Abstract

This project proposes to study the interrelationship of the environmental characteristics and geographic location of Seixal territory and the human action. It is structured in two thematic sets linked through the fishing theme. The first thematic set is based on the idea of agency or local groups action informing about practices of human groups (fishermen) in a local territory through the following concepts: the local (translocal) (Appadurai, 1996), the human agency (Ortner, 2006; Mahmood, 2006) and the daily resistance (Scott, 2002 and 2013). The second thematic set is about the interrelationships of human beings with nature and the environment based on ecological approach and the idea that "ways of acting in the environment are also ways of perceiving it" (Ingold, 2000), and on the ideas of "relational epistemology as a product of perceptual experience" and the ecological approach to emotion (Milton, 2002). Those approaches will help to seek if to a different ways of relating with the environment (through experience, work and techniques) there are different ways of perceiving and acting in nature. Through na ethnography within Seixal fishermen groups, this project aims to know the perspectives of local groups with experiential interaction with the environment, studying the present and the recent past life through memories about work in the maritime and fluvial environment, practices, perceptions and perspectives of individuals, families and groups. This study aims to contribute to Portuguese anthropology on maritime / fishing contexts, filling "absences" in two domains, by providing: a) an approach that joins na overview on the interrelationships of human groups with the environment and nature with perspectives of human agency (forms of resistance to crisis through the value and perception about work); b) knowledge about fishermen and fisheries in order to achieve na understanding of the fishermen's experiential interactions with their environment in a historical dimension.

Team