Indigenous Political Movement Research Articles

“A Program of Pacification”?: Federal Funding and Indigenous Political Organizing in Canada, 1968–71

This article explores the founding and financing of national Indigenous organizations during the shift in Canadian politics towards the ideal of participatory democracy during the late 1960s and early 1970s. It investigates the emergence of two separate organizations, the National Indian Brotherhood (nib) for “status Indians” and the Native Council of Canada (ncc) for “non-status Indians” and Métis, following the collapse of the pan-Indigenous National Indian Council (nic) in 1968. It highlights the key role that funding played in the structuring of national-level Indigenous politics but argues that accepting federal funding did not simply equate to government control. Instead, both the nib and ncc successfully resisted and – in limited ways – shaped federal policies towards Indigenous peoples. The issue of federal funding opened questions regarding Indigenous rights and self-determination, concepts that were employed in differing ways by the leaders of these organizations and federal officials. While marking a stark shift away from the earlier suppression of Indigenous political movements, federal funding was used to integrate different Indigenous groups as citizens into the Canadian settler state. Nevertheless, federal funding served not only to limit, but also to expand, the practical possibilities of Indigenous organizing, with political leaders recasting government money as the right of Indigenous peoples and a tool for self-determination.

The Influence of the Native Quota in the Organization of Local and Regional Indigenous Political Movements

This research, set in a Latin American context, aimed to delve into the political participation of ethnic minorities, particularly indigenous peoples, and its relationship with democracy, political systems, and parties. Using a comprehensive review of literature from various databases including Scopus, Web of Sciences, Wiley, and EBSCO, and employing the PRISMA method, it sought to understand the political perceptions and preferences of these minorities within society. The study underscored the critical role of ethnic minority participation, especially of indigenous peoples, in guaranteeing representation in the democratic framework. Notable differences emerged in how these minorities view democracy compared to the broader populace. Recognizing ethnic minorities in political roles not only acknowledges their unique challenges but also aids their integration into the political fabric. The overarching conclusion emphasized the indispensable nature of their participation for a just and genuinely democratic society, highlighting the significance of indigenous perspectives on democracy and the pressing need to respect their cultural norms. Political parties also play a pivotal role in influencing perceptions about ethnic diversity. What sets this study apart is its holistic examination of the political engagement of ethnic minorities, shedding light on their views and preferences in relation to democracy and the wider political system, and stressing the role of political parties in fostering a more inclusive political landscape.

Indigenous struggles to overturn present-day discrimination and achieve differentiated rights in Roraima, Brazil

Abstract This article examines affirmations of differentiated Indigenous rights that are present in national and international legislation in the State of Roraima, Brazil, through significant efforts by Indigenous political movements, including activities by Indigenous lawyers. By creating internal mechanisms for solving conflicts, such activists contribute significantly to realising rights present in the Federal Constitution (1988) and the Indian Statute (Law 6.001/1973), and in international legislation such as the International Labour Organisation (ILO) Convention 169 (1989). These mechanisms include the setting up, by the Indigenous Council of Roraima (CIR) and local Indigenous leader councils, of written customary laws (regimentos internos) as an alternative for solving conflicts to avoid sending people to violent and overcrowded prisons. The efforts of Indigenous organisations, activists, and lawyers also seek to overturn a commonplace notion of equality before the law, which fails to consider existing inequalities.

Reframing Timelines: Daniel David Moses and Indigenous Wonderworks in the 1980s

Indigenous speculative fiction was conceptualized and produced in the late twentieth century, engaging with themes related to the modern Indigenous political movement that was occurring at the same time including decolonization, education, and resistance to settler-colonialism. In Canada, the late twentieth century experienced a cultural boom of Indigenous art in response to the pan-Indigenous political movement that enveloped the nation in the 1960s-1990s. Daniel David Moses's The Dreaming Beauty is an early example of Indigenous Wonderworks, situated within the broader framework of Indigenous Futurisms. The Dreaming Beauty reveals three things. The depth and complexity of Indigenous Futurist art; the presence of Wonderworks in the twentieth century; and the connections between Indigenous Wonderworks and the wider modern Indigenous political movement of the late twentieth century.

Urgent Considerations on the Relationship Between the Advance of Covid-19 in Indigenous Territories in Brazil and the Impacts of Monoepistemic Public Policies.

