Mulheres Karipuna: gênero, intercâmbios e mutirões – Oiapoque – Amapá

Abstract

This research deals with the understanding of the protagonisms and ways of life of the indigenous women of the Karipuna people, focusing primarily on those who were born in or are residents of the Santa Izabel village, in the Uaçá Indigenous Territory, in Oiapoque, state of Amapá. These women weave networks of knowledge exchanges with women from the twenty-seven other Karipuna villages situated in the Uaçá, Galibi, and Juminã Indigenous Territories, along the Curipi river, the Oiapoque river, and the BR-156 highway; they establish knowledge exchanges and articulations with the women of the Galibi Kali’na, Palikur Arukwayene, and Galibi Marworno peoples, who live in these same Indigenous Territories. In this case, the act of researching means revisiting family and territorial memories, conducting conversations with youth and elder women (mulheres antigas), in addition to consulting archives, objects, photographs, recordings, and drawings related to the histories of the women of my people. I retrace trajectories that involve childhood, youth, and work in the fields (roças), to rituals, craftsmanship, movements between villages and cities, friendships, and performance in the indigenous movement. I address the female presence in the stories of our cosmology and their interlocutions with various possible worlds, as well as the expansion of their roles through their own political mobilizations. The research is an ethnography that unfolds within the webs of kinship relations and shared experience, telling stories of grandmothers, mothers, aunts, and the author herself. In interviews and informal conversations, the women trigger their own categories to describe their protagonisms and experiences: female references are described as "mirrors" ("my mother is my mirror, my sister is my mirror"); collective exchanges are called "knowledge exchanges" (intercâmbios de conhecimento) and political organization is related to words such as "giving a hand" (dar a mão), "one woman pulls the other" (uma mulher puxa a outra), and "mutirão" (collective effort). The term "empowerment" (empoderamento) emerges to justify the growing female presence in regional leadership. I understand this research as a collective work, made by many hands, memories, and worlds, as it is grounded in the knowledge of Karipuna women from different generations: a great network of exchanges, a mutirão, or maiuhi in anthropology.