Décrire une plante « en train de (se) faire » : le guaraná à l’épreuve d’une approche ontologique

Abstract

À travers l’exemple du guaraná, l’article développe et illustre une approche ontologique des plantes qui permette d’observer, décrire et prendre en compte la manière dont les plantes se construisent, agissent et font faire dans le monde. Inspirée par la théorie de l’acteur-réseau et l’ethnobotanique, cette approche compréhensive cherche à répondre à deux enjeux : d’une part, dépasser l’analyse structurale des catégories de pensées ou des « représentations » de la plante pour privilégier celle des interactions dynamiques et réciproques entre Hommes et plantes ; d’autre part, inviter à prendre au sérieux les discours et sensibilités attribuant aux plantes pouvoirs ou intentionnalités, dans la mesure où ceux-ci revêtent un caractère performatif et font sens pour ceux qui les portent.

Found again in translation? Standardizing the authenticity of guaraná among the Sateré-Mawé people (Brazilian Amazon)

“…The result of this particular regime is embodied in the coexistence, within the discourses and practices of the project members, of several ontologies of guaraná that are mobilized alternately according to the context and to the objectives (Congretel 2017(Congretel , 2020. Alongside a "traditional waraná" endowed with cosmological significance and epistemological powers, there is an "ecological waraná" characterized by its role in biodiversity conservation and as a "sentry" defending the most remote parts of the Andirá-Marau territory.…”

“…This academic degree is part of a larger subproject within the Waraná Project called the "Livre Academia do Wará," or "free wará academy." It refers to a long-term reflection program, freely involving those who would like to take part in it, in order to reconstitute and gradually formalize the fund of knowledge and the epistemological principles of the Sateré-Mawé people (Congretel 2017).…”

“…It is also worth knowing that today, 77 percent of Brazil's total guaraná seed production is processed via conventional food industry routes (SUFRAMA 2003), and that the great majority of peasant guaraná producers sell their crop into this type of processing chain (Tricaud, Pinton, and Pereira 2016;Congretel 2017). This is especially the case in the Maués region, a municipality situated in the Lower Amazonas region, which overlaps with the Andirá-Marau indigenous land and which has built its reputation on the notion of being the "land of guaraná" in terms of both ecology and cultural heritage.…”

“…The prohibition on breeding seeds further strengthens the obligation of using only spontaneous seedlings, thereby favoring natural selection over human selection techniques. Over and above its effects in ecological terms, this approach may also be understood as a rejection of the agricultural modernization model put forward by Embrapa, whose methods for obtaining improved cultivars are constrained by the requirements of modern agronomy in terms of variety control and homogenization, but also by the plant's behavior itself 33 (Congretel 2017(Congretel , 2020. Conversely, Article 5.1 expresses that "imports of cloned guaraná within the zone are unacceptable.…”

“…In other words, the seedlings sold to producers are clones of a restricted number of plants, resulting from complex breeding methods and used as matrices by officially registered nurseries. This practice responds to the difficulty of obtaining genetically stable and homogeneous populations of guaraná plants by sexual multiplication, largely because the plant's genome is particularly large (karyotype characterization showed two hundred and ten chromosomes), which makes it rather unstable in time (see Atroch et al 2012;Congretel 2017).…”