Entre cinzas e brasas que resistem: 50 anos de antropologia e lutas políticas

Abstract

This is an interview with Moacir Palmeira, based on two recorded conversations, the first in August 2018, and the second in July 2019. The text presented here is a combined edition of the two distinct moments, before and after the fire which destroyed the National Museum in Rio de Janeiro in September 2018, where Palmeira worked for 40 years. If, at first, there was concern about the political context, and the cuts in funding for science funding agencies were already dramatic, in the second interview some losses described by Moacir are irreparable. Fifty years of ethnographic research archives started since he joined the Museum as a professor were consumed in the fire of the fire.