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Reconstructing Indigenous Ethnicities: The Arapium and Jaraqui Peoples of the Lower Amazon, Brazil

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 September 2022

Omaira Bolaños
Omaira Bolaños*
Affiliation:
Rights and Resources Group
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Abstract

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In Latin America, indigenous identity claims among people not previously recognized as such by the state have become a key topic of anthropological and sociological research. Scholars have analyzed the motivations and political implications of this trend and the impacts of indigenous population's growth on national demographic indicators. However, little is known about how people claiming indigenous status constructs the meaning of their indigenous ethnicity. Drawing from sixty-four in-depth interviews, focus-group analyses, and participant observation, this article explores the double process of identity construction: the reconstruction of the Arapium indigenous identity and the creation of the Jaraqui indigenous identity in Brazil's Lower Amazon. The findings reveal six themes that contribute to the embodiment of a definition of indigenous identity and the establishment of a discursive basis to claim recognition: sense of rootedness, historical memory, historical transformation, consciousness, social exclusion, and identity politics.

Resumo

Resumo

En América Latina la reivindicación de la identidad indígena por parte de grupos que previamente no se habían considerados como tales se ha convertido en un asunto urgente de investigaciones sociológicas y antropológicas. Académicos han estudiado éste fenómeno con el fin de entender los diferentes aspectos que lo han motivado y las implicaciones políticas del crecimiento de la población indígena en indicadores demográfico nacionales. Sin embargo, poco se conoce sobre cómo las poblaciones que reclaman reconocimiento como indígena construyen el significado de la identidad étnica indígena. Basándome en sesenta y cuatro entrevistas en profundidad, entrevistas con grupos y observación participante, el presente artículo explora el proceso dual de construcción de la identidad: la reconstrucción de la identidad Arapium y la creación de la identidad Jaraqui en la baja Amazonia brasileña. Los resultados de la investigación revelan seis conceptos diferentes a través de los cuales toma forma el sentido de la identidad indígena y se establecen los elementos claves del discurso que sirve para hacer los reclamos de identidad. Los temas son sentido de arraigo, memoria histórica, transformación histórica, conciencia, exclusión social y política de la identidad.

Type
Research Article
Information
Latin American Research Review , Volume 45 , Issue 3 , 2010 , pp. 63 - 86
Copyright
Copyright © 2010 by the Latin American Studies Association

Footnotes

I thank the Tropical Conservation and Development Program and the Amazon Conservation Leadership Initiative at the University of Florida and the Education for Nature/World Wildlife Fund fellowship for their support of my studies and research project in Brazil. I also thank the anonymous LARR reviewers for their insightful comments.

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