Departmentseminar: Stephanie C. Kane

Science, the Sofitel, and the Diminishment of Nature: The Dark Eyes of Water in Salvador da Bahia, Brazil

Associate Professor Stephanie C. Kane, Indiana University,
Indiana University
Monday 18 May, 13.15-15.00

Abstract
Lagoa Abaéte is one of several small, rain-fed lakes in the dunes of Itapuã, once fishing village, now urban outpost in Salvador, Bahia, Brazil. A key community water source and ritual site, Lagoa Abaéte is also a cultural icon: its dark waters famously praised in songs by Vinicius de Moraes and Caetano Veloso; its romantic mystery attracting busloads of national and international tourists.  Despite environmental laws and a police force protecting the lake and dunes, there is an overwhelming sense among those who frequent the lake that its continued existence is endangered. This anxiety poses uneasily besides recent state-sponsored scientific research indicating that, contrary to unanimous popular apprehension, the size of the lake has not diminished. This ambiguous hydro-geological data have deflected protective legal action. Drawing from an ethnographic study of water management in South Atlantic port cities, this presentation will analyze how contradictions between sense and science are framed and fraught by violence in community activist and governmental discourses.

Profile
Stephanie C. Kane is associate professor in Indiana University's Department of Criminal Justice and Gender Studies. She is a trained ethnographer and ecologist with a broad interdisciplinary interest in cultural studies focussing on Latin America. Her current research, based on 11 months of fieldwork in port cities of Brazil and Argentina (2006-2007), focuses on the cultural and legal dimensions of water and waterscapes.