Humanas (FFLCH). Universidade de São Paulo (USP). São Paulo , SP, Brazil

Abstract

The present project aims to examine transformations related to the emergence of the integrated fire management policy in Brazilian environmental conservation, reflecting on the relationship between anthropogenic fire regimes and food production. The study will be conducted in one of the Conservation Units (CU) in the Cerrado biome, specifically in the Serra da Canastra National Park, located in the southwest of Minas Gerais. This area has been historically marked by conflicts between CU management and peasant families engaged in cattle farming for milk and cheese production, who renew pastures through controlled burns. The implementation of a socio-environmental conservation experiment through Integrated Fire Management (IFM) began in 2015 as a result of a judicial agreement. The research aims to analyze how the implementation of conservationist fire regimes by state environmental management reconfigures traditional burning practices in the region and, from the perspective of the Canastreiros (local inhabitants), how it alters the organoleptic quality of Canastra cheese. This popular food item has its manufacturing process safeguarded as cultural heritage at various governmental levels. To achieve this, the study will employ ethnographic incursions with peasant families who, once prohibited from burning, are now required to adhere to conservationist values in fire use (intensity, scales, timing, locations, etc.) established by the IFM to renew their property pastures. The guiding problem of the research is to comprehend the reverberations between pyropolitics and (agro and micro) biodiversity in the production of artisanal cheeses in the Serra da Canastra.