(PDF) Redrawing the Boundaries of Indigeneity: how Roraima's indigenous artists negotiate the boundaries between the indigenous and the non-indigenous in an urban setting

This thesis attempts to relate anthropological debates about indigenous urbanization in Amazonia and the boundary-making approach from sociology with each other and with the politics of aesthetics in the specific context of Roraima, the northernmost state of the Federative Republic of Brazil. It aims to uncover how contemporary indigenous artists in Boa Vista engage with the boundaries of indigeneity in the aftermath of the demarcation of the indigenous territory of Raposa Serra do Sol. This contentious period saw the proliferation of different and conflicting notions of indigeneity and citizenship, some of these equating indigeneity strongly with territory and location. The research combines literature and document research with interviews among indigenous artists in Boa Vista and other relevant actors, and with an analysis of a selection of works of art, in an effort to find out how indigenous artists relate to indigeneity, identity and territory. The research finds that Roraima’s contemporary indigenous artists negotiate the boundaries of indigeneity in the aftermath of the demarcation of Raposa Serra do Sol in two different ways. Firstly they challenged the existing content of the boundaries by leading modern, urban lives, and participating in mainstream society as protagonists. Secondly, they use their artistic expression do visibilize the indigenous and to situate it in a positive light, challenging old stigma’s and negative stereotypes, while at the same time reifying aspects of the boundaries of indigeneity previously established.

A THESIS SUBMITTED TO THE BOARD OF EXAMINERS IN PARTIAL FULFILMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS OF THE DEGREE OF MASTER OF ARTS IN CONFLICT STUDIES & HUMAN RIGHTS LUKAS VAN DIERMEN 3848310 UTRECHT UNIVERSITY 22 AUGUST 2016 REDRAWING THE BOUNDARIES OF INDIGENEITY HOW RORAIMA’S INDIGENOUS ARTISTS NEGOTIATE THE BOUNDARIES BETWEEN THE INDIGENOUS AND THE NON-INDIGENOUS IN AN URBAN SETTING 2 Supervisor: Ralph Sprenkels Date of submission: 30 September 2016 Programme trajectory: Research & Thesis Writing only (30 ECTS) Word count: 25.319 Cover illustration by Laura Bouhuys and Michiel Snellen (design), and Lukas van Diermen (handicraft). 3 But if peoples were to survive the continued residence of whites in their lands, the varied and steadily evolving nature of colonialism required them to adopt a more supple, creative strategy than outright rejection. In a climate of change, it was better to face the foe and watch his moves than to turn one s back, and not know where or how he might strike next. (MacClancy 1997: 4) 4 ABSTRACT This thesis attempts to relate anthropological debates about indigenous urbanization in Amazonia and the boundary-making approach from sociology with each other and with the politics of aesthetics in the specific context of Roraima, the northernmost state of the Federative Republic of Brazil. It aims to uncover how contemporary indigenous artists in Boa Vista engage with the boundaries of indigeneity in the aftermath of the demarcation of the indigenous territory of Raposa Serra do Sol. This contentious period saw the proliferation of different and conflicting notions of indigeneity and citizenship, some of these equating indigeneity strongly with territory and location. The research combines literature and document research with interviews among indigenous artists in Boa Vista and other relevant actors, and with an analysis of a selection of works of art, in an effort to find out how indigenous artists relate to indigeneity, identity and territory. The research finds that Roraima s contemporary indigenous artists negotiate the boundaries of indigeneity in the aftermath of the demarcation of Raposa Serra do Sol in two different ways. Firstly they challenged the existing content of the boundaries by leading modern, urban lives, and participating in mainstream society as protagonists. Secondly, they use their artistic expression do visibilize the indigenous and to situate it in a positive light, challenging old stigma s and negative stereotypes, while at the same time reifying aspects of the boundaries of indigeneity previously established. 5 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS First of all, I would like to thank Jaider Esbell, Emerson da Silva Rodrigues, Mário Flores Taurepang, Bartolomeu Silva Tomaz, Isaías Miliano, Ana Mendina, Enoque Raposo, Eliandro Wapishana, Doné Karapiá, Georgina Ariane, Selmar Almeida, Raphaela Queiroz, Reginaldo Gomes de Oliveira and Jonildo Viana dos Santos for agreeing to be interviewed and sharing with me their perspective on the world and on the role they have in it. Ralph Sprenkels for his guidance throughout the research and writing process, Jolle Demmers for her assistance in finding a theoretical angle supporting the inclusion of works of art, and Mario Fumerton for his confidence in, and useful comments on, my theoretical work on the boundary-making theory, which gave me the courage to dedicate my thesis to it. For their guidance and assistance in numerous ways on the way to Roraima, upon arrival, and during my stay, I am grateful to Stephen Baines and Nadia Farage, João Francisco