Once we take into consideration property, we are likely to think about buildings, bodily technique of manufacturing, or outlined land areas. These photographs of property, nonetheless, could also be challenged by different types of useful resource use, for instance when land is used for dwelling, somewhat than merely owned. Totally different understandings of property could conflict when somebody claims possession of a particular piece of land, or when somebody makes use of the land in a approach that hinders others from utilizing it. All through historical past, we’ve seen most of these contradictions play out everywhere in the world.
Maybe probably the most notable case is that of colonization. Communities which have resided in sure territories for generations have confronted main restrictions in land use when colonizers have dispossessed them of nice areas of land. These historic processes of land acquisition lengthen into the current. We discover ourselves in a ‘postcolonial’ predicament, supported in numerous methods by capitalist states via the promotion of incentives for land to supply as a lot monetary return as potential. This textual content is about resistance to this ongoing colonialism.
Articulação dos Povos de Indígenas do Brasil (APIB). Picture by Divulgação through Flickr.
In October 2019, Fronesis had the chance to talk to Sônia Guajajara, a consultant of the Brazilian indigenous motion Articulação dos Povos de Indígenas do Brasil (APIB), throughout her go to to Sweden. The go to was part of the European tour she undertook to lift consciousness of and advocate towards the commerce settlement that got here into impact in July 2019 between the EU and the South American commerce bloc Mercosur. Throughout the tour, fifteen representatives of APIB visited twelve European international locations underneath the slogan ‘Indigenous individuals – Not yet another drop of blood’.
Sônia Guajajara belongs to the Guajajara individuals, one among many indigenous teams in Brazil. The Guajajara individuals have resided within the forest areas across the Pindaré river since pre-Columbian occasions. The realm was conquered by the French in 1611 and brought over by the Portuguese in 1614. Their principal settlement, São Luís do Maranhão, was positioned very strategically on the Island of Maranhão on the mouth of the river system of the Pindaré, Grajaú and Merim rivers. From there the Portuguese may simply navigate the world, permitting for fast colonization of each land and labour energy.
The following historical past is full of confrontations between indigenous individuals on one aspect and colonizers and their descendants on the opposite. Although Brazil declared independence from Portugal in 1822, the colonizing course of has continued to at the present time within the cultural and bodily displacement of indigenous individuals. On this type of colonization, it’s now not colonizers from different international locations who exploit the land – somewhat, the battle is waged between inner teams.
One such inner confrontation was the rebellion of 1901, when Guajajara individuals revolted towards Christian missionaries who for a few years had been kidnapping Guajajaran youngsters to place them in missionary faculties. A more moderen battle passed off in the identical space in São Pedro dos Cacetes, a city that had been illegally settled by descendants of Europeans within the Fifties. In 1979, after the settlers had killed 9 pregnant Guajajaran ladies, the federal authorities determined to relocate them and depart the world for the Guajajara individuals. This plan had not but been realized in 1992 when the battle reached its apex – then, the Guajajara individuals took practically 400 individuals hostage to assert their proper to the land. In the long run, the Minister of Justice himself negotiated an settlement whereby the Guajajaran individuals let the hostages go in change for the federal authorities agreeing to relocate the residents of São Pedro dos Cacetes to areas outdoors the territory. This promise was solely absolutely realized by the Brazilian state in 1995, virtually 50 years after the world was first occupied.
As soon as, 110,400 km² of the Maranhão state was lined by rainforest. Now, solely 25% of the rainforest stays. The remainder has been minimize down primarily to supply house for agriculture and cattle ranching. The deforestation charge accelerated markedly within the Nineteen Sixties when the nation’s army regime created incentives for large-scale farming on public land and the development of highways, which led to a rise in inhabitants attributable to migration, and later railways and different types of infrastructure to help the mining business. One key think about these state interventions was that land that was considered as unproductive – together with land historically utilized by indigenous individuals – may simply be expropriated by the state and put within the arms of huge farmers who, based on the state, may use the land in additional ‘environment friendly’ methods.
The scenario may be seen as a case of what Karl Marx calls ‘primitive accumulation’, a course of by which the financial system expands to areas which have beforehand not been uncovered to capitalist buildings, with a view to accessing new labour, new pure sources and new markets. The Marxist financial geographer David Harvey has developed the idea additional to explain steady accumulation that builds on these rules as ‘accumulation by dispossession’. Right here, dispossession may be understood as each the direct expropriation of land and the dispossession of indigenous individuals’s means of constant to dwell based on their traditions. This accumulation by dispossession has in some ways been facilitated by the Brazilian authorities. Expropriating land, the state has managed and distributed it in methods meant to optimise financial growth.
