Multispecies Heritage – Indigenous Heritage Practices and Values in the Brazilian Northeast

Application summary

In times when ecosocial awareness is needed, the purpose of my dissertation is to evidence the Multispecies heritage in community-based approach for an ethical dialogue between Indigenous peoples and state authorities. Multispecies Heritage emerges as a new concept as a dynamic process of relationality between humans and more-than-humans, affecting the ways of knowing, being, and experiencing. In Indigenous context, these relationalities (re)generate knowledge, which is also framed as Traditional Ecological Knowledge (TEK), becoming a big part of the Indigenous heritage. Thus, the main research question is: What is Indigenous Multispecies Heritage and how it is evidenced in practices and values? Based on earlier studies that stress forest restoration and environmental care, I find a gap in Indigenous multispecies heritage, its practices, and values. Thus, I suggest a decolonial critical discussion of Cultural Heritage to expand these notions. The preliminary assumption is that Indigenous Multispecies Heritage considers all the entities (including more-than-humans) as active and irreplaceable participants in the construction of the land and human life. Furthermore, Multispecies Heritage would evidence the socio-environmental resilience in the face of environmental changes and species decline. The material collection is based on multivocality and sense of community: dialogue-based interviews, exchange of ideas, and participant observation. The analytical approach is biosemiotics which will enter a dialectic interaction with the Indigenous Knowledge to enrich the research results. The case study is with the Tuxá peoples in Northeastern Brazil, with whom I have collaborated since 2018. This bold and in-depth study covers a multidisciplinary range and promotes academic freedom using Indigenous methodologies and multispecies ethnography, which will result in unique conclusions, showing the broad diversity involved in it.