"This bloodshed must stop": Land claims on the Guarita and Uru-Eu-Wau-Wau reservations, Brazil.
Item
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Title
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"This bloodshed must stop": Land claims on the Guarita and Uru-Eu-Wau-Wau reservations, Brazil.
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Identifier
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AAI9325148
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identifier
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9325148
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Creator
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Simonian, Ligia T. L.
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Contributor
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Adviser: June Nash
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Date
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1993
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Language
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English
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Publisher
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City University of New York.
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Subject
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Anthropology, Cultural | History, Latin American | Sociology, Ethnic and Racial Studies
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Abstract
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This dissertation analyzes land claims on Indian territories in Brazil, and compares claims laid on the Guarita and the Uru-Eu-Wau-Wau reservations. Archival and ethnographic data are used to reveal past and contemporary transformations. Despite the differences between the two reservation settings and the differential time gap in the colonial encounter, conquest and process of domination and accommodation, both the Guarita and the Uru-Eu-Wau-Wau reservation Indians have undergone similar dispossessing experiences. Indian land loss, depopulation, kin and biological changes are, therefore, examined. The state, non-Indians and Indian role as claimants are simultaneously analyzed, as well as the role of some Indians as usurpers of their own kin possessions and natural resource rights are explored.;Emphasis is given to recent land claims in a discussion of the consistent and persistent control exercised by the state and local elites on Indian lands. This process of control has been accomplished through state sponsored developmentalist policies, usually in collaboration with international interests. The research suggests that in the Amazon these policies have been imposed since the mid-1940s during the rubber-boom, and continued ever since with mining, road building, colonization and lumber exploitation. In the south they have been imposed through a "green revolution," primarily with the intensification of crops such as wheat and soybean, the latter for export. Indian land and natural resources have been great, both in the Guarita and the Uru-Eu-Wau-Wau reservations, where the Indians have suffered genocidal policies and actions.;Finally, these processes are compared with similar situations worldwide, where the state, non-Indians, and eventually Indians have deliberately sponsored anti-Indian policies and strategies. Changes in Indian land policies have also occurred as the state began to recognize vast areas as Indian lands, but threats persist through powerful non-Indian economic and political interests. Growing Indian political organization may be a sign of hope, especially if the ongoing inequalities including Indian landlessness within and between different groups, is addressed by the state, non-Indians and Indians in the near future.
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Type
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dissertation
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Source
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PQT Legacy CUNY.xlsx
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degree
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Ph.D.
