19. Kinship as an Instrument for Coviability: Study Cases in Pará, Amazonia

The notion of nature could be understood from Latour (2004, 2013). (2004, 2013).

The market transforms everything into goods. From the material to the non-physical, from concrete to imaginary, everything is converted into passive marketing. Nature does not escape this imperative movement. Disassociating the human being from its conditions as an entity of nature certainly consolidates nature as another element to be commercialized. Such a movement is born, organized and prevails in the system which today strengthens its dominion over the world. For this system, nature has ceased to be life, mother-earth, Pacha Mama, among so many definitions coming from ontologies that consider life as the imperative organizer of all relationships. As a commodity, nature ceases to be the organized and organizing expression of life, making a conceptual journey that technically taxonomized it to subjugate it as a resource.

The discussion on lifestyle is broad and covers the different areas of knowledge. Given the Amazonian frameworks, this text still makes use of the classical definition of Wirth (1987). The author emphasizes that “… the transition from a rural society to a predominantly urban society taking place within the timespan of a single generation in industrialized areas such as the United States and Japan was accompanied by profound changes and in practically every stage of social life” (Wirth 1987: 90 free translation). The author considers lifestyle from a rural/urban perspective; that is to say, he takes as a reference, sociability and forms of interaction between individuals, individuals and the environment, and even between individuals and natural resources.

Hydro-electric power stations, ports for distributing resources of all types, but especially minerals, transforming the country into a great exporter of commodities.

For a deeper discussion on sustainable development and the approach to ecological economics, see Cavalcanti (2010, 2012), Daly (2002), Daly and Farley (2004).

For more information on this theme, in Amazonian settings, consult Almeida and Ravena-Cañete (2015), Castro and Castro (2015), Castro et al. (2014), among others.

We opted for the word “virtuous” because virtue is the quality of that which is considered desirable and commendable. However, we opted for this word specifically because of the relation of the term “virtuoso” with the skill of using a technique correctly.

In Brazil, the definition of traditional population has penetrated the sphere of public management, summarized by the contributions of social movements and the academic context. The definition of the concept of traditional population occupies a significant position in the discussions of Social Sciences. The definition of traditional population that this text takes as a reference is taken from Ravena-Cañete and Ravena Cañete (2011). For these authors, traditional populations are those that “have a specific way of life marked by the strong symbiosis and relative harmony with the environment in which they live. They develop techniques of low environmental impact. They have feeble interactions with the market. They have a great knowledge of the biodiversity that surrounds them and a mode of production based on family labor. It should be noted that this term is under construction, as it has been created by national society to classify other societies. These populations do not always consider themselves traditional, but they are called so by social actors. Thus, “the so-called ‘traditional’ populations do not have to possess all these characteristics, nor do they have to always self-identify themselves as such. However, they see themselves as having a way of life different from the society which surrounds them in order to access rights inherentto this category” (Ravena-Cañete and Ravena Cañete 2011, online). The discussion on the concept, its trajectory and its uses within the Brazilian framework is broad; to narrow the debate, see Ravena-Cañete (2012).

The State of Pará has a diversity of ecosystems. It would not be possible for this text to describe the environmental and therefore social diversity that characterizes its territory. For an introduction, see Morán (1990).

Kinship studies explored new directions from the Schneider publications (1972). These inaugurated a dissolution of kinship ties from consanguinity, presenting subjectivity as the main component in the construction of these ties. In this way, from Schneider’s viewpoint, kinship did not bind to biological questions, being limited exclusively by subjective choices. Such a resizing eventually transformed the classical approaches into an accessory often seen as a deformed mode, barely useful. However, such approaches, especially the theories of lineage presented by Radcliffe-Brown (1995) and those of alliances investigated by Levi-Strauss (1976), are still important instruments for analyzing and understanding traditional populations, especially in Amazonian cases. To broaden the discussion of kinship between the traditional Amazonian populations, see Ravena-Cañete (2005), Araújo and Schiavoni (2002).

This perspective appears especially in Schneider’s publications (1972) when kinship studies were gaining important. Marked by an interpretative approach, they began to see kinship relations as a social choice totally disconnected from biological constraints. Thus, the importance of these studies changed, as they became a new alternative to interpretive studies for modern society, where relations of kinship result exclusively from social choices.

