Florestas domesticadas, controvérsias selvagens: uma incursão ao debate sobre a Domesticação da Amazônia

Abstract

This thesis addresses the scientific controversies surrounding the idea of Domestication of the Amazon, taking into account both the broad debate surrounding the concept of domestication in Anthropology, and the specific debate surrounding the use of the concept in a particular narrative about the Amazon forests, elaborated at the interface between Genetics, Ecology, Anthropology and Archeology, made possible by the Historical Ecology research program. I seek to demonstrate within a regional framework (in spatial terms), and based on criticism of the Cultural Ecology model (in temporal terms), the ways in which domestication was activated and worked on, as well as the tensions established by its uses and modes of to mean. The thesis is organized into three chapters, each divided into two parts. The first chapter addresses the paradigm shift that occurred around the end of the 1980s, responsible for the formation of a new image of the Amazon. It also addresses what the concept of domestication intends to mean and with which elements it is articulated in the narrative about the Domestication of the Amazon. What we observe are three main tensions derived from the constant contractions and expansions to which the concept is subjected in the narrative. The second chapter analyzes the dispute between two groups of scientists around the narrative of the Domestication of the Amazon, using an approach inspired by certain theoretical-methodological principles contained in the works of Stengers and Latour. The third chapter discusses the implications of the discipline “Amazon Domestications” for the debate on the Domestication of the Amazon. The discipline I am referring to, held every two years, can be understood as a laboratory on the topic, a meeting place for researchers from different areas gathered around a common interest in the premises worked on by Historical Ecology.