Sertão: a cartoon illustrating ethnography and agroecology

What if agroecology were in fact a collective search for a fairer, happier world? This is one of the questions raised by Sébastien Carcelle in his cartoon book. The anthropologist, who specializes in social movements in Brazil and Latin America, takes us to the heart of Sertão in Brazil, the remote area that gives its name to the book. He sets out the complex issues surrounding agroecology, while following the daily life of a field researcher in the middle of writing his PhD thesis. The cartoon succeeds in explaining how research processes work, and the personal questions and upheavals they can trigger. Through the character of Hugo, a priest, agronomist and ethnographer, Sertão blends a personal quest with a scientific exploration.

What are the messages you want to get across with Sertão?

Sébastien Carcelle: I hope it will give readers an insider's view of what anthropology is and how field surveys are conducted. Laurent's and my aim was obviously also to talk about agroecology, show that it is an objective to be reached collectively, and also that agriculture is inseparable from its social aspect, just as the diversity of seeds is inextricably linked with that of crops.
We are keen to publish it in Brazil in Portuguese later in the year, to be able to share it with the communities I have met. For the country's agroecology advocates, it could be a valuable tool for communication and for defending family farming.

How did writing this book fuel your work as a researcher... and vice versa?

S.B.: Above all, it gave me a breather: it was a very different experience from "conventional" research writing, even though it relied on the same data and the same fieldwork. After my thesis I was not in a fit state to write anything else academic, I needed to do something else, and this was a good opportunity. It was another way of working, with renewed energy, and was more lightweight, more fun. Now that the book is out, I realize how useful it is as a tool for talking about my work as a researcher and referring people to other publications that have therefore gained a broader audience.

What prompted you to turn your ethnographic survey into a cartoon strip?

S.B.: CI had the idea quite early on in my ethnographic field survey in Brazil. I had done a lot of drawings in my field notebooks, to remind me of faces, atmospheres and landscapes. The places and people I saw made me feel as if I was in a sort of Portuguese-speaking western in the semi-arid heart of Sertão: cowboys, cattle, large landowners, competing clans and a fair amount of violence, red soils like those in Arizona, and so on. There was an aesthetic element that I really wanted to share.

>> Flick through the first few pages of Sertão

Following the release  the book, Sébastien Carcelle and the illustrator Laurent Houssin are planning a travelling teaching exhibition on agroecology in Brazil, inspired by the graphic universe of Sertão, as part of the France-Brazil 2025 Culture Season, notably during COP25 in Belém.