Indigenous Labor and Land Resources: Guarani–Kaiowa’s Politico–Economic and Ethnic Challenges

The article deals with the meaning and the management of land-based resources by indigenous peoples, which are analyzed through an assessment of the lived spaces of the Guarani–Kaiowa indigenous people in the Brazilian state of Mato Grosso do Sul. The discussion follows an analytical framework that is focused on land, labor and ethnicity. These interconnected politico-economic categories provide the basis for understanding the violence and exploitation perpetrated against indigenous groups, as well as their capacity to reclaim ancestral territories lost to extractivism and agribusiness development. Empirical results indicate that ethnicity is integral to labor and land management processes. In the case of the Guarani–Kaiowa, not only have they become refugees in their own lands due to racist discrimination, but also their labor has been incorporated in the regional economy through interrelated peasantification and proleterianization tendencies. The result is a complex situation that combines major socio-spatial asymmetries with the strategic, exploitative use of land and labor and the growing political contestation by the indigenous groups.

[1]  A. Ioris Indigenous Peoples, Land-based Disputes and Strategies of Socio-spatial Resistance at Agricultural Frontiers , 2020, Ethnopolitics.

[2]  A. Ioris Frontier Making in the Amazon: Economic, Political and Socioecological Conversion , 2020 .

[3]  R. Nichols Theft Is Property!: Dispossession and Critical Theory , 2019 .

[4]  A. Ioris,et al.  Challenges and contribution of indigenous geography: Learning with and for the Kaiowa-Guarani of South America , 2019, Geoforum.

[5]  A. Ioris Political agency of indigenous peoples: the Guarani-Kaiowa’s fight for survival and recognition , 2019, Vibrant: Virtual Brazilian Anthropology.

[6]  A. Ioris Amazon's dead ends: Frontier-making the centre , 2018, Political Geography.

[7]  Brenna Bhandar Colonial Lives of Property , 2018 .

[8]  I. Combès Etnohistoria, etnocidio y etnogénesis en la frontera: la trayectoria de los itatines , 2017 .

[9]  A. Ioris Agribusiness and the Neoliberal Food System in Brazil: Frontiers and Fissures of Agro-neoliberalism , 2017 .

[10]  M. Finley-Brook The Politics of Autonomy in Latin America: The Art of Organizing Hope ‐ by Dinerstein, Ana Cecilia , 2017 .

[11]  S. Radcliffe Geography and indigeneity I , 2017 .

[12]  Mark Goodale Dark matter: Toward a political economy of indigenous rights and aspirational politics , 2016 .

[13]  Mariana C. Zinni The darker side of Western Modernity: global futures, decolonial options , 2015 .

[14]  A. Dinerstein The Politics of Autonomy in Latin America , 2014 .

[15]  R. Chiaravalloti,et al.  Efeitos da Expansão da Cana de Açúcar no Sudeste do Mato Grosso do Sul e Possíveis Caminhos para uma Agenda Sustentável , 2014, Sustainability in Debate.

[16]  Katya Vietta HISTÓRIAS TERRITORIAIS: A PRIVATIZAÇÃO DAS TERRAS KAIOWA COMO ESTRATÉGIA PARA A GUARNIÇÃO DA FRONTEIRA BRASILEIRA E OUTRAS HISTÓRIAS , 2013 .

[17]  Fábio Mura,et al.  Construindo e reconstruindo territórios Guarani: dinâmica territorial na fronteira entre Brasil e Paraguai (séc. xix-xx) , 2011 .

[18]  A. Bunten A Call for Attention to Indigenous Capitalisms , 2011 .

[19]  S. Dercon,et al.  The political economy of development: an assessment , 2009 .

[20]  María Verónica Secreto Legislação sobre terras no Brasil do oitocentos , 2008 .

[21]  M. Godelier Au fondement des sociétés humaines : ce que nous apprend l'anthropologie , 2007 .

[22]  P. Descola Par-delà nature et culture , 2005 .

[23]  Rogers Brubaker,et al.  Ethnicity without groups , 2002, European Journal of Sociology.

[24]  A. Bonnett Book Review: Black Marxism: The making of the Black radical tradition , 2001 .

[25]  P. Wolfe Land, Labor, and Difference: Elementary Structures of Race , 2001 .

[26]  Jonathan W. Warren The Brazilian Geography of Indianness , 1999 .

[27]  Roberto Espíndola Remaking the nation: place, identity and politics in Latin America , 1997 .

[28]  Cedric J. Robinson,et al.  Black Marxism: The Making of the Black Radical Tradition , 1983 .