Antropocenica 2
Brazil 2023
Embedded Files
View below the audiovisual and photographic record of Antropocenica 2:
The second meeting of the international Antropocenica series took place between 22 August and 2 September 2023 in Santarém do Pará, Brazil, in itinerant form, including a journey along the Tapajós River for activities planned in local communities and a visit to a Quilombo community.
Antropocenica 2 was a joint realisation of the Federal University of Western Pará (through its Institute of Social Sciences, which hosted the encounter), the Wenner-Gren Foundation, the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation, the Foundation for Science and Technology, the Centre for Philosophy of the University of Lisbon and the Nômade, with institutional support from the Centre for Studies in Archaeology, Arts and Heritage Sciences of the University of Coimbra.
An open course for UFOPA students was held from 22 to 25 August 2023, to introduce concepts from the international Antropocénica series and propose the collective elaboration of the World-Amazonia manifesto.
In this second encounter, three structuring axes were proposed, namely: Ancestralities ( I ), Territories ( II ) and Crossings ( III ). Such axes provide a broader thematic context, through which are interconnected: human memories and experiences across time ( I ), of cultures that inhabit and transform landscapes ( II ) and which arrived there through ancient migrations and journeys, including under the violence of enslavement, for instance the transatlantic crossings from Africa to South America during the colonial period ( III ).
We consider the Amazon region as a vast synthesis-territory of the Anthropocene, which includes memories of transformative human presence, from the original peoples (who first transformed extensive Amazonian territories into cultural landscapes) to the African ethnicities who arrived there enslaved (whose descendants inhabit Quilombo communities), from riverside mestizos to inhabitants of expanding cities. In this scenario considered in the present, we encounter contrasting modes of life and production, whether that of subsistence, in intimate relation with the biome, or that of predatory economic exploitation, which accelerates environmental degradation in the Amazon. In this sense, we see in the Amazon region a complex cultural and socio-environmental mosaic, dynamised by factors of colonialist / capitalist economic exploitation over time.
Such a context, in its interaction with global scenarios under the Anthropocene, demands transdisciplinary efforts in the construction of knowledge that must consider the multivocality of historically oppressed ethnicities and communities, who maintain traditional ways of life in relation to territories threatened by predatory economic activities advancing in the world's largest tropical forest.
Although memories are culturally specific to respective ethnicities and historical processes, two factors "unite" these human trajectories expressed in Amazonian landscapes: the violence of enslavement and the violence of economic exploitation of the environment, which considers the biome itself as a natural resource with economic value, thus devastated by diverse activities that impact ancient territories, threatening traditional ways of life that contribute to the very preservation of the Amazon, for instance those of original peoples.
The principal objective in Antropocénica 2 was to foster multivocality in transversal and intercultural dialogues within the proposed axes, through encounters amongst indigenous peoples / Afro-descendants / scholars / artists to reflect upon the Anthropocene, an epoch of ruin production, with expressive evidence both historical and archaeological, whether from the colonial period—such as the vestigial remains of human cultures enslaved in the past, violated in the process of domination of their ancestral territories—or from the experience of contemporary life in the Amazon, under threat from current economic interests that amplify previous processes, with environmental degradation driven by projects such as the construction of the Transamazon Highway during the military dictatorship, alongside new fronts of destruction, for instance the hydroelectric plants constructed, amongst other concerning initiatives in times of Climate Change, such as the oil exploration project at the mouth of the Amazon.
If, in the first transdisciplinary encounter of the international Antropocénica series in Portugal, we centred discussions around the Global South and selected the Amazon as "synthesis-territory" of the complex questions and human impacts under the Anthropocene, this time, in Antropocénica 2, we deepened such reflections in situ, together with the people who dwell there and directly confront the impacts at hand.
