“Sem folha, não há orixá”: conhecimentos relacionados à produção e consumo de alimentos de povos e comunidades de terreiro

Abstract

This dissertation aims to understand the relationships between a terreiro community and the knowledge and practices related to the production, preparation, and consumption of food. The study was structured within the theoretical fields of Agroecology, as a science, practice, and social movement; the relationships between Religion and Food Culture; and the decolonial perspective as a structuring field to understand the dynamics of knowledge and orality. Thus, based on the selection of the Umbanda scenario in the Pés no Chão line, an exploratory study of qualitative nature with an ethnographic approach was conducted, with the field selected by the Terreiro de Umbanda Vovó Benta, in its two locations, in Curitiba (PR) and Ilha do Mel (PR). Knowledge was observed being practiced, referring to agricultural practices in small household spaces, partly derived from experiences in rural environments and also derived from intergenerational knowledge transmission. The lack of a larger space for cultivation within the terreiro was limiting, but it presented a potential for strategies in terms of logistics for the acquisition of food to meet the demands of social projects and the kitchen in general. The production of food in the kitchen and for the ritualistic space is laden with stories and symbols that are often respected and maintained as tradition and ritual. In addition, the production of food carries reflections in itself, which are commonly brought up for discussion in the collective. Decolonialism can be observed as a constant action of questioning dominant power structures as the community resists the pressure of hegemonic standards and keeps its production practices in the kitchen and collective knowledge within the religious scenario alive. Oral transmission is a legitimizing instrument of the people's knowledge, a keeper of ancestral stories, and an expression of the relationships between knowledge and its maintenance within this resistance scenario.