Kleba Lisboa, Olendina Cavalcante, Felipe Veras, Amaurí, Rodrigo Mesquita, Adriane Menezes, Eli Macuxi, Elder José Lanes, Leila Baptaglin, and Paulo Jeferson Pilar. To the latter I owe special thanks for letting me use his office at the UFRR for the most part of my stay, and for introducing me to his friend who gave me a cashew seed. I am grateful to the inhabitants of the indigenous communities of Soracaima II and Malacacheta for their warm welcome and their willingness to share their way of life with strangers, and to Aldonina Brasil Dias, Alzilene Batista de Souza, André José Peres Fernandes, Ascíria Pereira Delfonso, Beatriz Rapozo de Souza, Beth José Simplício, Erinel Laimã Melchior, Francivaldo Silva de Almeida, Gracilene Tavares Almeida, Hoselino Marcolino de Souza, Iracema Santos Matos, Ivanete Souza Brito, José Macêdo Miguel Galé, José Nilton Miguel Galé, Jucimar Agostinho Costa, Jheyslanne Felipe Cruz, Maria Auxiliadora Chagas de Lima, Maria Lúcia da Silva Santana, Nacionira Maria Vital, Neide Raposo Moreira, Ordetino Barbosa Andrade, Valdinei da Silva Oliveira, and Irisnei Magalhães de Lima from class QR-2 and S of the Intercultural Bachelor s programme of the Insikiran institute for helping me get a grasp on the challenges and the worldviews of young indigenous Roraimans in an urban context. I thank my parents, Agnes Jansen and Jan van Diermen, my brother Rinke van Diermen, and my sister Irene van Diermen for supporting me throughout my life with the love and trust 6 that brought me where I am today, and my friends Peter Wansink, Stijn Timmer, Imre Ploeg, Eva Trapman, Pepijn Pest, and Michiel Snellen for their moral support and company. I am grateful to all of my classmates for sharing their experiences and inspiring me throughout the year, and in particular Éilis O Connell, Pia de Gouvello, Markus Buderath, Zayn Qureshi, Matt Heath, Angelica Krouwer, Danya Kiernan, Arjun Swami-Persaud, Marjolein Quist and Emma van der Ameijde for laughter, friendship, and support. Lastly, I want to thank Jay Caetano, for supporting me through much of the fieldwork process, helping me in myriad ways to keep on track and to enjoy that track, and for keeping up with me in bad moods. It wouldn t have happened without you. 7 Table of contents 1. Introduction .............................................................................. 12 1.1. Research puzzle and relevance ............................................................................ 13 1.2. Chapter outline....................................................................................................... 14 2. Conceptual framework and method....................................... 16 2.1. Theoretical considerations .................................................................................... 16 2.1.1. The boundary-making approach ......................................................................... 16 2.1.2. Art, politics, and the distribution of the sensible............................................... 18 2.1.3. Strategic urbanization and essentialism ............................................................. 19 2.1.4. Forging a coherent framework............................................................................. 20 2.2. Methodology........................................................................................................... 22 2.2.1. Data gathering ........................................................................................................ 22 2.2.2. Coding and analysis............................................................................................... 23 2.2.3. Limitations and opportunities.............................................................................. 24 3. Conquest and reconquest in Roraima.................................... 26 3.1. Invasion and invisibility........................................................................................ 26 3.1.1. Colonization............................................................................................................ 27 3.1.2. Building Brazil ........................................................................................................ 28 3.2. Democratization and demarcation ...................................................................... 31 3.2.1. A new constitution................................................................................................. 31 3.2.2. The indigenous movement and demarcation .................................................... 32 3.2.3. Essentialization and urbanization ....................................................................... 34 3.2.4. Improved participation and support................................................................... 36 3.3. Protagonism, pride and peril................................................................................ 38 3.3.1. Institutional support and corporate partnership............................................... 38 3.3.2. Cultural diplomacy in an identity vacuum ........................................................ 40 8 3.3.3. 3.4. 4. Persistent challenges and new threats................................................................. 43 Conclusion............................................................................................................... 