Terá lugar no dia 11 de novembro a primeira sessão do Seminário de Estudos Avançados - Ciclo de Conferências, com Jean Segata (Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul e  Universidade Ca’Foscari de Veneza). O tema desta primeira sessão será Genetic taming, subtle extinctions, and the narrowing of Multispecies Futures in Southern Brazil. Na Sala Maria de Sousa do ICS-ULisboa, a partir das 10h30. Consulte o programa completo.

This seminar examines the transformations in the relations between humans, cattle, and the environment in the southern grasslands of Brazil, with a focus on the consolidation of British taurine breeds such as Angus, valued for their beef quality. The success of this breed in the tropics is the outcome of a prolonged process of genetic enhancement that brings together advanced biotechnologies, precise zootechnical management, local knowledge, and socio-environmental memory. More recently, the incorporation of genomics and mating algorithms has reshaped cattle breeding, altering temporalities, bodies, and reproductive functions. This technological arrangement, however, generates ambivalent effects: on the one hand, it reinforces genetic flows and positions Brazilian Angus as a distinct lineage within global beef markets; on the other, it contributes to the narrowing of multispecies futures, in which places such as the southern Brazilian grasslands become not only sites of innovation but also stages for a silent drama, where criollo breeds deemed economically inefficient vanish along with knowledges, traditions, and ways of life discontinued in the name of market-oriented modernisation.