Pyrocene and Economic Rationality: Fire as Tool, Practice and Culture in the Doce River Valley

Abstract

This paper investigates the relationship between hegemonic economic rationality and the environmental crisis, with fire as the common thread. Based on Warren Dean's work, "A ferro e fogo" (With broadax and firebrand), we delimited the Doce River Basin (DRB), in the Southeast Region of Brazil, as a unit of analysis to understand the circumstances that led us to the current situation and, from there, to reflect on future possibilities for changing the status quo. In a dialog between the works of Espindola (2009; 2011; 2015; 2022) and Pyne (2016), we point out the possibility of going against the degradation tide that leads us to the Pyrocene.