46 Indigenous artists within the city s walls............................ 49 4.1. Embedded cultural actors ..................................................................................... 49 4.1.1. Academics and artisans......................................................................................... 51 4.1.2. Independent warriors for the cause..................................................................... 52 4.2. Authentic indigenous artists................................................................................. 54 4.2.1. Who is and who is not indigenous ...................................................................... 54 4.2.2. What it means to be indigenous........................................................................... 55 4.2.3. Affirmation of authenticity: rituals and the homeland..................................... 57 4.3. Motivated urban creators...................................................................................... 59 4.3.1. Strategic urbanizers and globalizers.................................................................... 60 4.3.2. Objectives and motivations................................................................................... 61 4.4. 5. Conclusion............................................................................................................... 63 Paintings about boundaries .................................................... 64 3.1. Defiance against the boundaries of indigeneity ................................................ 64 5.1.1. The conquest of visibility ...................................................................................... 64 5.1.2. The portrayal of beauty and protagonism.......................................................... 68 5.2. Critique along the boundaries of indigeneity .................................................... 72 5.2.1. Indicting oppression .............................................................................................. 72 5.2.2. Turning the tables on the white ........................................................................... 75 5.3. Solidarity within the boundaries of indigeneity................................................ 78 5.4. Between what is painted and what is seen......................................................... 79 5.5. Conclusion............................................................................................................... 81 6. Conclusion.................................................................................. 82 6.1. Questions answered............................................................................................... 82 6.1. Theoretical implications ........................................................................................ 83 9 5.5.1. Boundaries and the visual realm ......................................................................... 83 5.5.2. The strategic urbanization and globalization of indigenous art...................... 85 6.2. 5.5.3. Suggestions for further research .......................................................................... 85 Fabric........................................................................................................................ 86 Bibliography ..................................................................................................... 88 Primary sources .............................................................................................................................. 88 INTERVIEWS .............................................................................................................................. 88 EVENTS AND OBSERVATIONS............................................................................................. 88 WORKS OF ART......................................................................................................................... 88 OTHER SOURCES...................................................................................................................... 89 Secondary sources .......................................................................................................................... 90 10 List of words and abbreviations Words Caxiri Traditional indigenous fermented alcoholic drink Cocá Traditional feather headband worn by indigenous leaders and at special occasions and festivities Comunidade Broadly accepted way to refer to indigenous villages and communities in rural areas in Brazil Damurida A traditional indigenous Roraiman soup made from river fish and chillis, normally eaten with farinha (cassava-flour) Grafismo Graphic symbols with culturally specific meanings from Roraima s indigenous peoples Parente Literal meaning: kin or relative. A way in which many indigenous people in Roraima refer to other indigenous people. It is a term of endearment that signals brotherhood and solidarity among indigenous people Parixara Traditional dance and song performed by various indigenous peoples in Roraima Abbreviations APIRR Associação dos Povos Indígenas de Roraima Association of the Indigenous Peoples of Roraima CEDI Centro Ecumênico de Documentação e Informação - Ecumenical Center of Documentation and Information CIAR Contemporary indigenous artist of Roraima CIMI Conselho Indígena Missionário Indigenous Missionary Council CIR Conselho