Juventudes indígenas em espaços urbanos amazonenses: narrativas Sateré-Mawé

Abstract

It is clear that the youth category is not a part of the traditions of indigenous people in Brazil. However, approximations have been observed, especially from the beginning of the XXI century, among indigenous students, which include their self-identification as youths and the creation of organizations that highlight the emergence of the indigenous youth social category among such populations. It was from such observations that we devised a study, now the present thesis, dealing with the youth social categorization in the Brazilian indigenous context, focusing, especially, on the Sateré-Mawé people, from their experiences in urban contexts in Barreirinha, Manaus, Maués and Parintins. Aside from theorizations about indigenous population issues in Brazil, studied by Manuela Carneiro da Cunha, among others, to problematize indigenous youths as a socially identified category, we chose the theoretical perspective of critical interculturality, in dialogue with theorizations from Vera Candau and her interweaving with decoloniality, as proposed by Catherine Walsh and Anibal Quijano, among others. These authors allowed us to understand them as a(n) (unstable) result of a process of struggle and resistance, which might contribute to transform, build, transgress, shake, unstick and rearticulate social contexts, revealing what coloniality and politically conservative multiculturalism tend to dilute and conceal. As for the empirical methodology, we favored a collaborative research framework, taking Sateré-Mawé indigenous students from State University of Amazonas as central colaborators. We resorted mainly to narrative interviews, from Leonor Arfuch s theorization, as a data construction instrument. The interviewed indigenous students narrated Sateré-Mawé ways of being centered on issues of language, ritual and eating experiences waraná, çapó for their recognition and self-recognition, which are intertwined with their traditions of struggle and resistance. These were identification elements of their ethnical membership, preserved and undiluted by their experiences in the urban context. On the other hand, confronted by discourse and action aimed at erasing or suppressing their ethnicities, our research colaborators reported that being and living in urban spaces in Barreirinha, Manaus, Maués and Parintins and experiencing and relating to non-indigenous cultural constructs, allowed for resignification of their experiences and culture, revealing their dynamic and ever-changing character. As for the emergence of the indigenous youth category, central issue in our research, this study indicates it to be an external condition, progressively inhabited by indigenous people as a political strategy, adopted, among the interviewees, especially by those who participate in the indigenous movement. Finally, it is our understanding that indigenous youths have increasingly become political subjects, creators of themselves and of new dialogue channels and types, which we deemed critical-intercultural and decolonial, in indigenous youth movements and organizations, with innovative articulation, mobilization and self-organization forms