Flowing poisons, crafting forests: an ethnography of the pharmacopoeia in the Extractive Reserve of Upper Juruá (Acre)

• Grant number: 24/11749-7
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Post-Doctoral
• Start date: September 01, 2025
• End date: August 31, 2027
• Field of knowledge: Humanities - Anthropology - Rural Anthropology
• Principal Investigator: Felipe Ferreira Vander Velden
• Grantee: Priscila Ambrósio Moreira
• Host Institution: Centro de Educação e Ciências Humanas (CECH). Universidade Federal de São Carlos (UFSCAR). São Carlos , SP, Brazil

Abstract

The objective of this research is to describe the sensorial and multispecies ecology in which the pharmacopoeia of the Extractive Reserve of Upper Juruá (Acre) is immersed. The hypothesis will be analyzed is that the relationships mediated by substances produced by plants, whether medicinal or poisonous, precisely due to their dynamic and contingent character, can be excellent for analyzing the most recent temporal scales (post-1492) in forest production. This is an aspect that has received less attention in the historical ecology of neotropical landscapes and is important to indicate the contributions of traditional people to promoting biodiversity. Based on the sensitive qualities of the way in which people think and relate to medicinal and poisonous plants, the research topics of interest will indicate who knows these organisms, how and why they know them, and in what ways the knowledge and uses of these substances are conceived and regarded as agents driving intraspecific and interspecific relationships. In this way, these results will situate the territoriality in this extractive context in light of an ethnography of the pharmacopoeia in a territory with rich repertoire of traditional medicine practices that awaits the collective land title as an Indigenous Land. This research will offer the opportunity to establish dialogues between Biology and Anthropology at the intersection of sensory ecology, chemical ecology and multispecies ethnography. Thus, animal-plant relationships, phytochemistry and landscape constructions can be more widely discussed from different specialists and scientific practices. In this way, the aim is to create conditions to welcome traditional knowledges into university curricula and practices.