Karaiwa kumu, mekoro kumu: kinship and otherness in the point of view of an Amerindian people (Kaxuyana)

• Grant number: 14/01858-1
• Support type: Scholarships in Brazil - Doctorate
• Effective date (Start): September 01, 2015
• Effective date (End): February 28, 2018
• Field of knowledge: Humanities - Anthropology - Indigenous Ethnology
• Principal researcher: Renato Sztutman
• Grantee: Luisa Gonçalves Girardi
• Home Institution: Faculdade de Filosofia, Letras e Ciências Humanas (FFLCH). Universidade de São Paulo (USP). São Paulo , SP, Brazil

Abstract

This project proposes a study on the relations between Amerindians and Afro-brazilians peoples at Trombetas, river basin located in the region of Northern Amazonia. Experienced by indigenous and afro-brazilians in recent centuries, these relationships varied between enmity to cerimonial kinship, being qualified in different modalities in native exegesis. Taking the perspective of a people known as Kaxuyana as a starting point, the research aims to produce an ethnographic theory (Goldman, 2006; Da Col & Graeber, 2011) on the relations established with those addressed by the term mekoro, 'negroes', sketching, therefore, a few questions: how mekoro are located by these amerindians, taking into account the uses, meanings and effects of native kinship terminologies and categories of otherness? In the Amerindian perspective, how the relationships between indigenous and African-americans are compared - if comparable - with relationships with other beings that populate their cosmology? How are their connections and dissenssions expressed, considering the native theories of agency and personhood, that is, of humanity?