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Social perceptions about the pattern of use of cachaça among indigenous peoples of the Maxakali ethnic group in Brazil

2022; Grupo de Pesquisa Metodologias em Ensino e Aprendizagem em Ciências; Volume: 11; Issue: 16 Linguagem: Inglês

10.33448/rsd-v11i16.35330

2525-3409

Roberto Carlos de Oliveira, Rodrigo Venâncio da Silva, Elisa Chain de Assis, Gabriel Coimbra Carvalho Schuwarten, Dilceu Silveira Tolentino Júnior, Ana Valéria Machado Mendonça, Belinda Nicolau, Andréa Maria Duarte Vargas, Efigênia Ferreira e Ferreira,

Youth, Drugs, and Violence

This study shows how it was possible to engage in intersubjective dialogue regarding the replacement of models and uses of Maxakali traditional drinks with a distilled beverage introduced through inter-ethnic contact. A comprehensive phenomenological approach was employed to understand and describe the social perceptions about the use of this distillate. Through thematic analysis, symbols and meanings of alcohol use were interpreted through their daily life histories, recorded by 21 leaders in three focus groups. It could amplify ‘subjugated voices’ and embarks on a similar venture of researching their villages' leaders from two disenfranchised groups. The findings highlighted that, with the use of sugar cane liquor, some adaptations have occurred in Maxakali alcohol use, with negative consequences for the communities. They revealed how the native drinks have disappeared and the liquor has been inserted into Maxakali cultural system. Considering the subjectivity of the leaders in the process of data collection and analysis, functions regarding the liquor as a social lubricant, facilitator of shamanic trances, knowledge producer, and factor in the relations of gender and age were identified. Those functions were enmeshed in their symbols and meanings regarding their drinking pattern and contexts, as well as a regulator of expressions of violence and enmity. Additional research and theoretical/methodological alternatives are necessary to investigate the interactions between alcohol use and its ethnic and biopsychosocial synthesis, incorporating the Maxakali way of life into these possibilities.