Objects and other stories: what the relations through things between isolated and contacted indigenous people in Southwest Rondônia tells

• Grant number: 21/02185-4
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Doctorate
• Start date: August 01, 2022
• End date: July 31, 2026
• Field of knowledge: Humanities - Anthropology - Indigenous Ethnology
• Principal Investigator: Pedro de Niemeyer Cesarino
• Grantee: Amanda Villa Pereira
• Host Institution: Faculdade de Filosofia, Letras e Ciências Humanas (FFLCH). Universidade de São Paulo (USP). São Paulo , SP, Brazil
• Associated scholarship(s): 25/07722-9 - Objects and Other Stories: What Relationships Through Things Reveal Between Isolated and Contacted Indigenous Peoples in Southwest Rondônia, BE.EP.DR

Abstract

This research proposes an investigation around the semiology of the materiality present in the Massaco and Rio Branco indigenous lands, at Rondônia. To do so, I propose to investigate the conception of alterity between the Tupari, Makurap, Aruá, Djeoromitxí, Arikapú, Kanoê and Aikanã peoples about the materiality that circulates in the villages of Rio Branco indigenous land, in a multi-ethnic context. It is a contiguous territory to that of the Massaco indigenous land, the latter exclusively demarcated for people in voluntary isolation. From elaborations regarding the objects they produce, offer or find of their isolated neighbors, I intend to understand the way in which these existences are conceived, so geographically close, although supposedly intangible because of their refusal to coexist. The proposed ethnography moves on two fronts: on the one hand, the survey of material production and its respective conceptions in a grouping territory of at least seven distinct ethnicities (TI Rio Branco), and, on the other, the way in which such groups understand their daily coexistence, even if in distance, with these indigenous people in isolation. As an effort to trace the objects that circulate through these territories, I propose to focus on the circulation of artifacts, tracks, traces, sounds and sightings, with the intention of giving space to an analytical construction of their relational context. (AU)