The tide and the house: the roots of the mangrove and kinship in the constitution of people and landscapes on the island of Matarandiba

Abstract

This article deals with the kinship relationships woven by women in the daily activities of mariscagem (collecting/catching shellfish and crustaceans). The central focus of our analysis is the production of kin between houses and the tide through the daily and ancestral exchanges of a know-how: shellfish gathering. Based on ethnography carried out among shellfish gatherers on the island of Matarandiba (BA), we seek to understand the extent to which the tide, in its temporal, spatial and biosocial sense, can make up the house/body conjunction. We analyze how kinship relationships are woven into the circulation that takes place between the house and the tide through the rhythm of shellfish gathering. We propose a narrative based on the trajectory of the comadres marisqueiras, focusing mainly on the affective relationships these women have, rooted in the mangrove swamp.

Keywords:
Tide; Marisqueiras; Kinship; Mangrove; Rhytms