Abstract

MACEDO, Valéria. “Dead food” and the owners in the city: commensality and alterity in a ­Guarani village in São Paulo. Etnográfica [online]. 2019, vol.23, n.3, pp.605-625. ISSN 0873-6561.  https://doi.org/10.4000/etnografica.7247.

São Paulo has two sets of Guarani villages, one at the extreme south of the city (Tenonde Porã Indigenous Land) and another in the northwestern region (Jaraguá Indigenous Land). This article is mainly based on my conversations with residents of the Tekoa Pyau village, at Jaraguá, whose space is meager and the environment densely occupied. The daily challenges to the management of connections and disconnections that individuate them as Guarani will be addressed through knowledge practices about food and commensality. An emphasis will be placed on how my interlocutors distinguish what they call “living food” and “dead food”. In the consumption of “living food”, it is necessary to manage relations with its spirits-owners. In the case of “dead food”, such as ultra­processed products, the relationships that constitute them are eclipsed, making their agentive potential uncertain (and dangerous). Departing from this distinction, I intend to point out Guarani reflections and inflections on alterity, vulnerability and the topic of commodities

Keywords : Guarani; São Paulo; food and commensality; commodities; indigenous peoples in urban context; vulnerability.

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