News story gives rise to research on the Louceiras do Maruanum

News is an incredible way to popularize subjects, to simplify the complex, to present varied themes through texts, images and sounds. That is the magic of journalism, reaching where we cannot and echoing events.

As a social science, journalism has a social function of popularizing information and, in this way, awakening curiosity in receivers, listeners, viewers.

That happened to me, when I did not yet know the Louceiras do Maruanum (the pottery women of Maruanum). It was in a news report that the click of curiosity was triggered. I remember very well when I first heard about the Louceiras do Maruanum, I soon decided I needed to meet them, and went to research.

With theoretical knowledge and a field visit in 2011, it was decided: I would research the cultural heritage of the Louceiras do Maruanum. I had just entered the master’s program with a research proposal on the clay tradition in Maruanum.

From one news report came my research theme, which for two years would be the center, the objective to be achieved, focused on the principle of intergenerational equity.

The louceiras of Maruanum are quilombola, Amazonian women ceramists who live in the Maruanum District, which belongs to the municipality of Macapá in the State of Amapá.

They received from past generations the tradition of create-know-how-to-make clay pottery, the ceramics of Maruanum. All the stages of making clay pottery are carried out according to intergenerational teachings based on rituals, beliefs and deep respect for nature.

Thesis on the Louceiras do Maruanum

After the master’s, the challenge would be another: the doctorate. Research on the Louceiras do Maruanum continued for four more years. As a researcher, since then I have sought to give visibility to the cultural heritage of the Louceiras do Maruanum.

It was in the doctoral thesis that I proposed educational strategies for the conservation of the Maruanum ceramic tradition. In this way, that scientific research played a fundamental role in offering alternatives for resolving a problem of the communities that hold this cultural heritage.

I return to the defense that journalism has a social function in disseminating research on cultural heritage. So much so that I seek opportunities in the press for the Louceiras do Maruanum to speak about the ceramic tradition, for me to speak about the research, and for there to be reverberation of the ancestral matriarchal knowledge that is Maruanum pottery. For it is not enough to research and defend the thesis. Scientific research, like journalism, also has a social function with the communities involved.