The first case corresponds to the studies of my updated doctoral dissertation (Ravena-Cañete 2005) while the other two cases emanate from Master theses (Diaz 2013 and Silva 2015) overseen by myself.They highlight kinship as an adaptation strategy against changes imposed by incorporation dynamics of areas and/or activities of the socio-cultural reproduction of the groups studied.

In Brazil, cooperatives are organizations of small local producers, favored by national and regional public policies.

These are interviews without a preliminary question list, contrarily to semi-structured interviews that use a list of questions.

In Pará, Japanese immigration is concentrated especially in Tomé-Açu town, 70 km away from Concórdia do Pará. This town has a large influence in that micro-region and energizes part of the local economy. Homma (2009) situates the arrival of the first Japanese in Amazonia.

Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics.

Flour is the main food for the traditional populations of the Amazon region. The process of its production marks the activities and sociability of these populations. Their primary resource is cassava which is an abundant tuber in the Amazon region.

The land title was consulted during the fieldwork and, indeed, Carlos Guimarães held the title of the land he transmitted to his children as inheritance.

Principle of a non-unilinear mode of filiation, which passes indifferently through men and women.

It is worth recalling Fox’s evocation of the concept of cognate filiation: “Those who opted for living in another place lose the right to belong to the lineage. If a classification of this type is enacted, the group would designate a group with ‘restricted’ cognate filiation. The cognate principle continues to be applied – all descendants of the common ancestor are entitled to the land of the group – but unless they exercise this right, they will lose the land” (Fox 1986: 183).

The field is the local definition for the space where agricultural work takes place; the term also designates the work occurring in that place.

The term “frontier” refers to the classical definition in the Brazilian context, that is, a region with a weak presence of state action, where social agents impose themselves and exert dominance through economic power and violence (de Castro and Hébette 1989).

Literally means task. By extension, it is the local name for a land with specific dimensions of approximately one-half hectare of land, corresponding to the area that a person can take care of individually during the day.

Empeleita comes from ‘to undertake’ (empreitar), i.e., to work according to a task. Empreitada or empreita consists of a contract in which somebody performs a certain task in exchange for a remuneration agreed on in advance.

The manner by which the term “contract” is used between the inhabitants is specific; it should not be understood in the legal sense. It should rather be understood as an agreement between the one who pays for a service and the one who does it.

Product derived from the cassava which makes up the population regime of the whole Brazilian Amazon.

Siblings is the definition of the group of brothers based on a cognitive relationship given by Radcliffe-Brown (1995).

The definition of sib precedes the explanation of that which would become an organization of siblings. For Radcliffe-Brown, “the arrangement of parents by degrees of proximity or distance was based on the sib (in English sib, German Sippe). The sib of a man were all the individuals of the same origin to a certain degree” (Radcliffe-Brown 1995, p.76, free translation).

Defining kinship from a Radcliffe-Brown perspective places this institution on a structural basis, where function and system represent basic concepts in the explanation of a given social fact. The theoretical and methodological orientation should be considered in a way to provide a better understanding of the approach to kinship: “A study of kinship systems, carried out worldwide with this method, reveals that while there is variation of its superficial characteristics, a few general structural principles may be applicable and may combine in various ways. Some of the first tasks of a theoretical study of kinship are to discover these principles through a process of summarized generalization based on analysis and comparison” (Radcliffe-Brown 1995: 60–61, free translation).

The mangrove ecosystem zone on the Brazilian coastline is the second largest in the world. The country has approximately 13,400 km² of mangroves, second to Indonesia which has an area of 42,550 km² (Prost and Mendes 2013).

Information available at: <http://​www.​cidade-brasil.​com.​br/​microrregiao-de-salgado.​html>.

Resex refers to the Brazilian terminology of extractivist reserve. Extractivism is the extraction of natural resources. Although it can be applied to mining, this term refers rather to the plant collection activity or animal in the case of fishing.

The region of Curuçá and particularly the community of Lauro Sodré present an ecosystem sufficiently favorable to the production of oyster seeds because they have an adequate salinity for this process. For more details on seed production in the community, cf. Diaz (2013).

Brazilian Assistance Service for Small and Micro-Enterprises (free translation).

Forms such as Brazilian law and legislation are found to be restrictive and, in some cases, inappropriate for frameworks marked by kinship relations and which deserve specific legislation. They can be found in Ravena-Cañete and Ravena Cañete (2011).