We start our interview with Sônia Guajajara by discussing why the Guajajara individuals are not granted the proper to the land the place they dwell. Right here she raises the concept of unproductivity as a key idea within the state’s legitimization of the exploitation of their land:
All of this, this thirst for exploitation, is the results of a greed that has its roots in capitalism. I don’t doubt that it’s capitalism that creates this. To not respect individuals, to destroy the surroundings for one’s personal use. All within the identify of revenue. Sure, capitalism threatens the inexperienced areas, the pristine lands. And it doesn’t matter what sort of nature is worried, the Amazon, Cerrado, Mata Atlantica – something, as a result of if these areas are preserved they’re seen as unproductive.
All of it must be devastated to farm, and earn a living. As a result of what issues is what you get out of it, not what it means for the planet. So we’ve more and more been combating an pressing wrestle towards this financial system, which builds on large-scale manufacturing and exploitation. This method, with farming firms that arrange monocultures and pastures, just isn’t sustainable. It’s essential to cease it.
This growth has not solely affected indigenous individuals who have been displaced from their territories. It has additionally affected small-scale farmers and landless peasants utilizing land that they don’t personal. Within the Nineteen Sixties small-scale farmers got robust incentives to chop as a lot forest as potential on their items of land in an effort to show that they had been used, in order that they’d not be deemed unproductive and due to this fact be expropriated. On the similar time, massive areas of land had been confiscated and bought to large-scale farmers. This was supported by the World Financial institution, which along with different main commerce organizations made nice investments in Brazilian livestock farming in the course of the Nineteen Sixties and Nineteen Seventies.
Because of these processes, massive elements of the usable land had been concentrated within the arms of large-scale farmers, whereas many small-scale farmers misplaced their land. Poverty drove these landless peasants to occupy massive tracts of land and minimize down forests illegally, which led to nice and long-lasting conflicts between the landless and the large-scale farmers, but additionally between landless peasants and indigenous peoples, who had been pressured to struggle over the identical land.
Free Land Camp, The Articulation of Indigenous Peoples of Brazil (APIB). Picture through Wikimedia Commons.
Probably the most latest events on which this battle developed right into a bloody battle was related with the homicide of Paulo Paulinho Guajajara. Paulinho was a number one determine within the group ‘Guardians of the Forest’, which organizes patrols towards unlawful deforestation within the space of Arariboia, a reserve within the Amazon the place Guajajara individuals dwell. He was shot throughout a conflict with unlawful loggers in early November 2019. Just some weeks later, two extra entrance figures for the Guajajara individuals had been assassinated, and in April 2020, one other indigenous chief was assassinated, all three after standing as much as unlawful logging in numerous methods. The Guajajara individuals’s struggle for the precise to their territories has usually concerned defending areas with their our bodies. Sônia Guajajara believes this type of wrestle is exclusive to the indigenous motion:
Exactly as a result of we’re an indigenous individuals, we’ve our personal approach of waging an enduring wrestle. For us, it’s a lifestyle. And that is intently linked to our personal approach of utilizing the weapons we’ve and defending the territories and waging a wrestle with our personal our bodies. We don’t defend something or anybody else, however our physique is the territory, our physique is the surroundings.
Whereas now it’s Bolsonaro we’re combating, we’ve lengthy fought towards the prevailing financial paradigm. This method is predicated on a mannequin that depletes pure sources, that doesn’t respect human rights, that expels individuals from their lands and denies individuals their proper to livelihood. And since Bolsonaro is an outspoken enemy, as a result of he makes himself an enemy when he denies cultural variety and denies indigenous peoples the rights to their territories and the existence of those territories, we all know who to struggle towards, proper?
When Bolsonaro was nonetheless a Member of Parliament, he stated in a press release that the US Military was good as a result of it had succeeded in killing all of the ‘Indians’, and that at present it now not has that downside.
The truth that a number of indigenous leaders have been assassinated in recent times just isn’t a coincidence, however somewhat a consequence of fierce opposition since President Jair Bolsonaro took workplace in January 2019. Along with his contemptuous statements towards indigenous peoples, undermining their respectable calls for, his management has seen a dismantling of the social establishments involved with preserving the territories of indigenous peoples and defending their human rights. That is even if the Brazilian structure confirms that indigenous peoples have the precise to each their tradition and their land.
Lots of the crimes that happen in and towards indigenous territories are now not handled by the judicial system and go unpunished. Bolsonaro has additionally made land in indigenous reserves accessible for mining, oil and fuel exploration and industrial agriculture. Sônia Guajajara believes that the political wrestle of indigenous peoples has been strengthened because the resistance has intensified. The wrestle for the precise to land has in numerous methods challenged Bolsonaro’s makes an attempt to permit the exploitation of land within the pursuits of capital:
Because the sixteenth century, ever since colonial occasions, financial progress and nationwide growth have all the time been primarily based on the expulsion and extermination of ethnic teams. And we needed to comply with it then, so it was very straightforward. However at present we resist extra. We’re actually shifting ahead now, and we all know that after we are waging this wrestle, we’re confronting very highly effective buildings. So once they need to make massive investments, such because the Belo Monte undertaking, we don’t simply settle for it. We’ve gone out and managed to mobilize the entire world to confront them. We disrupt the plans a lot that they see us as an actual impediment – we grow to be an issue for them.
