Speaker: Aline Carrara
PhD Student, Department of Geography, University of Florida
Thursday, September 10, 2020
2:50-3:50 PM (Period 8)
Zoom, livestreamed on YouTube
University of Florida
All are welcome to attend.
This dissertation addresses the creation and destruction of indigenous territories (ITs) in the Brazilian Amazônia by studying the formation, expansion, and maintenance of ITs, processes referred to collectively as territorialization; and their dissolution and destruction, referred to as deterritorialization. The proposed research is motivated by current efforts, on part of the Brazilian State and economic interests, to deterritorialize ITs, an outcome that leads to the weakening of indigenous rights and outright exploitation. Territory in the Brazilian Amazonas an artifact of contention and emerges on the basis of a confrontation of forces manifesting across multiple spatial scales in attempts of territorialization.
I present an assessment of the impact of deterritorializing forces such as infrastructure development, large-scale agriculture and cattle ranching, mining activities on ITs, resulted from statistical regression together with spatial analysis. The locality framework together with a combination of qualitative methods allowed me to present a case-study of the Xavante indigenous peoples’ territorialization strategies beyond the boundaries of their indigenous reserve. The use of hybrid methodology in different scales resulted in a comprehensive understanding on the territorial quest indigenous peoples have lived through.