A meeting between Potter and Boaventura on the banks of the Belém River: what still needs to be said about universal access to drinking water?

Abstract

 This critical, theoretical and reflective essay questions what still needs to be said about the right to access to universal drinking water. It promotes, in an innovative way, the meeting of the theoretical perspectives of Van Rensselaer Potter, an American biochemist and exponent of bioethics, and Boaventura de Sousa Santos, a Portuguese sociologist who coined the term Epistemologies of the South. The reflection developed from an everyday scene in Vila das Torres, in an urban stretch of the Belém River, Curitiba, southern Brazil, whose environmental and social vulnerabilities go beyond geographic and temporal limits. Supported by the convergence of scientific, technological and traditional knowledge that seeks to protect nature, culture, dignity and hope of all living beings that make up urban ecosystems, the data support the perspective of Environmental Bioethics as an alternative for this encounter, instead, it aims to meet the multidisciplinary expectations of Potter and Bonaventure.