Tapeba: a synthesis of historical ethnography of ethnic territory and subjects

Abstract

This article summarizes ingredients from previous writings to undertake an ethnography of the process of constitution of the Tabeba ethnic territory, in Caucaia, in the Greater Fortaleza Metropolitan Region, until its recent recognition as an Indigenous Land by the Brazilian government. Considering my ethnographic experience and the various forms of engagement that I have had since the mid-1980s, I describe and analyze the constitution of the Tapebas as a collective political subject and the formalization of their territory. The paper addresses the various ways through which this occurred and highlights the factors that enabled it in various scales. I consider the different regimes to which this people was subjected, their process of ethnic individuation, and their path from stigmatization to their recognition as subjects with rights, by linking with a network of actors. I also highlight the main dimensions and situations that led to this.

From the Time of Rights to the Time of Intolerance. The Neoconservative Movement and the Impact of the Bolsonaro Government. Challenges for Brazilian Anthropology

“…While in Africa there was --and still is --an often fragmented struggle between indigenous groups and other social segments concerning policies for the creation of "native states", indigenous groups in Brazil are a distinct minority (Castro, Josué, 2008). In the period of democratization consolidated in the 1988 Constitution, anthropologists who studied indigenous and quilombola communities focused almost inexorably on the indigenous rights that needed to be recognized by the State (Barretto Filho, 2018;Barretto Filho and Ramos, 2019;and O 'Dwyer and Silva, 2020). They often became "cultural mediators", in the words of Roberto Cardoso de Oliveira (2006).…”