Indígena de Roraima Indigenous Council of Roraima FUNAI Fundação Nacional do Índio National Indian Foundation ISA Instituto Socioambiental Social-Environmental Institute TIRSS Terra Indígena Raposa Serra do Sol Indigenous Territory Raposa Serra do Sol UFRR Universidade Federal de Roraima Federal University of Roraima 11 1. Introduction In 2009, the Supreme Federal Court of Brazil (STF) finalized the demarcation of the indigenous territory of Raposa Serra do Sol (TIRSS) in Roraima, in the extreme north of Brazil (STF 2014). The case of TIRRS saw tensions rise in Roraima between the indigenous and the non-indigenous population. While the indigenous cause was backed up by cosmological ties of indigenous peoples to their ancestral land, a counter-discourse discredited indigenous rights to land on the basis of their alleged abandonment of the land and of traditional means of subsistence. The severity of the situation, and thereby the danger in misunderstanding or simplifying it, is shown in multiple records since the 1990 s of human rights violation in the form of land grabbing, violence and intimidations against rural indigenous communities of Roraima (Penglase 1994, ISA 1999, Vieira & Arenz 2014), and direct prejudice and discrimination in the city of Boa Vista (Santiago 2016). It is in the aftermath of this contentious process, in 2011, that Jaider Esbell, an artist of the Macuxi tribe, started his gallery for contemporary indigenous art in Boa Vista. Galeria Jaider Esbell de Arte Indígena Contemporânea is a collective bringing together contemporary indigenous artists of Roraima (henceforth abbreviated as CIARs) to work and exhibit together. About his motivation to start the collective, Esbell says: , and I invite this group of artists [ ] to form a collective and to make our proposal to make targeted art, to create contemporary indigenous art in a way contextualized with the indigenous movement, with the reality of the urban Indian, the Indian from the reserve, and the Amazonian reality in the relation between local and global. (Oliveira 2015: 80-81, my translation)1 The above situation has many elements in common with the experiences of other indigenous people throughout the Amazon, where the struggle of indigenous organizations for land rights often coincided with an unprecedented indigenous migration to urban centers. In 2015 a number of anthropologists published new insights on the topic of indigenous urbanization in Amazonia, which they considered to be underexamined and strongly misunderstood (Alexiades and Peluso 2015: 6). They counter the simplistic notion of cultural authenticity embedded in the Indian out of place thesis (Campbell 2015: 82), which suggests that one Original quote: , e eu convido esse grupo de artistas, em torno de oito artistas, pra compor um coletivo e fazer nossa proposta de trabalhar a arte segmentada, trabalhar a arte indígena contemporânea de uma forma contextualizada com o movimento indígena com a realidade do índio urbano, do índio da comunidade e dessa realidade amazônica em ralação ao local-global. 1 12 can only truly remain indigenous within an indigenous community, and that any migration to urban settings is a loss. The authors demonstrate the strategic importance indigenous urbanization has in many struggles over ancestral territories, offering higher education, opportunities for wider organization, and crucial access to platforms of advocacy (McSweeney & Jokish 2015: 19-21). On a symbolic level, indigenous urbanization challenges what Alexiades and Peluso call the core dichotomies of modernity: urban-rural, natureculture, modernity-tradition. Because of this it provides an excellent context and medium through which to engage with contemporary theorizations of personhood, indigeneity, place-making, territoriality, and nature (Alexiades & Peluso 2015: 5). 1.1. Research puzzle and relevance Esbell s statement captures much of what the debate around indigenous urbanization is aimed at understanding, connecting the urban and the rural, and looking to contextualize the indigenous within the contemporary. His gallery is also an urban place where artists connected to rural communities gather in an effort to get their work to the attention of the public. The very presence of indigenous artists in an urban context, as well as their appropriation of a traditionally western approach to the role of art in society, are a contestation of simplistic notions of what is and isn t indigenous. On top of that their perspectives on the world, often politically charged, find their way into the thematic of their work. This warrants curiosity to the extent to which the complex political and demographic dynamics would find their way to the work of these artists. How does their art interact with notions of indigeneity and territoriality? In my quest to better understand the dynamics at play in this context I state the following as my research puzzle: How do Roraima s contemporary indigenous artists negotiate boundaries of indigeneity in the urban space of Boa Vista, in the aftermath of the demarcation of the indigenous territory of Raposa Serra do Sol in 2009? The research puzzle builds upon and aims to add to what Andreas Wimmer calls the boundary-making approach (Wimmer 2008b: 1027), a field of academic research that concerns itself with questions about the how