Societies “against” and “in ” the State - from Exiwa to the Retakings: Territory, autonomy and hierarchy in the history of the indigenous peoples of Chaco-Pantanal (original) (raw)
Related papers
Retaking territory: An experience of autonomy among the Tupinambá, Bahia, Brazil
The indigenous peoples who live in the coastal area of Brazil were the first ones to suffer the consequences of Conquest. After centuries subjected to attempts of ethnocide, the Tupinambá, who live in the state of Bahia, have recently initiated the struggle to affirm the constitutional right to their lands. From 2004 to 2012, the Tupinambá community of Serra do Padeiro has retaken 22 farms from the hands of non-indigenous people. In a short definition, the retomadas de terras (land retaking acts) can be presented as political actions by which the indigenous community retrieves portions of its traditionally occupied lands, from which they have been dispossessed1. Despite violent police attempts to evict the Indians – unlawful acts took place, indigenous leaders were imprisoned and tortured –, they have not left the areas. Even though the retaking actions are recognized by anthropological literature as a widespread practice of indigenous peoples in Brazil, they have not yet been closely studied. Through ethnographic and bibliographic material, we aimed to describe and analyze the retaking process among the Tupinambá, heading to contribute to the composition of an analytical framework of contemporary experiences of indigenous autonomy in Latin America.
Landscape of Resistance: The Fronts of Economic Expansion and the Xavante Indigenous People—Brazil
Indigenous People, 2017
This article has the objective of identifying and reflecting upon the sociocultural strategies that allowed the Xavante Indians, after centuries of cultural spoliation and territory expropriation, the development of different adaptive mechanisms that guaranteed their reproduction. Here, the attempt is to show that those sociocultural strategies and mechanisms were decisive in the maintenance of its territory, social cohesion, and relative cultural autonomy. Likewise, as a specific objective of this article, one intends to identify which of those cultural changes are perceived in the landscape, seeking a deeper comprehension of the appropriation mechanisms developed by those people in the interface with the Brazilian contemporary society. The proposed methodology to reach the said objectives has been built upon extensive multidisciplinary bibliographical surveys, interviews, and field observations that made feasible, among other things, a more refined construction of the Xavante historiography and a more precise understanding of the social organization variation of those people. Finally, it is proposed here to view the Xavante people as the main subject of their decisions, capable of offering resistance to the progress of capitalist expansion fronts upon their territory and, above all, capable of maintaining their sociocultural cohesion deciding on the course of their own development.
Rethinking Amerindian Spaces in Brazilian History
Ethnohistory, 2018
This special issue on Amerindian spaces is the result of a workshop held at the University of St. Andrews, UK, in June 2015. We asked participants to examine key concepts related to spatial history, such as borderlands, frontiers , and territories, by looking at them through alliances and rebellions involving Amerindians and the colonial and independent states in Latin America. 1 Our aim was to gain a continental understanding of Indian political geography that went beyond European territorial divisions. This purpose continues into the present issue with its focus on the internal and international frontiers of Brazil and how they relate to spaces of indigenous collective action. The articles here reexamine areas that have been considered peripheral in Brazilian historiography, placing the emphasis on indigenous history and society. These spaces proved surprisingly impervious to the imposition of external authority, but each space has its own history that cannot be solely defined by the internal and external frontiers of Brazilian colonial and national expansion. Equally, these indigenous spaces influenced policy and practice, as governments sought to exert control over native labor and advance land settlement for colonists. Our choice for a spatial perspective forces an examination of a regionally connected system of social groups and the environments in which people lived, and which they sought to protect and defend. As a result, we go beyond place, territory, and frontier as concepts and use the term space to invoke a direct and holistic relationship with the larger spheres in which people move and act. This volume is part of a general spatial turn in Latin American history and anthropology that has opened up a field of new questions about
Beyond recognition: autonomy, the state, and the Mapuche Coordinadora Arauco Malleco
Latin American and Caribbean Ethnic Studies, 2018
The initial resurgence of indigenous mobilization in Latin America in the 1970s and 1980s was certainly driven by the framework of the ‘politics of recognition’. However, since then much has been altered in the politico-economic and cultural framework of Latin American societies. This paper examines a new strand of indigenous mobilization in the region today, what we call ‘revindicative autonomism’. Moving away from the language of ‘rights’ and statist autonomy arrangements, this is a struggle against the much-lauded regimes of multiculturalism and differentiated citizenship. Although officially formed back in the late 1990s, the Coordinadora Arauco Malleco (CAM) has more recently emerged as the central actor in what has been called the ‘New Arauco War’ in south-central Chile. This movement has put forward a sui generis project for autonomy that is contingent on the complete territorial recovery and the reconstruction of Wallmapu as a whole. To achieve that, CAM draws from the pre-colonial past and resuscitates the ontologies and epistemologies of the Mapuche nation.
