Indian states: the ethnographic case of São Gabriel da Cachoeira (AM)

Abstract

This project aims to analyze anthropologically the relations between Indians and state, from the ethnographic case of Sao Gabriel da Cachoeira (AM). This Amazonian municipality, situated in the upper Rio Negro, has undergone a recent transformation in the movement of logical encompassment and capture of the political machinery of state, which hypothetically we call as an "Indian State". If, historically, the relationship Indians / State was marked by the capture of Indians by the state, and consequently the aggregation of those on its frames, recently, there have been attempts to reverse this logic, with an "Indigenous encompassment". The novelty of this project, in relation to studies performed so far, is an attempt to grasp simultaneously the two perspectives of this process of formation of a new configuration of state: the Indian perspective and the state itself. Theoretical frameworks are derived from two major areas of anthropology, ethnology and the anthropology of the State, and thus potentially it could help this project, both from the detailed description of the relationship Indians / State in São Gabriel da Cachoeira, the by comparison with others who reflect on the possible configurations assumed by the States in similar contexts to the landscape of this ethnographic research (whether described as "marginal", "diminute" or "local"). (AU)