IN THE TUCUMÃS' GUIAS: SOCIAL RELATIONS IN THE PRODUCTION OF HANDICRAFT BRAIDS IN COMMUNITIES OF THE ARAPIUNS RIVER
Handicraft; Astrocaryum; Multispecies studies; Natural resources use.
For millennia, humans and palm trees have related in a myriad of ways and intensities in the Amazon. In addition to these relationships leaving their mark on the landscape and plant species populations, there is also evidence that humans and plants create ways of living and doing, histories and territories together. Tucumãzeiro (Astrocaryum spp.) is a palm tree used for various purposes in the region of the Arapiuns River, municipality of Santarém. The newly formed leaves, locally called guias, are the raw material for the production of handicrafts known as Trançados do Arapiuns. This thesis project aims, based on the social relations between tucumã trees and humans and social relations among humans - those that are woven based on their transformation into handicrafts - to analyze landscape, social, productive and economic unfoldings resulting from the intensification of handicraft production in tucumã straw. The research will involve community leaders, artisans and other residents of Vista Alegre and Vila Coroca, communities located in the Lago Grande Agro-extractive Settlement Project, as well as consumers of handicrafts. Semi-structured interviews and participant observation will be used for data collection, and data analysis will be guided as ethnographic research. We intend to demonstrate how humans and tucumã trees relate to and affect each other, and that in the relations between humans, this palm tree has played an important role for the craftswomen, their families and communities, so that the tucumãs can be considered a companion specie of the humans who live in the Arapiuns.