Topography of Change: The Politics of Place in Southern Bahia, Brazil

2023-2028 Social Science and Humanities Research Council of Canada Insight Grant

Pré-Jornada de Agroecologia da Teia dos Povos, Maloca Dendê, Serra Grande - Uruçuca, Bahia, 20 August 2023 © Meg Stalcup

The Porto Sul port terminal is a proposed infrastructure complex in the southern region of Bahia, Brazil. Linking an iron ore mine in the interior of the state with transnational shipping routes, the development was announced by state government and its private partners with fanfare 15 years ago. Local resistance, among other factors, stalled the ambitious project, with activists arguing that it brings risks for a region known for its beauty and biodiversity, and economically dependent upon agroecology, cacao, tourism, and artisanal trades. Supporters, however, say the region will benefit from the port's new infrastructure and influx of workers, even if only temporarily. This project will trace a topography of the changes wrought by this tug and pull around the development. We ask, what conflicts and power relationships are shaping this situation, and how do they affect locals' capacity to respond to change? What tropes, narratives, and practices of sense-making are in play? How are Porto Sul's public-private partners working to garner community buy-in, and how are locals mobilizing to make them fulfill their promises? The result will be a case which illuminates the nexus of the global and the local in the midst of land demarcation disputes, climate events, and fallout from the pandemic.

Viral Conspiracies: An Anthropology of Rumour and Media in Brazil

2018-2020 Social Science and Humanities Research Council of Canada Insight Development Grant

Protest for Marielle Franco, Cinelândia, Rio de Janeiro, 20 March 2018 © Guito Moreto

Protest for Marielle Franco, Cinelândia, Rio de Janeiro, 20 March 2018 © Guito Moreto

2020 Stalcup M, “Internet Techniques for an Untimely Anthropology," Search After Method: Sensing, Moving, and Imagining in Anthropological Fieldwork: ed. Julie Laplante, Ari Gandsman and Willow Scobie, New York and Oxford, Berghahn Books, pp.102-107.

2020    Graan A, Hodges A and Stalcup M, Fake News and Anthropology: A Conversation on Technology, Trust, and Publics in an Age of Mass Disinformation, ed. Mei-chun Lee. February 17, 24 and March 2, Political and Legal Anthropology Review, PoLARjournal.org

September 2020, https://philpapers.org/archive/STAITF.pdf

2018    Stalcup M, Larkins ER, “On ne peut pas tuer ‘Marielle’Métropolitiques. 29 October.

2018    Stalcup M, Larkins ER, “You can’t kill MarielleMetropolitics. 29 May.

Conferences and Workshops

2019 Fake News has a Mode of Truth: The Aesthetics of Truth Claims in Contemporary Brazil, panel “Digital Media Worlds.” Vancouver, BC, Annual Meeting of the American Anthropology Association (AAA). November 2019

2019 Good v. Evil:  Reactionary Opposition in Brazil’s New Digital Bolsosphere, panel “Understanding Right-Wing Mobilization Through Online Communications and Social Media Analysis,” Berkeley, CA, Inaugural Conference on Right-Wing Studies, UC Berkeley, 26 April.

2019 “Fake News has a Mode of Truth: Computational Propaganda and Digital Populism in Brazil,” Invited talk, Department of Communication, Tulane University, New Orleans, 17 April

A Visual Anthropology of Climate Politics and Crisis in Brazil    

2014-2017 University of Ottawa Research Development Grant                                                   

Project Description Picturing Zika

2020    Stalcup M, The Invention of Infodemics: On the Outbreak of Zika and Rumors, in ‘Histórias of Zika’, ed. Luísa Reis-Castro. March 16 Somatosphere.net

2018    Stalcup M, Review of Debora Diniz’s Zika: From the Brazilian Backlands to Global Threat. Trans. Diana Grosklaus Whitty. (2017) Medicine Anthropology Theory, 5(4), 132-135.

Conferences and Workshops

2017 Viral Conspiracies: Rumor and Emerging Infectious Diseases in Brazil’s Media Ecology, panel “The politics of ‘facts’ and science in an age of ‘post-truth.’ Boston, MA, Annual Meeting of the Society for Social Studies of Science (4S), 31 August.

2017 Suspicion: On the Outbreak of the Zika Virus and Rumor, panel “On the Question of Evidence: Movement, Stagnation, and Spectacle in Brazil,” Ottawa, ON, Joint International Union of Anthropological and Ethnological Sciences (IUAES) and Canadian Anthropology Society (CASCA) Conference/Interconference, 6 May. 

2017 Images of Absence: On Figures and Figuration of the Disappeared in Brazil, panel “Peace Out! Reclaiming Sovereignty’s Bodies and Borders” Palo Alto, CA American Ethnological Society, 1 April.

2016 The Bucket Baby: Figurations of Crisis and Corruption in Brazil, panel “Small Things,” Minneapolis, MN, Annual Meeting of the American Anthropology Association, 19 November.