Nets and seas: the maritime territory of the artisanal fishermen of Aquiraz - Ceará

Abstract

This essay corresponds to my experience with fieldwork, an activity carried out in the fishing communities of Iguape and Prainha, regions located on the coast of Aquiraz, a municipality near the capital of Ceará. There were about 25 days of immersion in total, where I was able to establish dialogues with fishermen, grocery store owners and, in addition, feel the daily rites of these sea workers.

Immersion in these communities was possible due to funding from the Coordination for the Improvement of Higher Education Personnel (CAPES), which provided me with a scholarship. The general objective of the research I developed was based on understanding the life projects of raft fishermen in these communities, specifically identifying how this artisanal way of being was articulated with the territory and with fellow boatmen.

The fishing territory is a space of plural networks of affection and work. Daily life in this place is guided by ancestral and artisanal ties, where the raft fishermen, as fathers, grandfathers, uncles, cousins, neighbors, compadres and other members of the locality, are heirs to this fishing know-how, as well as the belonging established between the sea, the fisherman and the boat (CASCUDO, 1957, 2002; RAMALHO, 2006). The calendar of activities in the communities of Iguape and Prainha is guided by natural principles in its (re)production, with the forces of the tides and winds being elements that strengthen the maritime appropriation of workers when they are on board (NASCIMENTO, 2019).

Exchange practices and reciprocity are common maintenance elements in the fishing community, although they have different purposes, they are well articulated by fishermen during the summer and winter periods in the territory (NASCIMENTO, 2019). In this sense, fishermen have a common imaginary regarding the notion of belonging to the sea, and it is the activities built collectively with friends, family, children and other members that allow this link to be built on a daily basis (RAMALHO, 2006).

The daily rite of taking the boat out to sea and then returning it to the caiçara after fishing, for example, although it seems like a simple task, are practices that require trust in order to happen (NASCIMENTO, 2019). The jangadeiros don't carry out this process with strangers, only with neighbors, friends, family or fishing buddies, because according to them, with those who have close relationships, it is easier to talk about any issue involving the raft or the maritime experience (CASCUDO, 1957, 2002).

In this sense, we can understand the territory as a network of pluralities, in this place there are not only the sheds, grocery stores, boats and other material elements that make up this artisanal know-how (CASCUDO, 1957, 2002) In addition, there is a collective imaginary shared by everyone in the locality, with regard to the crew of rafters, there is a feeling of belonging linked to the sea, a kind of ternary reciprocity, and between these workers and other professionals, there is a relationship of trust that also contributes to the maintenance of subjective relationships in the fishing community (RAMALHO, 2006; NASCIMENTO, 2019).