This paper seeks to deal with the advance of Covid-19 in indigenous territories in Brazil, whether urban or rural. To do so, we have gone through a general analysis of the Brazilian government's indigenous policies, comparing bulletins and data from the Special Secretariat of Indigenous Health—Secretaria Especial de Saúde Indígena, an agency linked to the Ministry of Health, as well as data from the Articulation of Indigenous Peoples of Brazil, the main Brazilian indigenous political movement. Furthermore, we systematize strategies that have been developed and executed by some indigenous peoples in Brazil, undertaken by an exploratory analysis of manifestations of indigenous leaders on the internet, along with actions in the legal sphere, as well as, actions in the indigenous territory. Finally, the monoepistemic character of public policies on the issue is problematized.

Decolonisation through Poetry: Building First Nations’ Voice and Promoting Truth-Telling

The impetus to decolonise high schools and universities has been gaining momentum in Southern locations such as South Africa and Australia. In this article, we use a polyvocal approach, juxtaposing different creative and scholarly voices, to argue that poetry offers a range of generative possibilities for the decolonisation of high school and university curricula. Australian First Nations’ poetry has been at the forefront of the Indigenous political protest movement for land rights, recognition, justice and Treaty since the British settlement/invasion. Poetry has provided Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples with a powerful vehicle for speaking back to colonial power. In this article, a team of Indigenous and non-Indigenous researchers argue that poetry can be a powerful vehicle for Indigenous voices and Knowledges. We suggest that poetry can create spaces for deep listening (dadirri), and that listening with the heart can promote truth-telling and build connections between First Nations and white settler communities. These decolonising efforts underpin the “Wandiny (gathering together)—Listen with the Heart: Uniting Nations through Poetry” research that we discuss in this article. We model our call-and-response methodology by including the poetry of our co-author and Aboriginal Elder of the Kungarakan people in the Northern Territory, Aunty Sue Stanton, with poetic responses by some of her co-authors.

Indigenous Labor, Settler Colonialism, and the History of the Fraser River Fishermen’s Strike of 1893

Despite a valuable body of scholarship on Native American and Indigenous labor, few studies explore the unionization of Indigenous workers or their participation in labor movements. The Fraser River Fishermen’s Strike of 1893 was the first major strike in British Columbia’s history. The Indigenous history of this strike illuminates how settler colonialism built the commercial fishing industry, defined the interests of settler workers, and led to the development of the labor movement. The strike also demonstrates how Indigenous people’s anticolonial struggles were embedded in their actions as workers. A range of historical sources, including provincial and federal legislation, legal cases, hearings, the reports of Indian agents, newspaper articles, and autobiographies, document the longer history of colonial expansion and Indigenous labor and resistance leading up to the 1893 Fraser River Fishermen’s Strike. I argue that Indigenous people’s early participation in British Columbia’s labor movement was tied to their efforts to resist colonial encroachment on their fishing rights. The interests of a number of Indigenous leaders from across the province in asserting their sovereignty and retaining power over their labor ultimately led to the creation of a new Indigenous political movement that centered on the Native Brotherhood of British Columbia and its counterpart, the Native Sisterhood. This history challenges labor historians to further address the gaps between labor history and Indigenous histories.

‘Pando/Pando’ Across the Americas: Transnational Settler Territorialities and Decolonial Pluralities

In Allison Hedge Coke’s 2015 poem “Pando/Pando,” Pando is, in one instance, the site of a 2008 massacre in Bolivia, in which thirteen Evo Morales supporters, many Indigenous, were killed by a militia backed by a US-supported right-wing opposition. While this support clearly illustrates the longstanding exertion of US influence over Latin American countries, it also moves across related sites of settler territorialities to reaffirm in Bolivia the structures of racialized hierarchization and Indigenous elimination as the very grounds of sociopolitical legitimacy and normativity through which the US controls its own “domestic” political space. This essay wants to show how Hedge Coke’s poem engages with this transnational production of settler territorialities while redefining the linkage between the two sites as a decolonial crossing. For, secondly, “Pando” refers to a giant clonal colony in present-day Utah: a forest-sized tree and the “largest living organism on earth.” The poem links this form of Indigenous growth at a site of colonial violence via “Pando” to Morales and the Indigenous political movement he signifies. As it connects these different forms of Indigenous (political) life through their rootedness within their specific lands, the poem works to disrupt the normativity of any territorial settler claim. Beyond the limited settler state conceptions of politics as a centralized project of hierarchization, “Pando/Pando” envisions instead a multiscalar structure of relationships as the normative principle of sociopolitical formation, in which transnational settler colonial connections are redrawn as decolonial pluralities of Indigenous territorialities and dimensions of political life.

