Goods and gifts: the Kalapalo and the cash transfer pilicies

Abstract

This project aims to investigate the access and the effects of federal government cash transfer policies in Upper Xingu (MT/Brazil), from ethnographic research among Kalapalo, speakers of a variant of the Karib language in the region. Its relevance is based on the scarcity of ethnographic works that deal with the monetization and consumption among the Amerindian peoples, mostly in the Upper Xingu, and at a time when such issues become a concern among the Indians themselves, either because of access difficulties to "desired" money and goods, whether as a result of the transformations that these practices promote in their lifestyles.These transformations derived of the access to financial resources - and particularly the cash transfers - are relate to aesthetics, kinship, shamanism, or leadership, and promote certain reorganizations of their "traditional" lifestyle. But there is no doubt that the Indians are active in this process, occurring an intensification of ritual and "cultural" life in the region, as well as the enhancement of the traditional circuits of exchange and circulation of goods, derived from appropriation of these new resources. Recognizing that the intensification of contact and, specifically, the relationship with money, is not simply a movement whose effects are felt outside passively by the Indians, but has been actively sought by them, producing different effects, it is up to this research to investigate the dynamic of these transformations, what are their motivations, its foundations and its consequences among the Kalapalo.