Indigenous Movements, Self-Representation and the State in Latin America (review)

This author suggests new avenues for thinking about the relationship between formerly stateless societies and the state. It does so through a detailed study of one particular group, the Shuar, indigenous to the Ecuadorian Amazon. Formerly an acephalous society of hunter-gardeners, the Shuar now constitute a federation with a democratically elected, hierarchical leadership and are at the forefront of indigenous movements in Latin America. The author analyzes this transformation in the context of colonialism but argues that colonialism involves far more than the movement of people from one place to another or the extension of state authority over new territory. Rather, he reveals colonialism to hinge on the transformation of sociospatial boundaries. Such transformations were critical not only to Shuar ethnogenesis but also to Ecuadorian state-building. That is, colonialism involves a dialectical reorganization both of the state and of its new subjects.

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A reviravolta dos sentidos e das coisas: um movimento Guarani - Mbyá em busca de escolarização indígena

#Tear: Revista de Educação, Ciência e Tecnologia ◽

10.35819/tear.v8.n1.a3414 ◽

2019 ◽

Vol 8 (1) ◽

Author(s):

Danielle Bastos Lopes

Keyword(s):

Latin America ◽

Social Movement ◽

Rio De Janeiro ◽

Indigenous Education ◽

The State ◽

Intercultural Education ◽

Indigenous Movements ◽

America Latina ◽

Indigenous Schooling ◽

The Invisible

Resumo: O movimento institucional indígena tem ganhado variadas expressões desde sua criação nos anos 1980, período de abertura política no Brasil. Este artigo analisa uma dessas expressões. Analisa-se a busca da escolarização indígena pelo movimento social Guarani, criado por dois irmãos na década de 1990, no estado do Rio de Janeiro. Grande parte das sociedades Guarani são oriundas do Paraguai, Bolívia, Uruguai e Argentina, cujas famílias mantêm uma circulação não fixa por todos esses territórios. A noção de escolarização é atravessada por ritos, seres cósmicos e lógicas sensíveis que desconstroem os sentidos puramente racionais dos modelos de educação indígena que têm povoado a América Latina. Conclui-se que há um mundo invisível e cosmológico que subsume os processos de escolarização e o movimento popular indígena. Os mundos invisíveis são, portanto, condições essenciais e indivisíveis ao entendimento de política, organização e humanidade Guarani.Palavras-Chave: Educação Indígena. Movimento Social Guarani. Cosmologia. THE REVOLUTION OF SENSES AND THINGS: A GUARANI - MBYÁ MOVEMENT IN SEARCH OF INDIGENOUS SCHOOLING Abstract: The indigenous institutional movement has gained varied expressions since its creation in the 1980s, a period of political beginning in Brazil. This paper studies one of these expressions. This study analyzes the search for indigenous schooling based on the popular Guarani movement, created by two brothers in the 1990s in the state of Rio de Janeiro / Brazil. The most Guarani societies came from Paraguay, Bolivia, Uruguay and Argentina, where families maintained a non-fixed circulation for all these territories. The notion of schooling is crossed by rites, cosmic beings and sensible logics that deconstruct the purely rational meanings of the models of intercultural education that have populated Latin America. It’s possible to conclude that there is an entire invisible and cosmological world, which subsumes the processes of schooling and the indigenous movements. The invisible worlds are, therefore, essential and its indivisible conditions are mandatory to the understanding of Guarani politics, organization and humanity.Keywords: Indigenous Education. Guarani Social Movement. Cosmology.

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Indigenous Political Representation in Latin America

Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Politics ◽

10.1093/acrefore/9780190228637.013.243 ◽

2017 ◽

Author(s):

Roberta Rice

Keyword(s):

Social Movements ◽

Latin America ◽

Civil Society ◽

Indigenous Peoples ◽

Latin American ◽

Political System ◽

Political Representation ◽

The State ◽

The Political ◽

Indigenous Movements

Indigenous peoples have become important social and political actors in contemporary Latin America. The politicization of ethnic identities in the region has divided analysts into those who view it as a threat to democratic stability versus those who welcome it as an opportunity to improve the quality of democracy. Throughout much of Latin America’s history, Indigenous peoples’ demands have been oppressed, ignored, and silenced. Latin American states did not just exclude Indigenous peoples’ interests; they were built in opposition to or even against them. The shift to democracy in the 1980s presented Indigenous groups with a dilemma: to participate in elections and submit themselves to the rules of a largely alien political system that had long served as an instrument of their domination or seek a measure of representation through social movements while putting pressure on the political system from the outside. In a handful of countries, most notably Bolivia and Ecuador, Indigenous movements have successfully overcome this tension by forming their own political parties and contesting elections on their own terms. The emergence of Indigenous peoples’ movements and parties has opened up new spaces for collective action and transformed the relationship between Indigenous peoples and the state. Indigenous movements have reinvigorated Latin America’s democracies. The political exclusion of Indigenous peoples, especially in countries with substantial Indigenous populations, has undoubtedly contributed to the weakness of party systems and the lack of accountability, representation, and responsiveness of democracies in the region. In Bolivia, the election of the country’s first Indigenous president, Evo Morales (2006–present) of the Movement toward Socialism (MAS) party, has resulted in new forms of political participation that are, at least in part, inspired by Indigenous traditions. A principal consequence of the broadening of the democratic process is that Indigenous activists are no longer forced to choose between party politics and social movements. Instead, participatory mechanisms allow civil society actors and their organizations to increasingly become a part of the state. New forms of civil society participation such as Indigenous self-rule broaden and deepen democracy by making it more inclusive and government more responsive and representative. Indigenous political representation is democratizing democracy in the region by pushing the limits of representative democracy in some of the most challenging socio-economic and institutional environments.

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