This thesis explores the role of fresh water in Bronze Age Crete. It presents a catalogue of Minoan water management systems, and investigates the ways in which these systems were incorporated into broader social, political, economic, religious and cultural processes and practices. While the primary focus of this thesis revolves around the data collected on water management systems, it also explores the place of fresh water in Minoan art, iconography, and ritual action. While water is a fundamental resource, and the provision of fresh water on Crete is affected by special geological, geographic, and climatological issues, this has been a largely neglected area in the literature on Minoan archaeology. The thesis seeks to redress this neglect, and argues that the evidence reveals a culture that was deeply concerned with fresh water, developing technologically sophisticated solutions, and devoting considerable economic resources, and political and religious attention to it. One of the key claims of this thesis is that fresh water was a meaningful and valued commodity in Bronze Age Crete, and certain sources of water were particularly revered. This status was exploited by elite groups, who invested in often monumental and highly visible systems for collecting and storing fresh water, in order to assert and reaffirm their special status. Fresh water was also incorporated into ritual practice, and – through its innate capacity to act as a conduit for complex meanings and metaphors – participated in the construction of Minoan religious and cultural beliefs. This thesis also draws out the ways in which water’s religious meaningfulness was incorporated into elite strategies of social control and the construction of an ideology of difference.

Esta dissertação é um estudo antropológico a respeito do Partido Progressista Brasileiro-PPB, em Porto Alegre, durante as eleições municipais de 1996. Pretendendo ser uma contribuição para a temática da antropologia da política. O trabalho teve como objetivo desvelar os mecanismos de representação e práticas políticas do grupo de candidatos a vereador. Analisou-se como as biografias dos candidatos estão articuladas com as ações rituais do partido. O presente estudo possibilitou discutir, no âmbito das sociedades contemporâneas, os referenciais do ritual na política moderna, a família e sua importância como instituição na ação política, enfim as questões que são levadas em conta quando alguém quer se tornar candidato. / This dissertation is an anthropological study about the Progressive Brazilian Party (Partido Progressista Brasileiro - PPB) during the municipal election of 1996 in Porto Alegre, RS, Brazil. As a contribution to Political Anthropology, this research had as its goal to reveal the mechamisms of representation and the political practices of the candidates running for city councilors. The biographies of the candidates are compared with the ritual actions of the party. This study has made a discussion of the points to be considered when one wants to become a candidate, in the realm of contemporary societies, of the ritual references in modern politics, in the family and its importance as an active political institution.

Esta dissertação é um estudo antropológico a respeito do Partido Progressista Brasileiro-PPB, em Porto Alegre, durante as eleições municipais de 1996. Pretendendo ser uma contribuição para a temática da antropologia da política. O trabalho teve como objetivo desvelar os mecanismos de representação e práticas políticas do grupo de candidatos a vereador. Analisou-se como as biografias dos candidatos estão articuladas com as ações rituais do partido. O presente estudo possibilitou discutir, no âmbito das sociedades contemporâneas, os referenciais do ritual na política moderna, a família e sua importância como instituição na ação política, enfim as questões que são levadas em conta quando alguém quer se tornar candidato. / This dissertation is an anthropological study about the Progressive Brazilian Party (Partido Progressista Brasileiro - PPB) during the municipal election of 1996 in Porto Alegre, RS, Brazil. As a contribution to Political Anthropology, this research had as its goal to reveal the mechamisms of representation and the political practices of the candidates running for city councilors. The biographies of the candidates are compared with the ritual actions of the party. This study has made a discussion of the points to be considered when one wants to become a candidate, in the realm of contemporary societies, of the ritual references in modern politics, in the family and its importance as an active political institution.

Esta dissertação é um estudo antropológico a respeito do Partido Progressista Brasileiro-PPB, em Porto Alegre, durante as eleições municipais de 1996. Pretendendo ser uma contribuição para a temática da antropologia da política. O trabalho teve como objetivo desvelar os mecanismos de representação e práticas políticas do grupo de candidatos a vereador. Analisou-se como as biografias dos candidatos estão articuladas com as ações rituais do partido. O presente estudo possibilitou discutir, no âmbito das sociedades contemporâneas, os referenciais do ritual na política moderna, a família e sua importância como instituição na ação política, enfim as questões que são levadas em conta quando alguém quer se tornar candidato. / This dissertation is an anthropological study about the Progressive Brazilian Party (Partido Progressista Brasileiro - PPB) during the municipal election of 1996 in Porto Alegre, RS, Brazil. As a contribution to Political Anthropology, this research had as its goal to reveal the mechamisms of representation and the political practices of the candidates running for city councilors. The biographies of the candidates are compared with the ritual actions of the party. This study has made a discussion of the points to be considered when one wants to become a candidate, in the realm of contemporary societies, of the ritual references in modern politics, in the family and its importance as an active political institution.