The people of goods under the review of indigenous thinkers: a comparative analysis between the thoughts of Davi Kopenawa and Ailton Krenak

• Grant number: 22/03528-5
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Scientific Initiation
• Start date: June 01, 2022
• End date: May 31, 2023
• Field of knowledge: Humanities - Anthropology - Indigenous Ethnology
• Principal Investigator: Valeria Mendonça de Macedo
• Grantee: Carolaine Nunes Silva
• Host Institution: Escola de Filosofia, Letras e Ciências Humanas (EFLCH). Universidade Federal de São Paulo (UNIFESP). Campus Guarulhos. Guarulhos , SP, Brazil

Abstract

This project aims to understand and articulate the reflections of the indigenous authors Davi Kopenawa and Ailton Krenak about the "people of goods" (non-indigenous). The analysis will focus on statements by these two thinkers about the capitalist western world and its predatory and devastating relationship with other living beings. The research will focus on the understanding of the book "The fall of the sky. Words from a Yanomami Shaman", by Davi Kopenawa & Bruce Albert (2015), and the Ailton Krenak's books "Life is not useful" (2020), "Ideas for postponing the end of the world" (2019) and "Tomorrow is not for sale" (2020) ). In a complementary way, the analysis may include other texts and the lives of these intellectuals. The concept of "reverse anthropology", by Roy Wagner (2010), will be the guiding axis of the analysis, seeking to recognize ways of elaborating the otherness of non-indigenous people. The trajectories of the two authors are permeated by environmental tragedies - such as the miner's invasion of the Yanomami lands and the collapse of the Fundão dam by the Samarco mining company, which dumped tailings into the Rio Doce and directly affected the Krenak people - and this will be a central axis in the exercise comparison of the experiences and elaborations of these indigenous intellectuals. (AU)