Povos Indígenas na cidade de Boa Vista: estratégias identitárias e demandas políticas em contexto urbano

Abstract

In this research, I deal with strategies for the ethnic recognition of the indigenous peoples from Boa Vista city, Roraima. This struggle is attributable to the State's refusal to recognize the ethnic belonging of self-declared indigenous people residing in an urban context, preventing their access to indigenous policies. This situation led to the creation of three organizations presided over by Macuxi and Wapichana leaderships, such as the City Indigenous Organization, Kapói Indigenous Association and Kuaikrî Indigenous Association, which present different strategies as a way of legitimizing ethnic belonging and aim, in general terms, the communion in the constitutional rights directed to the native peoples. The intention of this study is to identify the political strategies built around the ethnic identities of the Macuxi and Wapichana peoples of Boa Vista through the indigenous movement. By political outlines, I refer to the discursive and symbolic resources triggered in the construction of reclamation patterns, which are elaborated within organizations. The first hypothesis I propose to discuss about this issue is that the criteria and mechanisms adopted by the State agents become more restrictive and exclusive inasmuch as the indigenous movement in an urban context appropriates them. The second hypothesis is that the State's refusal to recognize ethnic identity reflects a strategically constructed stance that acquits it from responsibilities towards indigenous peoples. The ethnographic rummage focused mainly on the meetings and assemblies promoted by the organizations and made possible the analysis about the political construction of ethnic identities, the appropriation of the city as a place of ancestry, struggles, resistance, negotiations and dialogues led by leaders. The results of the analyzes demonstrate that the conflticting relationship with the State has as a consequence the strengthening of the urban indigenous movement and the emergence of new leaderships that aim not only to reverse the situation of ethnic invisibility in a city that has approximately 31,000 indigenous self-declared people, but political participation, including partisan participation. In this study, the theories on Ethnic Ethnicity and Identity, as well as ethnological studies, were primordial to this research.