Fishermen, fisheries and the helmsman: what do the Pescadores de Itaipu have to say about Roberto Kant de Lima

Abstract

This text is part of a tribute to the emeritus professor and anthropologist, Roberto Kant de Lima, from Universidade Federal Fluminense, who passed away in May 2025. Originally, this text was a short lecture given as part of the XII Seminário Internacional Instituto de Estudos Comparados em Administração Institucional de Conflitos, in an event that simultaneously celebrated Kant de Lima’s memory and his seminal book Pescadores de Itaipu: Meio ambiente, conflito e ritual no litoral do Estado do Rio de Janeiro. The aim of this text/tribute is to reflect how the ethnography produced for his master’s thesis, completed in 1978 at the Programa de Pós-graduação em Antropologia Social of Museu Nacional of Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro, reveals two major thematic interests that would be relevant in his professional trajectory. Both aspects can be observed in his research program, which would be consolidated in the following decades, in his academic works and, finally, in his institutional projects. Thereby, it is possible to identify: 1) convergence between Anthropology and Law evidenced by social norms and rules observed among artisanal “beachside” fishermen inspired by a classic anthropological literature that is rarely used in our national academic context; and 2) procedural and ritual analysis of social relationships, based on empirical observations of their structures and dynamics institutions, their representations and social practices. These structures were never understood by Roberto Kant de Lima as immutable or fixed, regardless of the social phenomenon he dedicated himself to observing throughout his professional career.