Paper short abstract:

I explore how movements of humans and non-humans - fishermen, shrimps and tidal flows - rhythm everyday life of a village in the Brazilian Parnaíba Delta and how uncertainty (e.g. of shrimp fishing) is not necessarily stable but may change depending on the context and become a 'certain uncertainty'.

Paper long abstract:

This presentation is about the fluid, moving and volatile aspects of everyday delta life. The Parnaíba Delta in the Northeast of Brazil is a place of entanglements where not only water and land, but also human and non-human lives intermingle in continual and volatile transformations. Based on the example of shrimp fishing, I explore how humans and non-humans co-habit and co-create worlds through engagements and relationships, where non-humans are active participants and not passive objects of human intervention and manipulation. I am interested in how fishermen continually attune their own movement to tidal flows and shrimp's movement and how these movements rhythm everyday life and sociality of the village. This attunement his not always harmonious; frictions with other rhythms emerge. A successful catch, thus, not only depends on the fishermen's skills to align with uncertain water flows and shrimp's movement, but also his skills to harmonize conflicting rhythms and to resist temptations. Furthermore, I explore how fishermen redefine the uncertainty of shrimp fishing in the context of increasing violence and economic volatility of adjacent places (e.g. towns of the mainland) and the island becomes a sort of refuge.