From Affirmative Legal Recognition to Compensatory Rationality in Environmental Licensing

Exploring the limits and possibilities of indigenous identity recognition

Abstract

The entrepreneurial activity of transportation infrastructure is framed within the perspective of sustainable development, in which the assessment of environmental impacts goes beyond biophysical effects. Aspects such as socioeconomic and cultural impacts are examined and weighed within a compensation framework, subjecting these projects to administrative environmental licensing. In Brazil, when such projects affect indigenous peoples, a specific item is established in the licensing process focused on studies and compensatory programs. The mitigating and compensatory measures require the consent of the indigenous community. Considering the theoretical and legal advancement in the principle of indigenous peoples' protection and their recognition as political organizations, the central proposition of this article is to investigate, through a case study, whether the agreements reached as compensation can facilitate indigenous political-cultural identity actions. The investigation is conducted from an exploratory perspective, using qualitative research methods, including bibliographic, documentary analysis and interview. The study is grounded in the examination of items agreed upon in the environmental licensing of the duplication of the BR 116 highway in the state of Rio Grande do Sul, which affected the Mbyá-Guarani indigenous people. The analysis reveals that this procedural space, established by normative force, was exploitable in terms of an identity-claiming discourse of indigenous citizenship, affirming sociocultural elements as part of their original identity as a people who have survived a diligent effort to suppress their identity and diversity.