The relationships between ’pantanal’ people and the environment

Abstract

This study, of qualitative nature, aimed to investigate the acquaintance relationship between swampland men and their environment. A literature review was first developed associated with an ethnographic research, accomplished during an one week boat trip by São Lourenço River, MT, Brazil. An aleatoric sample was compound for 12 persons, of both sexes and varied ages, which voluntarily participated of the study. Results were descriptively analyzed and indicate the importance of physical-space context, represented by Pantanals’ water cycle controlling the life of this population, from the construction of their social profile, until the form of personal communication and the relationship with geographic space and with the tourists. The swampland men’s adaptability reflect in some cases the submission to the context and other times the awareness that they are part of an interdependent system and that both are yielded to contusing interventions, specially the economics related to unplanned forms, among them the tourism. Key words: Environment. Pantanal. Social profile.