SOAS Research Online

Abstract

This paper aims to show how the imposed demarcation of borders by the Brazilian State has contributed to the establishment of other frontiers - not only physical but also epistemic and symbolic ones - against indigenous peoples. This practice has artificially constructed colonial subjectivities, whose representation has been dragged on since the colonial period, having been reinforced amidst the corporate-military dictatorship (1964-1985), and today is materialised in the anti-indigenous government of Jair Bolsonaro. Above all, this research shows how the Guarani cosmology - i.e., world narrative - has been reformulated due to the multiple forms of violence committed against their people. This has resulted in alternative territorialisation strategies that disrupt these colonial subjectivities in the form of migratory movements and the repossession of ancestral territories, their Tekohas.