Clashing cartographies in indigenous refugees’ sheltering practices: the embodiment of an alternative sense of spatiality and temporality in an indigenous shelter demobilisation in the north of Brazil

Abstract

In the present article, we examine the situation of indigenous refugees in Roraima, Brazil, and reflect on the way sheltering practices affect their subjectivity. We analyse the demobilisation of the Pintolândia shelter, focusing particularly on the refusal of its residents to relocate, as to present refugee sheltering as a practice that infringes individuals of subjectivity, whilst being an embodied space that represents a yet unrealised possibility. Through this examination, we reflect about the way their agency, politics, and subjectivity challenge the spatial dynamics established by the powerful structures that manage refugee shelters. As to do so, this article is divided into three sections. The first provides a contextual narrative of the housing practices for the indigenous migrant population in Roraima, mapping the evolution of sheltering strategies over the years. The second section addresses the complexities and contradictions of sheltering indigenous refugees within a framework designed for the general refugee population, examining the impact on their specific rights as indigenous peoples. The final section focuses on the demobilization of the Pintolândia shelter, presenting the moving strategy as a governmentality mechanism and interpreting indigenous resistance to relocation as an expression of alternative spatiality and temporality.

Keywords

• indigenous shelters
• neocolonial politics
• cartographies of mobility