“Ethnic Revival” in Globalizing World: The Example of Indigenous Political Movements in Latin America

The article offers an inquiry into the problem of “ethnic revival” in politics against the background of the accelerated globalization processes through the example of the indigenous movements in Latin America. In particular, it explains how such global trends as the democratization and liberalization of social and political spheres, intensified activities of international institutions on the empowerment of disadvantaged social groups, the inclusion of ecological problems in national and international agendas, growing interest of international society to the social and political problems of developing countries have contributed to the intensification of political activities of the indigenous peoples in Latin America in the last 25 years.The indigenous political activism has taken radically different institutional forms and has led to diverse outcomes. For instance, in Mexico the indigenous peoples did not manage to create a viable sociopolitical force capable of advocating for their rights. In some other Latin America states, there are indigenous organizations that successfully promote the interests of native peoples. Moreover, in various countries the indigenous representatives are elected to national and local governments. In Colombia, Ecuador and Nicaragua the indigenous political parties were found, which, as long as other political forces, are participating in electoral processes and are delegating their representatives to public institutions. Whereas in case of Bolivia, the indigenous movement in alliance with left and progressive social organizations, has become the leading political force.The author gives an explanation why the political activism of the indigenous peoples in different Latin American countries has taken such forms and has contributed to such results. On the basis of the analysis of these political activities the conclusion is made about common features of political culture, self-identification and perception of social and political processes by the indigenous peoples of Latin America.

Complex, Contemporary, and Unconventional

In the 2018 U.S. midterm elections, a record number of Native American candidates ran for office at all levels of government. To better understand how these 104 candidates intersected with Indigenous political issues and movements to increase Native American voter turnout, we study 723,269 tweets about or by these candidates and 15,476 tweets associated with the #NativeVote movement between October 6, 2018 and February 5, 2019. We use a mixed methods approach to identify issues that emerge in the Native Candidates data set, including issues of representation and protean usage of the "Make America Great Again" hashtag #maga. When examining the feeds of selected candidates, we find that there can be a disconnect between the issues that candidates align themselves with on social media and the issues that they are associated with by others. We also find evidence of Indigenous issues spanning a vast political spectrum and being coupled with other issues in different ways by different candidates and audiences. Finally, we examine the intersection between Native American candidates and the\#NativeVote movement to discover emergent issue networks, including networks around voter suppression and Indigenous political action. Critically, we discuss how our interdisciplinary Indigenous feminist approach to social media analysis illuminates issues of marginalized communities in both a systematic and inductive manner that allows us to discover new patterns and issues with limited a priori knowledge about a complex system.

From indigenous education to indigenising mainstream education

The purpose of this article is to discuss the concept of “indigenous education” in Norway and Aotearoa New Zealand. The point of departure is that both states face a common challenge with regard to indigenous education: Valuable resources are used on indigenous schools, but the majority of indigenous students attend mainstream schools. The article claims that the emphasis on indigenous schools has been necessary and important as part of the indigenous political movement. Nevertheless, in order to achieve culturally appropriate education for all indigenous pupils, this article argues that there is a need to indigenise mainstream education.

"I Am Not a Women's Libber Although Sometimes I Sound Like One": Indigenous Feminism and Politicized Motherhood

