Living well, dying badly

The Ashéninka of the Alto Tamaya in the borderland between Peruvian Amazon and Brazil

Abstract

This article examines the historical, social, and political process that affected a segment of ashéninka society. It led these people to fight for and take hold of a territorial space on the frontier zone between Peruvian Amazon and Brazil. It assesses the case of the Saweto ashéninka who migrated to, and settled in the Upper Tamaya after a period, in the twentieth century, of social convulsion in their traditional lands in Peru’s Central Amazon. The ashéninka moved to the border area hoping to fulfill their aspirations. They joined new contexts of economic and political articulations both individually and collectively. They share the space with settlers and riverside people who straddle the border to extract resources in informal and illegal ways under a weak state presence. Despite their geographic marginality and distance from political and economic power, the Saweto ashéninka managed to create the native community “Peruvian centers of Alto Tamaya-Saweto” and acquire a title certificate of   80 thousand hectares. They accomplished this victory after fourteen years demanding their rights and the assassination of four of their members in 2014.