O objetivo desta nota de pesquisa é fornecer subsídios para uma discussão acerca dos desafios atuais de análise dos dados censitários no tocante aos indígenas, assim como apresentar algumas perspectivas futuras necessárias para o avanço na produção dessas informações. Inicialmente, se discorre sobre procedimentos específicos adotados na produção desses dados e se sistematizam algumas inovações metodológicas introduzidas no Censo Demográfico 2010.
Brazilian census data show a remarkable increase in the population self-reporting as "indigenous" between 1991 and 2000 but do not readily enable that increase to be analyzed in terms of the nearly 200 specific indigenous societies or ethnicities that exist in Brazil. In this article, we investigate some instances and implications of how the 2000 Brazilian National Census employed categories conceived for the national population to register one specific people—the Xavante of Mato Grosso, Central Brazil—with their own inherent social arrangements and morphologies. We do so by comparing census data corresponding to Xavante Indigenous Reserves with an independently collected set of demographic data for the same year. Although we found census data to adequately represent basic characteristics of the Xavante population (population size and age and sex distributions), we also found they reclassified and transformed Xavante households and thereby denatured Xavante sociality of its demographic and sociocultural complexity. The Xavante case is an example of how national demographic censuses not only capture data regarding indigenous peoples but also help shape those data by contributing to how indigenousness is perceived. Our findings suggest that the Brazilian National Census should seek to be more sensitive to indigenous realities and thereby to assess more accurately fundamental aspects of indigenous societies.
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