Can the insect “de-make” a World? boll weevil and the (counter) colonization of monoculture in the semiarid of Paraíba

Abstract

The present article, based in an ethnographical engagement among peasant’s families in the Me?dio Serta?o da Parai?ba realized since 2015, proposes to narrate the ascension and decline of the cotton plantations in the Parai?ba’s semiarid. At the center of this narrative there is the boll weevil (Anthonomus grandis), an insect that had never seen before in the region, whose apprearance amidst crops at the begging of the 1980’s generated historical inflection a historical inflection, dismantling the monocultural agricultural system that prevented the local traditional agriculture. With action of revolutionary magnitude, the boll weevil ended up promoting a diffuse fundiary descentralization, allowing the actualization of traditional agricultural practices that remained unused until then. Thus, through a diachronic narrative, I produce the contrast between two agricultural systems, their specific agrobiodiversity, their modes of relating with the earth and the practical effects promoted by these activities in the texture of the landscape.