Não convencionais para quem? Uma crítica contracolonialista às Plantas Alimentícias Não Convencionais (PANC) no Brasil

Abstract

This study is characterized as qualitative, with an exploratory descriptive approach, having as a theoretical-methodological foundation Conceição Evaristo's Escrevivência, in an Afro-ethnographic key, based on the work of Zora Neal Hurston. It aimed to analyze the concept of Non-Conventional Food Plants (PANC, acronym in Portuguese) in Brazil, through social sciences, in an Afro-oriented debate. Emerging in Brazil, PANC can be considered more than a concept that typifies a portion of edible plants in the country. It mobilizes collective practices, forming a social fabric that can be understood by comprehensive theories. However, this concept, as well as its social consequences, has ethnic-racial impacts that deserve attention. In this sense, we show the incompleteness perceived in it, as well as in its social mobilization as it is placed in Brazilian society today, in a dialogue with the countercolonization proposed by Antônio Bispo dos Santos. This journey of darkening the understanding of PANC is presented in experiential cycles, through which an empirical and theoretical articulation is made, revising the sociogenesis of the concept. Everything is done in dialogue with the author's story, together with the stories of other black women. The characterization of the social field mobilized by the concept is also carried out, as well as an analysis of the limits of its application, to advance in the debates from a black point of view, defending the use of the term Non-Colonized Food Plants.