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From October 3rd to 7th, 2024, the University of São Paulo (USP) and the University of Campinas (UNICAMP) hosted the "International Study Symposium - The Techniques of the Body: 90 Years of Marcel Mauss’s Essay."

Coordinated by Guilherme Moura Fagundes, professor at USP's Department of Anthropology (DA) and vice-coordinator of the Laboratory of Image and Sound in Anthropology (LISA), along with Rafael Antunes Almeida from the University for International Integration of the Afro-Brazilian Lusophony (UNILAB), the event marked 90 years since the publication of Marcel Mauss’s renowned essay "The Techniques of the Body." It also saw the launch of the Anthropology, Environment, and Biotechnodiversity Collective (CHAMA), a study group at USP's Department of Anthropology led by Professor Guilherme Moura Fagundes.

The symposium featured three prominent specialists on the "technological" dimension of Mauss's work—focusing literally on the study of technique: Perig Pitrou, researcher at CNRS and director of the Maison Française d'Oxford research center; Carlos Sautchuk, coordinator of the Laboratory of Anthropology of Science and Technology at the University of Brasília (LACT/UnB); and Nathan Schlanger from the École Nationale des Chartes (ENC, Paris).

Discussions compared how Mauss's essay has been received and its effects on the consolidation of the anthropology of technology in Brazil and France. This field of study seeks to understand technical phenomena from a symmetrical perspective, overcoming the dichotomy between modern and traditional societies, while addressing interactions between humans and non-humans in life-making activities. These insights are central to addressing our current ecological crisis, where human actions on the planet are often reduced to ideas like "nature's destruction" or "domination of living beings," overshadowing the paleontological continuity between technical and vital phenomena.

The first session of the symposium, hosted in the LISA auditorium, was titled "Life and Movement: Impacts and Perspectives of Body Techniques Between Brazil and France." It opened with remarks from Professor Guilherme Moura Fagundes, was moderated by Rafael Almeida, and included presentations by Carlos Sautchuk and Perig Pitrou. The session aimed to show how Marcel Mauss's essay condenses various inflections of his thought, particularly regarding materiality and the vital dimension in shaping social life, offering a research agenda that resonates with contemporary critiques of the nature-culture divide.

In addition to the opening panel, the symposium featured three lectures by Professor Nathan Schlanger. The first, titled "Techniques of the Body and Technical Bodies—Marcel Mauss on Industry and Craft," was delivered in French with simultaneous translation and moderated by Professor Guilherme Moura Fagundes. It drew on archival materials by Marcel Mauss to provide intellectual and institutional details about the context in which his thoughts on technique emerged. The second lecture, given in English and titled "André Leroi-Gourhan: From Material Civilizations to Technical Behavior," was moderated by Eduardo Neves (MAE/USP) and focused on Schlanger’s recent book about ethnologist and archaeologist André Leroi-Gourhan (1911-1986), a student of Mauss and contemporary of Claude Lévi-Strauss at the Collège de France. The final lecture addressed "Learning in the Paleolithic: Technical Gestures, Operational Chains, and Skill-Building in Prehistory," presented by Joana Cabral (IFCH/Unicamp) with moderation and translation by Chantal Medaets (FE/Unicamp).

The symposium was organized by the Anthropology, Environment, and Biotechnodiversity Collective at USP (CHAMA), the Laboratory of Anthropology of Science and Technology at UnB (LACT), and the French Consulate in São Paulo. In addition to LISA, the event was supported by the Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology (MAE-USP), the Graduate Program in Social Anthropology at USP (PPGAS-USP), and the Graduate Program in Social Anthropology at UNICAMP (PPGAS-Unicamp).

To view the event’s full program, visit the LISA website: https://lisa.fflch.usp.br/node/13058. Recordings of the symposium sessions are available on CHAMA’s YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/@Chama-USP. To learn more about the essay "The Techniques of the Body," visit USP’s Anthropology Encyclopedia: https://ea.fflch.usp.br/obra/tecnicas-do-corpo.

The film São Palco - Afropolitan City will be shown on Wednesday, October 23, 2024, at the University of Oxford.

Shambuyi Wetu, Yannick Delass, Lenna Bahule, Edoh Amassize and other Afropolitan artists occupy Sampa and the world with their diasporic creativity.

Synopsis: What do African artists who arrive in Brazil in recent years carry with them on their journey? How do the African diasporas dialogue – the new creative diaspora and the one that turned the Atlantic into a cemetery? What stages are occupied, built, filled with the performances of artists who cross the ocean? Ancestry updated in performances that construct an Afropolitan present in a metropolis where it is necessary to be bold, to color the gray. São Palco – Cidade Afropolitana presents the city of São Paulo as a meta-stage occupied by artists from Togo, Mozambique, the Democratic Republic of Congo and Angola, among other African nations, in dialogue with the Brazilian population and its openings, contradictions and tensions.

