Happened at LISA

We invite you to a meeting with Prof. Dr. Marco Antônio Gonçalves on September 02, 2025, at 3:00 p.m., in the auditorium of the Image and Sound Laboratory in Anthropology (LISA-USP).

The event "Glances, Imaginaries, and (m)Flames: Weaving Anthropologies in Times of Crisis" proposes a reflection on the contemporary challenges of anthropology and on how images, cinema, and other visual/expressive practices can inspire new languages, worlds, and methodologies in the face of current climatic, social, and political emergencies.

How can we learn from animals to recover from catastrophic forest fires? In this presentation, Verónica Policarpo will address this question based on the ABIDE project, which examines post-fire recovery in three countries: Brazil, Portugal, and Australia. Policarpo will share aspects of her fieldwork in the Serra da Estrela region and discuss ways animals can inspire the creation of multispecies communities with greater ecological diversity, leading to more effective post-fire regeneration and resilience.

Policarpo is an anthropologist and a senior researcher at the Institute of Social Sciences of the University of Lisbon (ICS-ULisboa), as well as the coordinator of the Human-Animal Studies Hub. She currently leads the interdisciplinary project "ERC ABIDE (ID 101043231): Animal ABidings: Recovering from Disasters in More-Than-Human Communities," investigating how multispecies communities, including nonhuman animals, recover from disasters such as forest fires. The project proposes an interdisciplinary approach and more-than-human governance to address climate crises.

The ERC ABIDE project, coordinated by Verónica Policarpo, is funded by the European Union's European Research Council.

An ethnographic exploration of anthropological failure through the Mapuche archetypes of witch, clown, and usurper How do we learn what failure looks like? During the years anthropologist Magnus Course spent living with Indigenous Mapuche people in southern Chile, he came to understand failure—both his own and those of the discipline of anthropology—through Mapuche narratives of the witch, the clown, and the usurper. In a context of enduring poverty and racism, increasing state repression, and his own disintegration, he began to realize that these figures of failure, and their insatiable appetites for destruction, greed, and property, reflected as much upon his own failings as on anybody else’s, but also showed the way forward to a better way to live. Set amidst the stunning natural beauty and political tragedies of southern Chile, Three Ways to Fail is the story of what it means to become a part of other people’s lives, of what it means to fail them, and of what it means to live well when everything falls apart. Grounded in three decades of work and collaboration with Mapuche people, Three Ways to Fail sheds new light on Indigenous lifeways in the Americas while grappling with broader questions about the nature of ethnographic writing and the future of anthropology. Professor Magnus Course da Universidade de Edimburgo.

LISA-USP is pleased to invite you to the AntropoCena screening of Adó, Mestre dos Sons (Adó, Master of Sounds), directed by Jorge Lampa Vasconcelos. Vasconcelos will be present to discuss his work. Rose Satiko Gitirana Hikiji will moderate the discussion.

Vasconcelos is a musician, singer, cantador, singer-songwriter, and guitarist. He is also an adjunct professor of popular music at the Center for Culture, Languages, and Applied Technologies at the Federal University of Recôncavo da Bahia (CECULT-UFRB). He has a solid academic background: he received a bachelor's degree in Popular Music in 1993, a master's degree in Arts in 2002, a doctorate in Music from the State University of Campinas (Unicamp) in 2010, and a postdoctorate in Social Anthropology from the University of São Paulo (USP) in 2020. Vasconcelos is the coordinator of the Clube da Canção extension project and is a member of the research groups Memory, Space, and Cultures at UFRB (MESCLAS), Research in Musical Anthropology at USP (PAM), and Diaspora at the State University of Feira de Santana (UEFS). His artistic career is marked by performances with Teatro a Bordo, Matulão do Lua, Forró do Viajante (SP), and Solo (BA), among others.

On June 27, 2025, at 2 pm, LISA will host the lecture “Seeking ‘the best of both worlds’: how a black truffle hunting dog is made in Chile”,  promoted by the Anthropology and Biotechnodiversity Collective (CHAMA-USP), under the coordination of Guilherme Moura Fagundes.

The Laboratory of Image and Sound in Anthropology (LISA-USP) will host, on June 26, 2025, at 7 pm, the lecture "Microbes and Rituals in  Varanasi: an ethnography through the waters of the Ganges River". The event is an extension activity of the Anthropology and  Biotechnodiversity Collective (CHAMA-USP) and is part of the program of the discipline "Anthropology of Microorganisms", coordinated by  Guilherme Moura Fagundes.

Victor Secco will present central themes of his doctoral research, defended at the University of Manchester (England), which investigates the  intersections between science, religion and multispecies interactions, based on an ethnography conducted with Hindu priests and  microbiologists in the city of Varanasi, in northern India. The Ganges River, which runs through the city, is simultaneously revered for its  sacred waters and known for its high levels of pollution. While millions of people depend on these waters for religious rituals and daily  activities, the river receives huge volumes of sewage and other pollutants every day. Microbiological research reveals the presence of several  bacteria, including antibiotic-resistant strains, but also identifies therapeutic potentials, such as the use of bacteriophages for treatments.

The Laboratory of Image and Sound in Anthropology (LISA-USP) will show four contemporary Guarani films in its auditorium, in special sessions, as part of the AntropoCena project, followed by debates with guests. Originating from the discipline Extension Practices in Indigenous Ethnology, under the guidance of Professor Pedro Cesarino, the exhibition aims to foster debate on issues dear to indigenous peoples, such as the relationship between territory and identity, in addition to raising, with a focus on the Guarani, discussions on the place of indigenous cinema in the national and international audiovisual panorama and giving visibility to this production.

Program:

DAY 1
06/23, 4pm
Yvy Pyte - Heart of the Earth (2023), 110', by Alberto Alvares and José Cury

Debate with guests:

The film “Rio das Mortes: nossa vida” will be shown in the AntropoCena session on June 12, 2025, at 5:00 p.m., in the LISA auditorium, in partnership with the Visual Anthropology Group of the University of São Paulo (GRAVI-USP), and will feature the presence of Ana Lúcia Ferraz, Associate Professor of the Department of Anthropology and Coordinator of the Ethnographic Film Laboratory of the Fluminense Federal University (UFF).

Ana Lúcia graduated from USP and holds a master's degree in Anthropology (1999), a PhD in Sociology (2005), and a postdoctoral degree in Social Anthropology (2010). She currently works in the fields of Indigenous Ethnology and Visual Anthropology, and is the author of a series of ethnographic films, including, with the Guarani Nhandeva, Nhande Ywy/Nosso Território (2018) and Öwawe dahoimanadzé/Rio das Mortes: nossa vida (2024).

It is a film that explores the ancestral territory of the A’uwé uptabi people (Xavante) and presents their relationship with the waters of the Rio das Mortes, which is threatened by hydroelectric dams. The objective of this ethnography in progress is to establish the territoriality of the A’uwé Xavante by documenting their diverse practices with the river, their cosmological conceptions, and the centrality of hunting in the A’uwé way of life in the Cerrado.

Film produced by LISA had its premiere at the UN Forum and the American Museum of Natural History