Arts and semantics of creation and memory

Abstract

Based on the notion of creation, taken in a broader sense, this research project aims to approximate distinct subfields of Anthropology. It invests in the enlargement of different uses and conceptions of creation, exploring its polysemy, its relations with memory and the possibilities this expanded approach offers. We intend to contribute to specific debates in each of the five axes of the project - kinship, indigenous ontologies, ecologic debate, craftworks, and inventions in sciences and techniques. By considering these issues in an interrelated way, so that they mutually cast light over each other, we expect to provide a broader set of theoretical and pragmatic impacts as well. The main hypothesis is that the creation perspective, if tested in specifics ethnographic fields, expands and displaces some of the canonical debates in Anthropology. For instance: a) kinship analyses, revisited here in a pragmatic way, allows to associate kinship with politics, productive life, family, and religion; b) concepts like "animality" and species are reshaped with the help of indigenous ontologies, which connects different relationships such as hunting, rearing, and care in more-than-human and multispecies socialities; c) the conceptions about "folk" practices - that inform the controversies about "tradition" and "heritage" as well as the debates concerning identities and ethnic-political resistances - are renewed when considered from the perspective of mixings and creative contagions; d) the discussions about ecological and ontological conflicts as well as some scientific debates, taken at the creation's point of view, help to revisit contemporary theories about destruction, the "end of the world" and the Anthropocene. (AU)