This article presents some of the results of a critical exercise concerning the multiple uses of the past, considering the relations between indigenous peoples, state power structures and sectors of regional society. It reveals how the complex interplay between the construction of a regional mythography and the notion of " demographic voids " (Moreira, 2000) was created at the expense of the forced removal and reclusion of Guarani and Tupinikim groups and the expropriation of their lands in Espírito Santo state, Brazil. The study focuses on the indigenous versions of historical situations, the multiple forms of relationship between the state and indigenous peoples and the conditions of production of ethnographic data (Oliveira Filho, 1999:9).
Indigenous Activism, Territorialization and Ethnicity in the Middle Rio Negro
In: Oliveira, João Pacheco de (org.). Dossier Fighting for Indigenous Lands in Modern Brazil. The reframing of cultures and identities. Vol. 1, n. 1/2 (jan./dez. 2004). Brasília: Associação Brasileira de Antropologia, 2018
This paper addresses the processes of territorialization, formation of indigenous associations and ethnogenesis in the Middle Rio Negro that have led to the most recent struggles for official recognition of indigenous lands. The central focus of description and analysis is the antagonism between the aviamento regime and the "community" as modalities of natural resource consumption and strategies for social reproduction. In the Upper Rio Negro, in the mid-1980s, at the heart of a process of inversion of ethnic stigma, crisis of missionary tutelage and developmentalist militarization; the community became the territorial base for political codification of the emerging formation of associations. At the beginning of the 21st century, indigenous associations gained new life in the Middle Rio Negro, clashing with the aviamento regime and intensifying the fight for territorial rights.
This paper proposes new perspectives on anarchism, indigeneity and Afro-descendent struggles, by discussing the case of Brazilian anarchists' commitment to luta afroindígena. They mean by this term the intersection of indigenous and Afro-descendant resistances for the recognition of land, against the violence of states, agribusiness and extractivism. I argue that this case offers key insights to radical geographies, and to the broader field of decolonial scholarship, to challenge cultural and racial essentialisms by connecting different militant traditions. I also argue that, taking inspiration from indigenous thought and socio-territorial practices of broader Latin American social movements, these cases enhance decolonial bids for 'decolonising methodologies' by showing the importance of starting from practices before theory. My arguments are based on documentary work on past and present relations between anarchism and decoloniality in Latin America/Abya Yala, on personal militant work in Brazil/Pindorama and on a sample of qualitative interviews with activists.
e-journal of Portuguese History, 2021
Bruno Miranda & Mariana Dantas. The colonial administration and management of the indigenous peoples of Brazil has been a recurrent theme in historiography. However, the Amerindians themselves, important actors in the process of constructing colonial society, are largely absent from the historical literature. This article's objective is to critically debate, using modern historiographic methods and theory, three important aspects for understanding the governance of the Amerindians of Brazil: the religious administration, the control of native lands, and the management of their labor. This requires consideration of the indigenous people as actors in their own history and of their actions of resistance, adaptation, and negotiation when engaging with the colonial powers.
Master Thesis, The University of British Columbia (UBC), 2010
This study focuses on an analysis of the counter-hegemonic discourse of Guarani indigenous leaders Timóteo Verá Popyguá and Marçal de Souza, focusing on the strategy of envolvimento (involvement) with the larger capitalist world as a means for achieving cultural survival and autonomy. The core idea of this study is how the 'privatization of public potential' can be employed both for and against initiatives that foster the strengthening of indigenous ways of knowing and relating with the land. I argue that, in order to subvert private property and the domination of space for capitalist production, envolvimento seeks the privatization of lands for the Guarani, who will develop this parcel of land according to their own cultural principles. Counter-hegemonic adaptation, in this case, requires a deep understanding of dominant practices and ideologies, and the desire to take part in the larger economy. Ultimately, I argue that the negative effects of neoliberalism can be diminished by making more private spaces communal.