We brought together academics, artists and local leaderships from amongst the indigenous, Quilombo and riverside communities of the Amazon region, in joint intercultural dialogues, with the exchange of knowledge and experiences, in dynamics conducive to interaction towards the construction of new postures for the problems we face today. To this end, we addressed substantial aspects of the memory and history of the cultures considered, under the three main axes referred to above—Ancestralities, Territories and Crossings—thus encouraging the interweaving of multiple critical dimensions involved in the problematic of colonisation, enslavement, poverty, predatory exploitation and the environment in ruins.
Complete programme available in the sphere below:
Opening
Writer and Philosopher
Coordination Antropocenica 2
Brasil 2023
Archaeologist . Programa de Antropologia e Arqueologia . Universidade Federal do Oeste do Pará
Archaeologist . Programa de Antropologia e Arqueologia . Universidade Federal do Oeste do Pará
Philosopher . Centro de Filosofia . Universidade de Lisboa
Artist, Architect and Archaeologist . Centro de Estudos em Arqueologia, Artes e Ciências do Património . Universidade de Coimbra
International Guests
Essayist . UNIDCOM / IADE
Universidade Federal do Amazonas . Universidade Pedagógica de Moçambique
Faculdade de Letras . Centro de Estudos Sociais . Universidade de Coimbra
Visual Artist
Archaeologist . Centro de Estudos em Arqueologia, Artes e Ciências do Património . Universidade de Coimbra
Storyteller . Mediateca Onshore . DINÂMIA'CET-ISCTE
Political Scientist, Internationalist and Sociologist . Universidade de Cabo Verde
National Guests
Writer and Philosopher
Malungu . Conselho Regional Baixo Amazonas
Archaeologist from Quilombo of Murumurutuba
Elinalda Kumaruara
Archaeologist . Universidade Federal do Oeste do Pará
Enilda Borari
Nheengatu Teacher and Holder of Recognised Traditional Knowledge
Anthropologist . Programa de Antropologia e Arqueologia . Universidade Federal do Oeste do Pará
Filmmaker
Luanda Francine Garcia da Costa
Psychoanalyst . Centro de Filosofia . Universidade de Lisboa
Cacique of the Munduruku and Apiaká Indigenous Territories
Mario Bentes
President of the Quilombo of Murumurutuba
Mário Augusto Pantoja de Sousa
President of the Federation of Quilombola Organisations of Santarém · Quilombo of Murumuru
Anthropologist . Programa de Antropologia e Arqueologia . Universidade Federal do Oeste do Pará
Rafaela dos Santos Pinto
Archaeologist from Quilombo of Murumurutuba
Indigenist
Kumaruara Council of the Lower Tapajós
Art
Visual Identity and Website Design
Silvio Luiz Cordeiro
Documentation
Karla Watkins
Assistants
Christian Ruan de Almeida Santos
Mayara dos Santos Ramos de Sá
Wellington Araújo Ruiz
Additional Images
Dirk Michael Hennrich
Luanda Francine
Maria da Conceição Lopes
Silvio Luiz Cordeiro
Open Letter
Translation
German
Dirk Michael Hennrich
Spanish
Miguel Aparicio Suárez
English
Philip De Lacy White
Participants
Ailton Krenak
Ana Nolasco
Anne Rapp Py Daniel
Benedito Mota
Carlitos Luis Sitoie
Catarina Martins
César Schofield Cardoso
Christian Ruan de Almeida Santos
Claide de Paula Moraes
Dirk Michael Hennrich
Elaine Pinto
Elinalda Kumaruara
Enilda Borari
Florêncio Almeida Vaz Filho
Jorge Bodanzky
Karla Watkins
Luanda Francine
Manoel Batista da Rocha
Maria da Conceição Lopes
Marinho Pina
Mário Augusto Pantoja de Sousa
Mario Bentes
Mayara dos Santos Ramos de Sá
Miguel Aparício Suárez
Odair Barros-Varela
Rafaela Pinto
Rosita Watkins
Silvio Luiz Cordeiro
Sydney Possuelo
Wellington Araújo Ruiz
Zenilda Kumaruara
Google Sites
Report abuse