Paper short abstract:

Based on the notions of "equivocation" (Viveiros de Castro, 2004) and "tacit agreement" (Almeida, 2003), I intend to show the encounters and disencounters between conceptual languages and motivations of indigenous and non-indigenous people involved in a pisciculture project in the upper Rio Negro.

Paper long abstract:

The objective of this paper is to reflect upon sustainable development and food safety initiatives among the indigenous peoples in an Upper Rio Negro indigenous land, located in the municipality of São Gabriel da Cachoeira - AM (Brazil). The focus is on the pisciculture project executed with the Baniwa that inhabit the riverside and the tributaries of the Içana River. This project was implemented by the Federation of Indigenous Organizations of the Rio Negro (FOIRN) and supported by an ONG called the Socio-Environmental Institute (ISA). Among the Baniwa, the project's main base is the Baniwa and Coripaco Indigenous School Pamáali, where the indigenous pisciculture technicians and students participate in trainings, workshops and classes on topics such as sustainability, environmental management and biodiversity, and learn the techniques of artificial reproduction of fish in laboratory. The intention is to capture the points of view of different actors involved with the project, in order to show how indigenous technicians, leaders of associations and non-indigenous technical advisors understand and negotiate the importance and the motivations of the projects, besides the definitions of the beings associated with them - like the fish and the environment - and the interactions between indigenous and scientific knowledge. As we sought to evidence, for the indigenous people involved with the project, more than the production of fish and the resolution of an environmental problem, the interest in the projects was associated with the expansion of relations and the incorporation and control of alien knowledges.