"I Am Not a Women's Libber Although Sometimes I Sound Like One"Indigenous Feminism and Politicized Motherhood Sarah A. Nickel (bio) Indigenous women were essential to the twentieth-century Indigenous political movement in British Columbia, yet their roles have often been marginalized in the scholarship of Indigenous politics and in the public imagination. Existing literature obscures women's political involvement by depoliticizing women's work, focusing on sensational moments of action, or collapsing women's politics within the broader narrative of male-dominated political organizations, rendering women's activities invisible.1 The result is that early twentieth-century women's organizations like the British Columbia Indian Homemakers' Clubs (later the British Columbia Indian Homemakers' Association [BCIHA]) and the British Columbia Native Women's Society (BCNWS), which were heavily involved in community and provincial politics through the Union of British Columbia Indian Chiefs (UBCIC), are regularly viewed as non-political "women's groups." Conversely, 1970s political debates about the patriarchal membership provisions of the Act to Amend and Consolidate the Laws Respecting Indians (Indian Act) appear politically dominant and feminist but are decontextualized and divorced from the work that came before. This polarization of women's activities creates a false dichotomy of invisibility and hypervisibility. In fact, I argue that Indigenous women's politics in British Columbia suffers from "Indian Act myopia," which erases the long and complex history of female activism and undercuts deep understandings of the Indigenous movement. Specifically, it undermines how Indigenous women between the 1950s and 1980s consistently enacted real and important political changes using their unique positions and experiences with colonialism and gender discrimination. This dichotomy also imposes a linear narrative of feminism [End Page 299] that does not accurately reflect the noncontinuous and contextually contingent nature of Indigenous women's practices.2 Here, I address this political shortsightedness through the intersections of gender and politics and evaluate women's activities in their own associations, in male-dominated organizations such as the pan-Indigenous UBCIC, and in other political channels. I foreground Indigenous women's own conceptions of their political identities but also recognize that individuals can sometimes express political ideologies implicitly, and this does not necessarily negate their politics.3 Attending to the ways in which Indigenous women situated and articulated their political identities, I argue that Indigenous women's organizations between the 1950s and 1980s were not only highly political but also explicitly, strategically, and sometimes problematically tied to Indigenous understandings of motherhood and family.4 Members also used Indigenous feminism (as needed) to bolster their political demands, but this was not always explicit or consistent. To make this argument I use Indigenous feminism, oral history interviews, and archival materials to trace BC Indigenous women's politics from the 1950s, when women mobilized their roles as mothers and community caretakers to seek better conditions in their communities, to the more openly feminist debates regarding citizenship and sovereignty in the 1970s, and finally to the Splatsín te Secwépemc child welfare bylaw and Indian Child Caravan in 1980.5 I explore how women's organizations drew on and later co-opted settler state attempts to manage Indigenous motherhood, which allowed women to explicitly politicize mothering to achieve better community conditions. Later, members activated these political tools to redirect the Indigenous political movement by questioning the UBCIC chiefs' decisions and political legitimacy. At times, Indigenous women drew on feminist discourses to confront patriarchy inside and outside of their communities, but they continued to privilege ideals of motherhood and sometimes visibly muted feminist ideals to achieve their goals. Although women's political strategies, alliances, and identities fluctuated across time and space, Indigenous motherhood, which focused on family and community well-being, remained a central yet flexible concept grounding and propelling women's political activities. Despite a strong body of literature on Indigenous women's politics, we still know very little about how Indigenous women formed their political identities, developed political communities, and strategically [End Page 300] leveraged their disadvantaged gender and racial positions to achieve political change. In recent years, scholars in the United States and Canada have reexamined Indigenous women's activities and discovered the deeply political nature of women's social work, but...

Identity Between Police and Politics: Rancière’s Political Theory and the Dilemma of Indigenous Politics

ABSTRACTThis article argues that Rancière’s paradoxical account of identity formation through political conflicts can highlight dilemmas facing indigenous political movements across the globe. The article first locates Rancière’s theory within the broader political theory of recognition and briefly describes some of Rancière’s key political concepts (politics; police; demos; ethnos). The article then moves on to a description of several indigenous political movements with a particular emphasis on indigenous people from New Zealand, Chile and Mexico and highlights some key conceptual differences in the political strategies and ideologies of these movements. I conclude by relating the differences between these indigenous political movements to Rancière’s key theoretical concepts and argue that Rancière’s theory allows political theorists to shed some light on the internal contradictions and struggles of indigenous people when these try to use indigenous identity with the goal to radically challenge the social order of colonial societies.

The actual development of indigenous political movements in Latin America

The article offers an inquiry into the development of indigenous political movements in Latin America in 1990-2000, presents the analysis of the political culture of traditional communities as well as analyzes the correlation between the political strategies adopted by ethnic movements and the effectiveness of the political participation of indigenous communities in several Latin America countries.

Her Majesty's Justice Be Done: Métis Legal Mobilization and the Pitfalls to Indigenous Political Movement Building

AbstractIndigenous peoples have, to varying degrees, turned to the courts to litigate their ongoing disputes with Canada's settler colonial governments. Scholars have examined well the ways courts are used for strategic political ends by a variety of Indigenous and non-Indigenous litigants and are laden with settler values and institutional logics that are foreign to Indigenous peoples. However, it is less clear what effect turning to the courts in pursuit of strategic goals has on specific relationships between Indigenous peoples. This gap is more pronounced in Métis scholarship where there have been few final appellate cases. This paper argues the interaction between the Manitoba Métis Federation and Treaty 1 peoples seeking leave to intervene at the Manitoba Court of Appeal inMMF v. Canadailluminates the way litigating Indigenous-settler disputes can advance divisive, exclusionary, zero-sum political relationships between Indigenous peoples. These fractious interactions serve to undermine the construction of a co-ordinated and related inter-Indigenous decolonizing politics.

