EXHUMING INDIGENOUS CORPSES: THE ANACÉ EMERGENCE AND THE NEW ETHNIC AND DEVELOPMENTAL DRAMAS IN NORTHEASTERN BRAZIL

Abstract

Although with few records among studies in political ethnology of indigenous groups in Northeast Brazil, the awakening of the ethnonym anacé, on the west coast of Ceará State, has been especially important to considerations on the new frontiers of development programs and the current mobilization of regimens of memory and political agency around the certification of territorial rights for indigenous peoples in the region. The article analyzes the re-elaboration of the anacé ethnicity from two events that mix a narrative of the indigenous emergence with the national drama that stated Northeast Brazil as a problematic region in what regards development. How is the indigenous presence in a scenario of large-scale projects implementation combined with a region characterized as economically problematic? And how this compound affects the current anacé political mobilization? In order to analyze these issues, this paper proposes reflections shared by authors in political ethnology, development anthropology and anthropology of globalization.

Keywords

• Reelaboração étnica anacé
• Projetos de grande escala
• Etnologia política
• Antropologia do desenvolvimento
• Nordeste do Brasil.