"Land is mother and mother, we don't negotiate": ontological conflicts around indigenous rights in Brazil

• Grant number: 21/14736-5
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Doctorate
• Effective date (Start): January 01, 2023
• Effective date (End): September 30, 2026
• Field of knowledge: Interdisciplinary Subjects
• Principal Investigator: Artionka Manuela Goes Capiberibe
• Grantee: Marina Albuquerque Regina de Mattos Vieira
• Host Institution: Instituto de Filosofia e Ciências Humanas (IFCH). Universidade Estadual de Campinas (UNICAMP). Campinas , SP, Brazil

Abstract

Since the first Portuguese invasions, indigenous peoples have been constantly reinventing struggle strategies in a forced interaction with the State. From the 1970s onwards, an indigenous movement at the national level began to take shape in Brazil, in parallel with an international movement for the creation of normative frameworks on the rights of indigenous peoples. Despite political and normative advances, the interpretation and implementation of indigenous rights remains in dispute between the State and indigenous peoples, reflecting ontological conflicts that threaten the existence of the latter. In this process of interaction between different ways of doing politics, new practices and narratives are created, which can generate favorable conditions for the indigenous movement to subvert the hegemonic discourse. In this project, I propose the analytical approach of political ontology (Hay 2006) to discuss how a new political reality resulting from the interaction between the indigenous movement and the Brazilian State is produced. I will carry out ethnographic research in relevant political and normative forums at the regional (Amazon), national and international levels, through interviews with key interlocutors of the indigenous movement, supporters and representatives of the Brazilian State, focusing the analysis on the controlled equivocations (Viveiros de Castro 2004) and the framings (Snow et al. 1986) of indigenous discourses in claiming their rights.