Architecture of violence a forensic mapping of the human rights violations of the Kinja people during the Military Dictatorship in Brazil

• Grant number: 16/06360-7
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Post-Doctoral
• Start date: August 01, 2016
• End date: February 16, 2017
• Field of knowledge: Interdisciplinary Subjects
• Principal Investigator: Leandro Silva Medrano
• Grantee: Paulo Roberto Carvalho Tavares
• Host Institution: Faculdade de Arquitetura e Urbanismo (FAU). Universidade de São Paulo (USP). São Paulo , SP, Brazil

Abstract

The research project Architecture of Violence intends to document the history of violence and human rights violations committed against the Kinja people during the military regime in Brazil. In the 1970s and 1980s, during the construction of the BR-174 highway and the Balbina hydroelectric dam on the traditional territory of the Kinja in northern Amazonia, the indigenous population was reduced by about 90%. Departing from the understanding that the designs of these projects and their environmental impacts are directly involved in this process of extermination, this research seeks to describe the spatial, properly "architectural" dimension of such violence. Using the tools and methodologies of the field of forensic architecture, an emerging discipline that deals with the relationships between human rights and spatial conflicts, the research aims to build a body of evidence on the case of Kinja people, mainly through cartographic studies elaborated with new remote sensing technologies. The documentation and analysis of the historical and spatial evidentiary material will contribute to the process of historical clarification initiated with the investigation conducted by the Brazilian National Truth Commission in 2012-2013, whose legacy has been little explored. (AU)