Vozes do rio e da mata: saberes ambientais em narrativas orais

Abstract

Environmental knowledge is built millennially from observation and experience, passed on from generation to generation through voices. The exercise of listening involves the transposition of understanding of other ways of seeing and explaining the world, expressed in human socio-cultural practices. The explanations for the natural phenomena experienced in the rural-riparian areas of the Amazon are elucidated by concepts formulated within the realm of the imaginary, creations, and representations, ways of giving meaning to everyday experiences. The present work explores, from the amalgam of Amazonian cultures, this diffuse zone of interpretation in which the real and the imaginary blend together. The study subject is presented through the following question: How is the environmental knowledge entangled with the mythical imaginary expressed in the voice of the storyteller and how does it circulate in the insular region of Belém? The hypothesis relates to the existence of significance in the environmental knowledge constructed and reconstructed through the imaginary, contained in Amazonian oral narratives evoked from the narrators’ memories, which I called econarratives. The methodological paths are based on the qualitative, ethnographic approach, by means of narrative interviews, photovoice, field diary, activity notebook, and workshops. The thesis is developed in three parts: Portal - Backyard Memories unveils my significant experiences in childhood, professional and academic life with orality and environmental care, focusing on how they intertwine and determine the research theme. The backyard as a space of freedom, learning, and belonging. The portal is called Memories of the World and presents the movements of teaching and learning based on the knowledge built by mankind, the contextualization of western scientific thought, and the transition from the diurnal to the nocturnal aspects brought by Bachelard. It presents the configurations of the Amazonian imaginary in a relationship with oral narratives and the environmental knowledge that circulates in the insular region of Belém, as well as the paths taken to make the research possible in the methodological perspective. Finally, the portal entitled Memories of River and Forest tells us about the encounter with the traditional storyteller from the Murutucu island, Master Simeão, and the oral narratives told in his performances that speak of the care for the environment, of which the Caretaker, the Mãe d’Água (Mother of Water), and the Curupira (a mythological creature of Brazilian folklore) stand out, articulating with the environmental knowledge present in the repertoire of the Island storyteller’s narratives. In the conclusion, I present the results achieved during the research, as well as the contributions that the steps taken in the experience brought as propositions to expand the dialogues in science teaching in the early years regarding the environmental knowledge contained in econarratives.