The Anthropology Graduate Program (PPGA) of the Federal University of Pará was born to train anthropologists at master's and doctoral level, contributing to increase the supply of regional and national human resources trained to the urgent task of bringing subsidies to the solutions of pressing issues posed by society, especially the Amazon, and thus contribute to the planning of public policies and programs more appropriate to the groups, peoples and populations that inhabit the region. The research lines of the professor/researchers involved in the Program are addressed, in general - but not exclusively - to regional themes.
Professors/researchers, along with the students who join the PPGA, have been intensively involved in studying the various dimensions and variability of human experience in the Amazon and have been reflecting on the changes that have occurred over time. The dynamics established greatly benefit the greater interaction with other professionals specialized in each scientific field, contributing significantly to the improvement of the theoretical and methodological approaches used, as well as allows a better understanding of the processes of bio-cultural change taking place in the region.
PPGA began its activities in August 2010, working in three of the four traditional fields of Anthropology, namely Social Anthropology, Archeology and Bioanthropology, and with a view to encouraging discussions and research in the field of Anthropological Linguistics. In the three basic fields, it contemplates the formation of anthropological scientists at Masters and Doctoral levels. Analyzing the processes of social formulation of cultural differences in time (historical and prehistoric) and in (regional) space with the purpose of promoting the formation of cultural citizenship can be considered the major objective (and object) of anthropological studies in all their fields of activity.
The field of Social Anthropology focuses on the theoretical formation in Social Anthropology directed to work in Pan-Amazon taking into account the relationship between the anthropologists and the social subjects with which the professionals work, privileging the understanding, on the one hand, of the social dynamics and cultural diversity of the traditional peoples inhabiting the region, and, on the other hand, of the particularities of social groupings and arrangements of social markers of difference in urban groups.
In Archeology, the objective is to train archaeological scientists within the theoretical perspective in anthropological archeology, directed to action in the transnational Amazon, taking also into account the relation of the archaeologist and the archaeological patrimony with the populations and the peoples who have it.
In Bioanthropology, the focus is the qualification of professionals to be able to work in the different interfaces between Archeology, Social Anthropology and other theoretical and practical areas, as well as in the excavation and investigation of archaeological sites where there are human skeletal remains; in interaction with researchers interested in biossocial devices that cause diseases among traditional populations and vulnerable groups; in questions related to the ethics and bioethics of research involving human beings of the present or the past; in studies on the relations between biodiversity and sociodiversity, also contributing to the expertise in the area of genetic and forensic anthropology.
The activities of PPGA are developed within the scope of the eight lines of research that support the areas of concentration or fields: Genetic and Forensic Anthropology; Archeology in the Amazon; Material Culture, Patrimony and Society; Gender and Sexuality; Memory, Landscape and Cultural Production; Migrations, Diasporas and Ethnicities; Indigenous Peoples and Traditional Populations; and, finally, Socioecology of Health and Disease.