Indigenous participation in 2016 municipal elections

• Grant number: 16/04517-6
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Scientific Initiation
• Effective date (Start): April 01, 2016
• Effective date (End): March 31, 2017
• Field of knowledge: Humanities - Anthropology - Indigenous Ethnology
• Principal Investigator: Antonio Roberto Guerreiro Júnior
• Grantee: Alice Penido da Silveira
• Host Institution: Instituto de Filosofia e Ciências Humanas (IFCH). Universidade Estadual de Campinas (UNICAMP). Campinas , SP, Brazil
• Associated research grant: 13/26676-0 - Transforming amerindian regional systems: the Upper Xingu case, AP.JP

Abstract

The aim of this project is to initiate an investigation on how some peoples of the Upper Xingu have been related to the municipal politics of the small town of Gaúcha do Norte / MT. The city was founded in 1996, and has 6,287 inhabitants according to the census of 2010. Part of the Xingu Indigenous Park is in its territory, and "Gaúcha" (as the city is known in the region) is responsible for some municipal policies directed at indigenous peoples. But the city has also developed several actions that are not restricted to villages in their municipality, such as opening roads that provide access to the park, the direct contribution in sponsoring rituals, and the organization of touristic trips do Xingu villages, turning this city into a new pole of attraction of the indigenous peoples of the region. At the same time, several Xinguano men and women who voted in other municipalities transferred their voters' titles to Gaúcha do Norte, expanding forms of involvement in municipal politics. With this in view, the aim of this project is to initiate an ethnography of the relationship of the Xinguano peoples with municipal politics, trying to identify the agents, their operating contexts, their relations to their villages of origin and kinsfolk, and how the occupation of institutional spaces of the municipal administration has been mediating connections between villages and the city. (AU)