On September 17th and 18th, 2024, the USP School of Communications and Arts (ECA) hosted the symposium “Corpo-archive: practices, memories and audiovisual imaginations”, organized by Delfina Cabrera, Cecilia Gil Mariño, Carola Saavedra (UzK), Peter W. Schulze (PBI-UzK/Mecila) and Mateus Araújo (ECA-USP), with the support of the Postgraduate Program in Audiovisual Media and Processes at ECA-USP and the Maria Sibylla Merian Center Conviviality-Inequality in Latin America (Mecila), a center dedicated to investigating the interactions between coexistence and inequality in Latin America. The event brought together archivists, curators and researchers to debate the role of archives in preserving marginalized stories and memories. In a scenario of growing discussions about memory, preservation and representation, the event highlighted the relevance of so-called "smaller audiovisual archives", a concept proposed by researcher Juana Suárez.

The symposium addressed the need to question hegemonic narratives and promote a transregional dialogue on archival practices in Latin America. The central proposal of the event was to investigate how collaborative practices and decolonial thinking can contribute to the reformulation of audiovisual memories. In focus were issues of circulation, access and heritage preservation policies, emphasizing the violence and absences that mark the construction of archives, as well as the possibility of reimagining these spaces through new perspectives.

The Laboratory of Image and Sound in Anthropology (LISA-USP)  was invited to form a table next to the Edgard Leuenroth Archive (AEL), at Unicamp. Rose Satiko Gitirana Hikiji, coordinator of LISA, and Leonardo Fuzer, responsible for the Laboratory's collections, participated in the discussions together with Mário Medeiros, coordinator of AEL. The meeting between the two institutions provided a rich exchange on archival practices and the preservation of memories in a Latin American context, expanding understanding of the importance of collaborative projects.

Founded in 1991 by Sylvia Caiuby Novaes, LISA has established itself as a reference in the production and preservation of audiovisual materials. The laboratory has a technical structure that includes collection reserves, auditorium and editing islands, and houses collections of images, videos and sound files related to research with indigenous populations and other communities. Throughout its history, LISA has also stood out for its commitment to making its collections accessible to the public and to the populations portrayed, reinforcing its mission of collaborating with the communities involved.

The issue of accessibility of collections was one of the most discussed points during the symposium. Since 2004, LISA has been committed to digitizing its vast audiovisual collection, an ongoing process that aims to preserve historical materials such as paper photographs and reel-to-reel tapes. Currently, the laboratory's collection includes around 2,000 films (mainly documentaries, medium and feature films), 24,500 images (including photos, stickers and glass plates) and 700 hours of sound recordings (cassette tapes, records, CDS and digital files). The majority of the photographic and phonographic collection is made up of records with indigenous peoples.

In addition to its preservationist function, LISA is consolidated as a space for the audiovisual production of ethnographic films, made by researchers linked to the Department of Anthropology, from scientific initiation to post-doctorate. the. Throughout its history, LISA's audiovisual production has explored a wide range of issues, such as rituals, migrations and cultural practices, in different contexts.

At the seminar, LISA's project to reinforce collaborative approaches in audiovisual production was discussed, through support for projects developed in partnership with the researched populations. These initiatives, by promoting the active participation of communities, demonstrate the laboratory's commitment to returning the materials produced to those who are the focus of their research. The digitalization of the collection also aims to increase access to it by the populations portrayed. This way, they can access, share and reframe their stories.

The “Corpo-archivo” symposium brought a deep reflection on the transformative role of smaller archives, not only as repositories of memory, but as active tools in cultural resistance and the democratization of access to knowledge. By bringing together institutions such as LISA and AEL, the event promoted a space for essential dialogue to rethink the ways of preserving and circulating audiovisual memories, especially in the Latin American context.

LISA's participation in the symposium reinforced its pioneering role and its ongoing commitment to the production and preservation of audiovisual archives, expanding the debate on the voices and narratives of indigenous populations and other communities. The laboratory's work reflects an approach that goes beyond traditional conservation, promoting the return and active participation of communities in the construction of their own archives, in an ethical and collaborative practice.

Through initiatives such as the digitization of collections and collaborative audiovisual productions, LISA continues to position itself as an innovative space in visual anthropology, helping to shape new ways of imagining and preserving memories.

To find out more about the institutions involved, visit:

LISA-USP: https://lisa.fflch.usp.br/
AEL: https://ael.ifch.unicamp.br/
MECILA: https://mecila.net/pt/

This Tuesday, 24/09, we screened the film São Palco - Cidade Afropolitana at Usp Ribeirão Preto. On Wednesday, @shambuyiwetu and Rose Satiko participate in the @dra.francirosy course.

The August 2024 edition of Revista Pesquisa FAPESP mentions Alice Villela's postdoctoral research, carried out at the Department of Anthropology at the University of São Paulo, under the guidance of Prof. Dr. Rose Satiko, within the scope of the thematic project funded by FAPESP entitled “Local Musicar: New trails for ethnomusicology”.

The FAPESP article addresses the growth of indigenous film production in recent years in Brazil, which has inspired several studies. Among the main purposes of the productions are demands for land and rights.