and the why of the drawing, maintaining, and contesting of group boundaries (Demmers 2012: 26-27). The key analytical purpose of this approach is to enable investigations into the organization of differences and similarities 13 everyday social production and (Duemmler 2015: 380). Until today Wimmer has done the most extensive work to bring together previous academic investigations into a coherent theory (2013), and constructing an exhaustive typology of different strategies of ethnic boundary making (2008b). His work is widely cited and appreciated by fellow scholars (Brubaker 2014, Lamont 2014). In the context of this research, the boundary-making theory will be applied to works of visual art. As the theory itself lacks specific sensitizing concepts that help to analyze visualizations of boundaries, an assembled conceptual framework will be construed using Jacques Ranciére s theory of the politics of aesthetics, and the redistribution of the sensible. Concepts from the indigenous urbanization debate will also be used as they offer specific insights into the strategic value and implications of the urban context for political actors. For the most part, the academic relevance of this research project lies precisely in the assembly of theoretical strands that have heretofore not been brought together. This thesis hopes, through its effort to combine these theoretical fields in a small-scale local case-study, to do some modest pioneering enquiry into the analytical possibilities that arise out of this assembly. This research is also relevant by its discussion of the concerted efforts of a group of artists that haven t been analyzed as such by local academics. Though analyses of the works of individual artists have been subject of academic research by local academics (Martins 2014, Moreno & Elimacuxi 2015, Moreno 2012), no research has been done to how indigenous artists in Boa Vista act collectively in the pursuit of certain objectives. 1.2. Chapter outline In chapter 2 I will lay down a solid theoretical and methodological framework. Through what lens are we looking at the subject matter? How will this lens be adjusted and focused? The objective of this chapter is to answer these two questions. I will discuss the two strands of theory that together form the conceptual framework that supports this research: the boundary-making theory (Wimmer 2008a) which helps us understand how people in the world draw and modify boundaries between themselves and others, and Jacques Ranciére s politics of aesthetics (2006), which provides insight into the relevance of the visual domain to boundary-making. I will also define some sensitizing concepts that have been taken from the indigenous urbanization debate, and argue their relevance when bringing boundary-making theory to the Amazonian context. I will explain how a coherent strategy for data-collection and analysis flows naturally from the ontological and epistemological stance I am taking and from the specific concepts that form the analytical framework. 14 The empirical chapters are ordered in a logical sequence, starting from the broader historical context before zooming in towards indigenous artists and their individual works. In chapter 3 I will lay down the historical and discursive context in which CIARs operate. This means to identify the influence institutions, power and alliances have had on the boundaries of indigeneity throughout Roraima s history, with the position of indigenous cultural expression in mind. The motivation behind these questions is to better understand the world CIARs are reflecting upon and representing in their art, and to acquaint ourselves with the discourse around the boundaries of indigeneity that is available to them. The goal of chapter 4 is to paint a nuanced and accurate picture of the CIARs, their educational and political backgrounds, to see how they engage with the discourse surrounding the boundaries of indigeneity, to come to an understanding of the motivations and ideals behind their work. Answering these questions, I hope to lay the groundwork for an analysis of the work itself. In chapter 5, the aim is to find out how indigenous artists use their visual representations to react upon political realities, and thereby engage in boundary-making and in the redistribution of the sensible. This will be done by bringing a selection of works of art into relation with the discursive tropes identified in chapter 3, and with the artists own narratives about the motivations behind their work identified in chapter 4. Analyzing indigenous works of art as representations challenging the distribution of the sensible is the last step in coming to an answer to the main question. In the concluding chapter I will bring together the findings of the previous three chapters and formulate a response to the main question stated above. I will then add a brief discussion of the theories used in this research, and how the findings reflect on those theories and their applicability in this specific context. I will also add some suggestions for further research, and finish with some concluding remarks. 