HAR is pleased to announce one of the latest releases from BEROSE International Encyclopaedia of the Histories of Anthropology: an article (in Portuguese) on Romanian-Brazilian anthropologist of Jewish origin Berta Gleizer Ribeiro and her ecologically-oriented approach to Indigenous materiality.
França, Bianca Luiza Freire de Castro, 2024. “As linguagens visuais da ‘Amazônia urgente’: artes indígenas e saberes ecológicos na vida‑obra de Berta Gleizer Ribeiro”, in BEROSE International Encyclopaedia of the Histories of Anthropology, Paris.
Berta Gleizer Ribeiro (1924–1997) was an anthropologist of Jewish and Romanian origin, born in Beltz, Bessarabia, in the region of Moldova. After the death of her mother, in 1932 she emigrated to Brazil with her trade unionist father and her sister Genny Gleizer. Graduate in geography and history, she was a practicing anthropologist, ethnographer, and museologist. Berta Ribeiro built collections for Brazilian museums and curated numerous exhibitions. She began her studies while accompanying her husband, anthropologist and politician Darcy Ribeiro, with whom she co-authored several works between 1948 and 1974. In this article published within HITAL Transatlantic History of Latin American Anthropologies/International Research Network, Bianca França (Fundação Getúlio Vargas, Brazil) reveals how Berta Ribeiro contributed to Brazilian anthropology in the 20th century through her studies on the material culture and visual art of Indigenous Brazilians, as well as her studies on human adaptability in the humid tropics, an important topic for the field of ecological anthropology. Berta Ribeiro used her studies on material culture and visual art as a guiding thread to raise questions about the Indigenous contribution to a more sustainable exploitation of natural resources through ethno-knowledge: water and agricultural management, mastery of astronomy, ethnobotany, ethnopharmacology, and mastery of fauna and flora, among other Indigenous technologies linked to the “arts of life,” such as ceramics, spinning, weaving, braiding and plumage. She created the concept of TecEconomia, which deals with the classification of raw materials and techniques, the division of labor and time dedicated to Indigenous handicrafts. Her legacy brings together, on the one side, the scientific knowledge available at the time about the Amazon rainforest and, on the other, the material culture, the visual arts and the human adaptability of its original peoples. It is possible, França concludes, to promote fruitful dialogues between Berta Ribeiro’s work and contemporary studies in the anthropology of materiality, and with contemporary anthropological studies related to plant life. A researcher, writer, and audiovisual producer, Berta Ribeiro campaigned both for Indigenous causes and scientific dissemination.
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