Ideas cambiantes sobre territorio, recursos y redes políticas en la Amazonía indígena: un estudio de caso sobre Perú

The titling of territory was the principal objective of the Peruvian Amazon’s indigenous political movement over the past four decades. Despite more than eighty communities in the Ucayali region still without legal title, the regional indigenous movement increasingly focuses on strengthening governance over already titled territory. We explore a growing emphasis on forestry production in the discourse of indigenous rights in Ucayali. Networks of indigenous leaders have produced environmental discourses to forge new relationships between their communities and Ucayali’s extractive economy. Our analysis of eighty interviews and testimonies of indigenous leaders and community members demonstrates the value of exploring resource management in titled territories to inform current agendas for untitled communities. Natural resource extraction from the forests and waterways of indigenous communities creates much of the conflict over indigenous land titling.

Guatemalan Mayan Indigenous Political Movement: between Class and Culture.

식민지 시대부터 구축되어온 과테말라의 모순적인 사회경제 구조는 19세기 초 반근대화 과정에서 더욱 공고히 되었다. 결국 사회개혁을 요구하는 "국민적" 열망은 1944년 개혁성향의 아레발로(Arevalo)의 집권으로 이어지면서 이후 10년간 과테말라는 개혁의 봄’을 맞게 된다. 하지만 사회개혁적인 정책들로 기득권을 상실할 위기에 처한 과두 지배엘리트 계층의 반발은 결국 계급전쟁의 성격을 띠게 되는 36년 내전을 야기했다. 이 과정에서 그 동안 착취와 수탈의 대상이었던 원주민은 좌익 게릴라와의 연합을 통해 새로운 정치세력으로 등장하였다. 이에 군부는 대대적인 국가폭력을 이용한‘인종’학살과 제노사이드를 자행함으로써, 원주민 운동의 기반을 제거하려 하였다. 동시에 90년대 전후 성장하기 시작한 탈정치적이고 탈계급적인 문화중심의 ‘마야운동(Movimiento Maya)"은 내전 초기의 계급적 성격의 원주민 운동을 대체하기에 이르렀다. 본 연구는 이 같은 과정에서 형성된 원주민 운동과 원주민 대중간의 간극을 통해 현재 과테말라 사회의 모순적인 사회구조를 변화시키는 동력으로서의 사회운동이 출현하지 못하는 한계를 살펴보고자 한다. Social and economic structure of Guatemalan society in contradiction has been consolidated during modernization process, which began in the early 19th century, from the colonial era. Finally this social conflict provoked the Guatemalan Civil War, which was characterized as a class conflict. During wartime the mayan indigenous people had been emerged as a political power incorporating to leftist guerrillas of Guatemala. Then the military unleashed overwhelming violence against indigenous communities because of "fears" toward to the potentiality of forming a new political power. As a result, the mayan indigenous movement has been turning out to be a culture movement, losing their class characteristics. This article aims to examine and analyze the actual mayan indigenous movement from a class perspective to explain the distance produced between "la base" and indigenous movement itself. This approach will allow us to get some reason why the social movement has not been emerged as a social power in Guatemala to represent the excluded mayan people, who are still expecting to improve their social-economic conditions.

"Women are the pillars of Our Culture": Bohna as a resurgent cloth among the Dhimal

Bohna is the traditional ethnic dress woven and worn by Dhimal women. It is an everyday dress which Dhimal women wear it in all kinds of social spaces and events: home, fields, markets, cinema halls, colleges, mela, and other places. In the recent decades, with the resurgence of indigenous political movements and Dhimals' localized social movements for revival of their customary practices, bohna has emerged as a powerful marker of Dhimal indigenous identity. This paper examines the historical, cultural and political embeddedness of bohna in Dhimal society. The paper highlights the creative agency of Dhimal women by showing how weaving and exchange of bohna recreate and connect the embedded relations of affection, exchange and mutual obligations between Dhimal women.DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.3126/dsaj.v8i0.10724Dhaulagiri Journal of Sociology and Anthropology Vol. 8, 2014; 99-112