15 2. Conceptual framework and method Before we delve into the story of Roraima s contemporary indigenous artists, it is essential to lay down a solid theoretical and methodological framework. Through what lens are we looking at the subject matter? How will this lens be adjusted and focused? The objective of this chapter is to answer these two questions. As was mentioned in the introductory chapter, this research aims to combine two strands of theory in an attempt to contribute to a debate about the regional phenomenon of indigenous urbanization in the Amazon. In the previous chapter I have briefly introduced the theory of boundary-making, and given a first statement on relation between politics and visual representation. I have also introduced the debate about indigenous urbanization. The first section of this chapter will be a continuation of this discussion. I will elaborate on Wimmer s boundary-making theory and Jacques Ranciére s politics of aesthetics, and introduce concepts from the indigenous urbanization debate, that will help understanding where to look for the boundaries between the indigenous and the non-indigenous. Taking after Sylvia Escárcega, I will call these the boundaries of indigenity, (2010: 9). I will highlight their congruencies and linkages, and forge them into a coherent framework upon which a research method can be built. I will then move on to the methodology of this research. This means I will explain how a coherent strategy for data-collection and analysis flows naturally from the ontological and epistemological stance I am taking and from the specific concepts that form the analytical framework. I will also discuss important limitations to the possibilities of this research, and how these limitations together with specific opportunities and open and closed doors have guided the research to what it has become. I will carefully draw lines between what this thesis can help us understand, and the type of conclusions that cannot be drawn from it. 2.1. Theoretical considerations 2.1.1. The boundary-making approach The boundary-making approach gathers the work of various authors within the social sciences, emphasizing different aspects of the drawing and changing of boundaries. Ambitions range from understanding to explaining, and while individual agency is generally implied, some authors place greater importance in the larger structures constraining agency. According to Lamont, Wimmer reveals himself a social structuralist, ultimately interested in power and Realpolitik , Lamont identifies herself as more concerned with the emotional 16 aspects of boundaries, stressing the importance of the quest for cultural citizenship and dignity as a motivator for boundary change (2014: 816). Wimmer stresses his acknowledgement of individual agency as well as his commitment to bridging constructivism and primordialism (837). Ultimately, they both recognize that structures and agency interact in the construction and constitution of social life, which makes the boundarymaking approach a structurationist approach. This thesis is built on Wimmer s theoretical framework, because he has presented the most exhaustive and comprehensive taxonomy of strategies (2008b: 1027). The strategic negotiation of boundaries is the concept that will tie together most of the building blocks for sub-question. It refers to a process where actors pursuing different boundary-making strategies attempt to convince each other of their view of society. Wimmer s framework accounts for both structural factors that constrain and guide strategic action (institutional order, the distribution of power, and networks of alliances), and strategies that might be employed by individual or group actors in the negotiation process. Institutional order refers to the institutions that govern social life in any given society, and form the context within which boundaries are drawn. Institutions, by their policies and sometimes by their very existence determine which boundaries are salient to people s lives. The distribution of power refers to who has power within the institutional order to impose certain boundaries upon society rather than others (Brubaker 2014: 807) 2. The notion of power I use in this thesis will be that of Philip Gourevitch: the ability to make others inhabit your story of their reality (2000: 48). In the context of boundaries, power is then the ability to draw boundaries between people and have them believe in those boundaries, an ability related, but not exclusive to hegemonic elites. I will use the boundary-making power to refer to this ability. Lastly, Wimmer hypothesizes that networks of alliances determine where the boundaries between us and them will be drawn (2008a: 996). Networks are considered to play the main role in determining the location of boundaries. Together these three concepts form the field in which boundary-making takes place, determining the possibilities for change. Now what can people do in order to engage with the boundaries that govern their societies? Wimmer identifies five overarching strategies: expansion, contraction, transvaluation, positional move, and blurring. Two of these strategies, transvaluation and positional move, will play the main parts in this thesis, and therefor require some Taken out (Gourevitch s definition of power): Rather than physical coercion, power is akin here to Philip Gourevitch s definition: the ability to make others inhabit your story of their reality (2000, 48) 2 17 elaboration. Transvaluation is aimed at reinterpreting the normative values of a boundary, either