Etnogênese e Movimento Indígena: Lutas Políticas e Identitárias na Virada do Século XX para o XXI

Abstract

In this article I attempt to retake the debate around the notion of ethnogenesis, extending it to the historical context of Latin America and the Caribbean and relating it to the category of Indigenous Peoples, used by ethnic-political movements (but differing itself from movements of nationalistic character) around the world. What Lévi-Strauss called the warm-up of indigenous societies at the end of the twentieth century, which other authors describe as an awakening of the indigenous movement, continues to provoke debates within and outside academia. As a result of direct contact with the colonizers, but indicating a reverse movement of land and rights, as well as of symbols, self-esteem and native pride, such contemporary movements are imbricated in the different claims of ethnic identity that came to form the so-called ethnogenesis, redoubling in turn the concern of States with such new forms of political organization, such as the Brazilian case that is addressed here.