Um Jogo de Medos, Costumes e Leis: A tensão entre normas sanitárias e cultura na produção do Queijo Minas Artesanal e o caso da Região do Serro

Abstract

Cheese is the cornerstone of cultural identity in Minas Gerais, Brazil and the city of Serro is where exactly gold and this cultured product had met more than 300 years ago. Serro currently is a well-recognized artisanal cheesemaking region in Minas Gerais. The tension between the production of sanitary norms and policies related to the use of raw milk and the recognition of the process of cheesemaking in Minas Gerais as a nationally-recognized cultural heritage is quite present in a number of regulations produced in the past two decades domestically, regionally or locally in Brazil, though. Serro is at the center of this research as a case study. The objective is to follow the path of technical norms production from international to national context, from global to local, always keeping in mind the cultural and regional importance of culture when cheese is at stake. The theoretical framework in this research is the Juridicity as a term of legal anthropology which combines custom, rules and habitus in a tripod to interpret the foundations of law in different societies. This study will borrow foundations from concepts of legal pluralism and risk society to understand and navigate the complexity of norms related to food, governance and risk evaluation. The journey is designed as a game of customs, fears and rules, completed by the analysis of the actors, institutions, norms and systems related to the production of artisanal cheese in Brazil and its relations to regional peculiarities.