Alice Villela and Hidalgo Romero directed the film Toré as part of the project “O Musicar Local: New trails for ethnomusicology”. Released in 2022 and lasting 18 minutes, the film portrays the Kariri-Xocó indigenous people, who live on the banks of the São Francisco River, in Alagoas. The group has a place of strength in its traditional songs and rituals to resist a colonial history of violence and invisibility. Stripped of their language and territory, expropriated throughout Brazilian history, in 2015 they occupied a portion of their ancestral lands, in a movement called Retomada. This film accompanied a day of immersion with the Kariri-Xocó in the reclaimed lands. They sing to keep resisting and they resist to keep singing.

The full article from Revista Pesquisa FAPESP on the website: https://revistapesquisa.fapesp.br/em-destaque-crescente-no-pais-filmes-indigenas-inspiram-estudos/

The ethnographic film "Bibiru: Kaikuxi Panema" won four international awards in the first half of 2024. At the 25th International Environmental Film and Video Festival - FICA, the documentary won in the following categories: Acari Passos Award for Best Medium-Length, José Petrillo Press Trophy and Jesco Von Putkammer Award, from the Young Jury. The festival took place in the city of Goiás during the month of June and received more than a thousand entries of different film genres, which were connected to environmental themes. It was also elected in the Best Green and Environment Film category by the jury of the Cineparis Film Festival, which brought together artists and filmmakers in Paris in June focused on discovering new talents and works. In July, the film was nominated for the XV Pierre Verger Film Award, promoted by the Brazilian Anthropology Association, one of the main competitive festivals of works produced within the scope of anthropological research in Latin America.

Completed with the support of the Image and Sound Laboratory in Anthropology at the University of São Paulo - LISA-USP, the film tells the story of the protagonist Bibiru, a kaikuxi (dog) who became panema (unlucky in hunting) and the attempt to cure his owner, Waranaré Wayana. The work is the result of video workshops taught by the researcher of the Visual Anthropology Group - GRAVI-USP, André Lopes, and all the images and sounds that make up the documentary were recorded by young Wayana and Aparai in the Bona village, located in the Tumucumaque Park, in the state of Pará. The medium-length film is part of a trilogy started in 2014 and produced in a manner that was entirely shared with the indigenous people about food production regimes in the Amazon: the first deals with fishing, the second with the collection of açaí and the third with hunting.

LISA-USP collaborated with the subtitling and color correction work, carried out by audiovisual specialist Ricardo Dionísio, and with the production by Paula Morgado. “Bibiru: kaikuxi panema” was co-directed by Latso Apalai and André Lopes and was produced by the Association of Wayana and Aparay Indigenous Peoples - APIWA, the Social Service of Commerce in São Paulo - SESC-SP, the Sawe Institute and supported by the Institute of Indigenous Research and Training - Iepé.

Lia Malcher, researcher of the PAM research group and Kelwin Marques Garcia dos Santos, researcher of the GRAVI and PAM groups, were awarded at the Pierre Verger Award!

The film Jijet - Como estudiamos nossos cantos, by Lia Malcher and Hugo Prudente and the photo essay De palha e de ouro, by Kelwin Marques Garcia dos Santos received honorable mention in the exhibition.

More details at https://premiopierreverger.com/2024/premiados/

Check out the ranking:

1st Place Medium-length film:
Uma Mulher Common (Directed by: Debora Diniz)
2nd Place, medium-length film:
ZUMVI Collection - The Rising of Memory (Directed by: Iris de Oliveira);
3rd Place, medium-length film:
I Am Modern, I Am Indian (Directed by: Carlos Eduardo Magalhães)

Honorable Mention:
Jijet - How we study our songs (Directed by: Hugo Prudente and Lia Malcher)

Photography:
1st Place:
Mirrors of memory: archive images and the rescue of the past (Laura Guimarães, Gabriel Cardoso, Andressa Iremex Apinajé)
2nd Place:
The sun here is yellow (Henrique Fujikawa)
3rd Place:
Parque Progresso (Nuno Godolphim)

Honorable mention:
Of straw and gold (Kelwin Marques Garcia dos Santos)

We celebrate with joy Sylvia Caiuby Novaes' 50 years as a professor at the University of São Paulo. Full professor at the Department of Anthropology, the longest serving professor at the Faculty of Philosophy, Letters and Human Sciences at the University of São Paulo, Sylvia is the founder of the Laboratory of Image and Sound in Anthropology (LISA-USP).

In a ceremony at LISA, on May 24th 2024, Sylvia received a surprise reception from her family, classmates from her class at Maria Antônia, where she entered in 1968, some friends from school at Colégio Dante Alighieri, many of her students (current and alumni, today professors at several universities in São Paulo and other states), as well as professors and employees at USP. The session opened with the presence of Dorothy Boom (Regina Muller), who celebrated Professor Sylvia with the joy she deserved.

We published a text in Jornal da USP [https://jornal.usp.br/artigos/sylvia-caiuby-novaes-50-anos-de-usp/] in which we highlight some moments of this life of dedication to the university, in all its aspects: teaching, research, extension, administration. Listening to her friends, daughters, colleagues and long-time mentors at this celebration also showed us that the bonds woven by Sylvia involve a multitude, and the paths she opened expand the horizons of this 90-year-old woman, USP.

Photos by: Rafael Hupsel

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