Sunday, February 9, 2025

Indigenous Brazil Violated

Challenges and risks faced by indigenous peoples in today’s Brazil

Overview

This project partnership between Cardiff University and LAB, funded by the Arts & Humanities Research Council, completed its work in 2021.

Lead researchers were: Antonio Ioris, Reader in human geography at the School of Geography and Planning, Cardiff University; Dr. Vitale Joanoni Neto (co-investigator) associated professor at the Department of History at the Federal University of Mato Grosso; and Dr. Pedro Rapozo, a lecturer at  Amazonas State University and Coordinator of the Amazon Social-Environmental Studies Center. The LAB team comprised Sue Branford, Tom Gatehouse & Mike Gatehouse.

The projects objectives were:

  1. Examine violence trends, discursive exchanges and the rationalisation of aggression associated with genocidal, epistemicidal and ecocidal practices.
  2. Explore perceptions, experiences and attitudes of indigenous communities towards resisting violence and reacting to mounting pressures and risks.
  3. Develop new theorisations of the interconnected processes of genocide, epistemicide and ecocide that can inform the pursuit of inclusive development and democratic policy reforms.

Three phases were planned:

  1. Media analysis of pro- and anti-indigenous discourses, launch of a website to capture violence occurrences and elite interviews;
  2. Case studies in three hotspot areas in the states of Amazonas, Mato Grosso and Mato Grosso do Sul, targeting selected indigenous communities, involving indigenous researchers and making use of participant observation, interviews and focus groups, and in particular various artistic expressions (music, dance, drawings, drama, videos and pictures, etc.) that communicate suffering, the impacts and the perceptions of community members;
  3. Workshops, a national meeting and talks to communicate and problematize the empirical results and raise recommendations.

However, the Covid pandemic made completion of phases 2 and 3 impossible. In partial compensation a sub-project collected a large number of articles and testimonies about the impact of Covid-19 on indigenous communities. Many of these can be found here.

The main research outputs were the two Media Analysis studies:

  1. This study searched the archives of leading Brazilian national print newspapers for the period January 2016 to May 2020. The report can be downloaded here.
  2. The second, a pilot study, examined the use of social media by indigenous organisations during the same period. The Facebook posts of six indigenous organisations were examined, using the same criteria as for the print media analysis. The report can be downloaded here.

Some articles based on the study are listed below. Click on the links to find LAB articles about Indigenous Peoples, the Amazon, Brazil, etc., or by using the filters on LAB’s News page.

For more information about the project, please contact Antonio Ioris (iorisa@cardiff.ac.uk)

Articles relating to the project

NEW LAB PUBLICATION (October 2024)

Many of the themes of the project are included in LAB’s book The Amazon in Times of War by Marcos Colón. You can order copies here.

Other articles about Indigenous Peoples

Chiapas: women in rebellion and resistance

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LAB council member Elva Narcía Cancino reports from Chiapas, Mexico, where Zapatista indigenous women meet for a training day for Resistance and Rebellion -- against the background of rising levels of violence fueled by drug trafficking gangs and a government which has been ineffectual at best.

Carbon credits build a shopping ‘mall’

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Indigenous people in Guyana have received some payments from a government scheme, selling carbon credits to US oil company Hess. But they were not consulted and were forced to reach a decision in haste. They feel that this was a scheme designed by the government for its own purposes, and in which they had no real say.

Panama: 300 Indigenous Guna families relocated amid rising sea levels 

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A community of Indigenous Guna people were relocated from their island of Gardí Sugdub in the Caribbean Sea to a new mainland settlement. They are the first island community to be recognized by the government as victims of forced displacement driven by climate change. 

Women criminalized for resisting gas extraction in Bolivian nature reserve

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Campesina women in the Tariquía National Reserve stand up against impending gas extraction which will have detrimental impacts on the environment and local communities’ ways of life.

What Donald Trump’s possible re-election could mean for the Amazon and...

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As the world watches the United States gear up for another presidential election, the potential re-election of Donald Trump raises questions not only about the future of American democracy but also about the fate of global environmental policies.

Ka’apor and Quilombola Communities in Brazil

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Documentary film: We Fight For This Land: Ka’apor and Quilombola Communities in Brazil (62”, 2024)Directors: Cahal McLaughlin and Siobhán Wills Quilombo and Indigenous Ka’apor communities...