Temporalities of Ownership: Land Possession and its Transformations Among the Tupinambá (Bahia, Brazil) (original) (raw)

2016

Abstract

Based on ethnographic descriptions of different historical instances and meanings of possession of the land, in this article I argue that meaningful experiences of dwelling are a key factor in transforming the past by abandoning a place and leaving it to the forest. Instead of handing land down, heading forth to open up new spaces for cultivation, building new homes and thereby establishing a new house informs these practices of possession that imply on the one hand personalized, temporary possessions sustained in the responsibility by the owner for the owned object/subject, and on the other hand imply cutting with former places of origin. By showing that temporalities of possession intertwine land dynamics with kinship dynamics, I finally show how this analysis not only connects the lived world of indigenous people living in the Atlantic coast and those inhabiting Amazonia, but also opens up meaningful comparative axes to other rural socialities in the Northeast Brazil.

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