Kawaiwete analogies: describing relations in the Xingu

• Grant number: 19/00170-0
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Doctorate
• Start date: October 01, 2019
• End date: November 30, 2023
• Field of knowledge: Humanities - Anthropology - Indigenous Ethnology
• Principal Investigator: Marina Vanzolini Figueiredo
• Grantee: Rodrigo Rossi Mora Brusco
• Host Institution: Faculdade de Filosofia, Letras e Ciências Humanas (FFLCH). Universidade de São Paulo (USP). São Paulo , SP, Brazil

Abstract

This is an ethnographic research proposal, in which the researcher proposes to conduct a long-term fieldwork research among the Kawaiwete, an indigenous Tupi-Guarani speaking people which nowadays lives, in its majority, in the Xingu Indigenous Territory. The main goal is to describe and elucidate the relations between the Kawaiwete and nonindigenous actors. Noting, however, the constant compairisons traced by the indigenous peoples of Lowlands South America between different relations, the etnographic atention should be turned towards the analogies that the Kawaiwete establish between their relations with nonindigenous persons and other relations that integrate their sociality. I also suggest that the concept of "fractality" allows us to translate these analogies without appealing to some sort of encompassement in a superior whole, thus forcing us to experiment with new forms of writing the anthropological monograph. (AU)