Histórias de mundos possíveis: uma etnografia sobre transições ecológicas de vida

Abstract

This ethnographic research identifies and describes ways of life that present themselves as alternatives, or refuges for "living in the ruins of capitalism" according to Ana Tsing. The fieldwork involved interviews with 40 people, followed by two detailed ethnographic study cases. The research findings show that these people, who were born and/or grew up in large urban centers, have gone through ecological life transitions that influence their entire lifestyle including their spiritual beliefs, health practices, food, and the construction of their homes. I classify these transitions as processes of ontological transition, in which an ecological worldview stands as the primary lens of understanding one's own being and its relationship to the world. The results indicate that these transitions are continuous, and always carry with them previous elements of the perception of life and of the person before the transition process. As in a spiral, a new lifestyle takes shape as dualities such as mind/body and nature/culture are collapsed; as the impermanence of things and life as an eternal becoming is understood; as concepts such as health, spirituality, and ecology merge; as life is understood to emerge from the encounter between different lines of movement of beings and materials. The emergence of the covid-19 pandemic during the course of the fieldwork reinforced the need for the creation of refuges inspired by other ecologies in order to make the Anthropocene as brief as possible.