LAGOSTAS, MARÉS E MUDANÇAS NA COMUNIDADE DE PESCADORES
ARTESANAIS DE MARACAJAÚ, NO LITORAL POTIGUAR
Ethnoscience, ethnohistory, lobster, fishermen.
Symbolically, tides can represent the changes occurring both in Nature and in human societies
and their cultures, never static, but in processes of continuous changes, unpredictable to men,
although cyclical. The communities of artisanal fishermen on the northeastern coast of Brazil,
like any other, are also subject to the dynamism of the socioeconomic changes that accelerate
with the cultural exchanges resulting from globalization in recent years. This research analyzes
the changes that occurred in the artisanal fishing community of the Maracajaú prairie district,
located in the municipality of Maxaranguape, state of Rio Grande do Norte, Brazil. An
international incident occurred in the early 1960s between Brazil and France, which became
known in history as the "Lobster War", as a result, the crustacean began to attract the attention
and investment of Brazilian businessmen, because its fishing and marketing were almost nonexistent
in Brazil previous to the incident. With the shift of the lobster, abundant in the coast of
Rio Grande do Norte, into merchandise with great acceptance, demand and high value abroad,
the artisanal fishermen of the northeastern coast had to adapt to new fishing techniques, many
of them starting to offer their services to companies engaged in industrial fishing. The
indiscriminate and often predatory lobster capture, in addition to conflicts of interest with
tourism entrepreneurs, led to a new crisis in the fishing industry, its consequences leading to
the rupture of new generations: with the surge of new opportunities for activities and market
positions, a portion of these young people veer away from the traditional activities of artisanal
fishing as they seek new professional opportunities, although often without abandoning the