Sônia Guajajara factors out that the indigenous wrestle has gained floor partly as a result of their conventional strategies have grow to be simpler, and partly as a result of their wrestle has moved in direction of new and bigger arenas. APIB is the Brazilian indigenous group that engages probably the most indigenous teams. Sônia Guajajara represents the a part of the group that’s lively within the Amazon area. Along with representing the indigenous motion, she ran within the 2018 Brazilian election to be the nation’s Vice President, representating of the PSOL, Partido Socialismo e Liberdade. In contrast with that of organizing on a small scale, the expertise she gained in organizing throughout village, regional and nationwide borders in addition to in institutional politics, has introduced a lot to the indigenous wrestle:
I believe our motion already has a really consolidated base, which doesn’t must be there each day and speak to its members to encourage individuals to point out up. It’s because we’ve a motion that extends from the village degree to the nationwide degree: the APIB consists of regional representatives, the regional organizations encompass representatives of the states and the state organizations encompass representatives of the territories. Subsequently, our communication may be very steady and direct, and after we name, individuals actually present up. And we wouldn’t have to assume a lot about what we must always do; we are able to act instantly.
Sônia Guajajara describes an important consciousness of widespread political objectives in addition to a secure group with robust help in any respect ranges, from villages to the nation. We ask her how this developed.
For a very long time, we fought solely via advocacy and direct confrontation. However over time, we realized that this was now not sufficient to guard the rights of indigenous peoples, their territories, and so forth. And we misplaced many. Indigenous individuals died within the wrestle. So we determined not solely to withstand, but additionally to struggle politically and set up on the state degree and stand for election. We additionally wanted to take part in celebration politics and in institutional politics.
In early 2017, APIB wrote a letter entitled “For a parliament the place increasingly indigenous peoples are represented”. And with the assistance of that letter, we managed to mobilize indigenous peoples from all states and areas and encourage them to run. In 2018, we managed to get 130 candidates to run for various events.
After which there have been 130 candidates for legislative our bodies, Congress, the presidency and so forth. Within the latter case, I used to be nominated as a presidential candidate following a joint determination throughout the motion. One other results of this technique was the election of Joenia Wapixana as a Member of Parliament for PSOL – the primary indigenous lady to be elected to Congress.
In working with the candidates, we had an alliance with completely different actions: the MTST motion, Midia Ninja, 342Amazonia. After which we additionally began numerous collaborations with ladies’s actions, younger individuals and college students. And out of doors of Brazil, we’ve a world alliance with members from Indonesia, the entire of Central America and the Amazon area. So we’ve shaped a community of forest rangers in all these international locations.
Indigenous peoples’ struggles are typically mentioned by way of ‘essentialism’. The idea refers back to the approach specific traits are attributed to indigenous teams in order that their rights, or lack thereof, are linked to their identification as indigenous peoples. This has many unfavorable penalties, however essentialism will also be used as a weapon by marginalized teams, a phenomenon that Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak calls ‘strategic essentialism’. Right here, the identification of indigenous peoples can be utilized rhetorically by teams claiming their proper to a particular space.
Within the Brazilian case, we are able to see that strategic essentialism is utilized in two alternative ways: one the place the indigenous peoples’ historic proper to territories is linked to their identification as indigenous peoples, and one the place their life-style is linked to a extra sustainable lifestyle. One danger of this method is that environmental actions, pointing to indigenous peoples’ struggles as ‘good examples’, assign to indigenous peoples a duty for saving the surroundings by combating to regain the land that European and home colonization has disadvantaged them of.
That stated, there may be on the similar time a strategic alternative to conduct a simpler struggle towards deforestation by strengthening the precise of indigenous peoples to their territories and thus defending these elements of the Amazon from deforestation. Sônia Guajajara regards the wrestle for indigenous rights and the environmental wrestle as inseparable:
At the moment, the wrestle to defend the local weather is a wrestle that should elevate consciousness that the present financial system, the event paradigm, is making a serious contribution to local weather change, as this paradigm is predicated on exploitation. The prevailing paradigm has additionally contributed to the denial of indigenous peoples’ territories, as our territories are seen as unproductive and in want of being exploited. So preserving the territories of indigenous peoples, defending them, will certainly profit the local weather as properly. Wherever indigenous peoples are, safety of the surroundings is assured. And if the surroundings is protected, a balanced local weather can also be assured.
That is our vocation, proper? Now’s the time for everybody to participate on this wrestle to defend the surroundings, to defend the local weather and particularly to defend the planet – for it’s all we’ve.
Within the Amazon rainforests, the wrestle for territory has taken many types the place those that declare possession of land additionally declare the precise to impel the event of society. Right here, sure teams’ proper to property has been violated in favour of business manufacturing and financial growth, with main unfavorable penalties for each social and ecological growth. basic questions of possession is important for individuals who need to perceive the premise of postcolonial oppression. There, maybe, we are able to additionally discover the important thing to how this oppression could finish.
