Mbya aesthetics of (r)existence: relations between cinema, shamanism and gender

Abstract

If shamanism is the means par excellence of Mbya resistance against the State, Guarani cinema, as an effective means of making oneself seen and heard outside the villages in the struggle for territorial and social rights, could be thought of as a renewed shamanic strategy of resistance and expression of its cosmopolitical ethics and aesthetics, capable of offering, in his shamanic critique of non-indigenous ways of seeing, hearing and living (jurua reko), a possible alternative to the politics of the jurua world, inspiring other ways of (r)existing. Making cinema among the Guarani would imply bringing out their shamanism and their relations between genres. The language of cinema, although coming from outside, is close to its oral-visual tradition, to its own ways of being-living-thinking-acting (nhandereko), of telling stories and transmitting know-how and knowledge. As a political experience of encounters and disagreements, negotiations and collaborations between multiple subjects and worlds, Guarani cinema, its directors and collectives constitute in this project, privileged spaces for apprehension and translation of this aesthetic of Mbya cosmopolitical action. From the current context of production and circulation of films made by Coletivo Mbya-Guarani de Cinema and Coletivo de Cine Mbya Ara Pyau, located between the borders of Brazil and Argentina, and with special attention to the performance and perspectives of Guarani women (kunhãgue) and their own ways of being, acting and behaving (kunhãgue reko), the research proposes to offer a critical analysis of the relations between Guarani cinema, shamanism and gender. Cinema is taken here as a way of accessing Guarani shamanism and all its cosmopolitical diplomacy, which includes relations between genders, contributing to the debate on the place and importance of indigenous women in these spaces.