Anthropological experiments between scientific and Amerindian knowledge

Abstract

The main objective of this project is to instigate a reflection about plant subject in Amerindian ontologies, having as it epicenter an ethnographic research among the Wajãpi of Amapari (tupi-guarani group). This background would the guide a comparison with other ethnographic cases of Lowland South America. The proposal comprises also a dialogue with the actual botanical knowledge in order to establish nuances between this and the Wajãpi knowledge. A secondary focus of this proposal will be on the training of Wajãpi health agents and the dialogue between these indigenous agents and the biologists and veterinarians that are developing a research on leishmaniose in Wajãpi area. Those contexts would be an extraordinary opportunity to establish a relational comparison between both procedures of knowledge and its acquisition. This will help us to understand how knowledge is created and utilized by both epistemologies. It will also give a background and a feedback to an anthropological experiment allowing a dialogic reflection between the Wajãpi and the modem botanical knowledge. (AU)