Murder, Memory, and the Maya

Murder, Memory, and the Maya S. Ashley Kistler (bio) For Every Indio Who Falls: A History of Maya Activism in Guatemala, 1960–1990. By Betsy Konefal. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 2010. Pp. x + 247. $29.95 paper. ISBN: 9780826348654. A Beauty That Hurts: Life and Death in Guatemala. Second revised edition. By W. George Lovell. Austin: University of Texas Press, 2010. Pp. xv + 206. $24.95 paper. ISBN: 9780292721838. After the Coup: An Ethnographic Reframing of Guatemala, 1954. Edited by Timothy J. Smith and Abigail E. Adams. Urbana: University of Illinois Press. 2011. Pp. x + 167. $22.00 paper. ISBN: 9780252077845. The Mayan in the Mall: Globalization, Development, and the Making of Modern Guatemala. By J. T. Way. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2012. Pp. x + 310. $24.95 paper. ISBN: 9780822351313. May 2013 was a historic month for Guatemala. After months of testimony and numerous legal delays and disputes in a landmark trial, a Guatemalan court convicted the country’s ex-president General Efraín Ríos Montt of genocide and crimes against humanity committed against the country’s poor during his fourteen-month presidency in the early 1980s. Though Ríos Montt’s defense team argued that the general was protected from legal action by a clause in the country’s 1996 Peace Accords1 granting amnesty to those who conducted “war-related crimes” during the country’s thirty-six-year conflict, a judge ordered Ríos Montt to stand trial. The genocide trial of the former dictator, alleged to be responsible for the deaths of 86,000 Maya, began on March 19, 2013.2 His subsequent conviction on May 10, 2013, offered Guatemalans a glimpse of the justice that had eluded them for decades. Ten days later, however, Guatemala’s Constitutional Court overturned the trial’s verdict based on a procedural concern, annulling Ríos Montt’s sentence and invalidating all trial proceedings after April 19.3 When a new court postponed Ríos Montt’s retrial indefinitely (at the time of the writing of this review, it has suggested January 2015 as a potential date for the new trial), it left the fate of the former president, and the future of the country, in limbo. Though Ríos Montt’s presidency ended nearly thirty years ago, it remains one [End Page 251] of the darkest periods in Guatemala’s history. Life in Guatemala has been forever marked by the violence and oppression of the civil war, lasting from 1960 to 1996. Recent scholarly publications on Guatemala explore the roots of its present-day challenges and inequalities. The works reviewed here contextualize Guatemala’s contemporary circumstances in the defining moments of its history: the 1944 October Revolution, the 1954 coup that overthrew President Jacobo Árbenz, the ensuing decades of military repression, and the emergence of the Pan-Mayan movement. These works explore how Guatemala’s long history of corruption, instability, ethnic discrimination, slow economic development, and systematic violence prompted the formation of indigenous political movements and impacted the experiences of its residents. They suggest that although Guatemala’s civil war ended more than fifteen years ago, the country is not at peace. Peace, they show, is more than the mere absence of war; to achieve peace, Guatemala must confront and resolve the inequalities deeply rooted in its society. By documenting the atrocities of the last century and the cultural responses to them, these works enhance our understanding of how the legacy of Guatemala’s past defines the realities of its present. In 1954, a coup overthrew the government of Guatemalan president Jacobo Árbenz, ending the period that Guatemalans identify as the Ten Years of Spring. In 1944, Árbenz helped to overthrow the repressive dictator Jorge Ubico, who regarded rural campesinos as an obstacle impeding the country’s modernization (Way, 37–38). Known as the October Revolution, the 1944 movement to overthrow Ubico espoused freedom and equality for all. Among the changes introduced following the October Revolution was President Árbenz’s radical agrarian reform legislation. Árbenz’s administration confiscated more than four hundred thousand acres of unused agricultural land from the United Fruit Company, which received $1.25 million dollars for its loss (Lovell, 134). The...

O movimento político indígena em Roraima: identidades indígenas e nacionais na fronteira Brasil-Guiana

O trabalho aborda o movimento político indígena que se consolidou a partir da década de 70 do século XX, no Estado de Roraima, com o fortalecimento de identidades indígenas, focalizando, sobretudo, os Makuxi e os Wapichana. Analisa-se a interface dessas identidades com as identidades nacionais de brasileiro e guianense na fronteira internacional, que se consolidaram a partir da definição dessa fronteira em 1904. Examina-se como se sobrepõem essas identidades, e como convivem simultaneamente como identidades contextualizadas entre os povos indígenas que habitam essa região desde muito antes da imposição da fronteira internacional.