by inverting the rank order (normative inversion) or by establishing equality in status and political power (equalization) (2008b: 1037) Examples of transvaluation abound among indigenous movements throughout Latin America, where activists redefined the meaning of their ethnic category, seeing the privilege of authenticity where others perceived the disgrace of minority status (1038). Positional moves refer to changing one s own or one s group s status within a hierarchy, either by individually assimilating into another category (individual crossing) or by changing the position of a whole group within the hierarchy (collective repositioning) (1038-1040). Three strategies that will play a minor role throughout the thesis are expansion and contraction aimed at creating more inclusive or more exclusive boundaries (1044), and blurring, an attempt to de-emphasize group boundaries, often by emphasizing civilizing commonalities that can either focus on local community (localism), larger civilizations (civilizationalism), or even humanity as a whole (universalism) (1042-1044). 2.1.2. Art, politics, and the distribution of the sensible How is art relevant to a story about boundaries between groups of people? Why does it make sense to look at art when studying political strategy and agency? In her thesis about street art in a post-revolutionary Egypt, Adrienne de Ruiter argues that [v]isual art has the capacity [ ] to capture certain juxtapositions in an image, thereby visualizing for the viewer a new way to look at the relations between certain actors in the social field. (de Ruiter 2012: 54). Taking this position, it makes perfect sense to also look to art to see boundaries between groups in a society visualized. I hope to make this evident by introducing some concepts from Ranciére s politics of aesthetics, a philosophical work that departs from the argument that [p]olitics revolves around what is seen and what can be said about it, around who has the ability to see and the talent to speak (Ranciére 2006: 13). Ranciére introduces the distribution of the sensible, which is defined by Bleiker and Butler as the tacit and unquestioned societal conventions, which determined what is visible, thinkable, and doable (2016: 72). According to Bleiker and Butler, Ranciére recognizes in art a tool to challenge these societal conventions by visualizing that which was invisible before, and thereby also change what is thinkable (2016: 58). The division between visible and invisible brings us to what Norman Fairclough calls the politics of representation. According to W.J.T. Mitchell, act[s] of representation [are simultaneously] an intervention, an experiment, an interpretation of the world that amounts 18 to a change in the world (1994: 419). Taking works of art in this case as representations, we can start asking whose representations are these, who gains from them, what social relations do they draw people into, what are their ideological effects, and what alternative representations are there? (Fairclough 1999: 75). 2.1.3. Strategic urbanization and essentialism The indigenous urbanization debate offers three notions that serve as sensitizing concepts in this research. These concepts help analyze the actions of CIARs, and the specific discursive context that surrounds boundaries of indigeneity in the Amazon. Most importantly, they help understand the extent to which physical places and locations play an important role. Firstly there is the notion of essentialism, that tell us about the location of boundaries between the indigenous and the non-indigenous, and about the way in which authenticity and emplacement are posited as elements of the border patrol . Essentialism occurs when people fall back on the orthodox notions of indigeneity mentioned in the introduction, that posit the indigenous person firmly on the left side of the dichotomies between nature and technology, rural and urban, and tradition and modernity (McSweeney & Jokish 2015). This essentialism can be conceived of as an example of boundary shift. It is a discourse about who belongs and who doesn t belong within the boundaries of indigeneity. According to an essentialist view one can only be an authentic Indian when living a traditional life in a rural setting, in harmony with nature. In the Amazonian context, essentialism often takes the shape of territorialization, tying identities tightly to place and location (Alexiades & Peluso 2015: 6). As will become clear throughout the following chapters, essentialized notions that affect indigenous people in Roraima today are indeed still about place, customs, and about the connection to nature. Then there are the concepts of strategic essentialism and the strategic urbanizer, which give us an insight into the type of agency that is seen in response to the essentialism embedded in society. Strategic essentialism represents a positive response. It refers to how indigenous leaders strategically make use of the essentialized notions about the importance of place to indigenous identity, in order to further claims to territory. Through their discursive action they help to further engrain these essentialized notions about territory and identity into the system. The strategic urbanizer represents a response that defies essentialism. It is a concept used by Jeremy M. Campbell to refer to indigenous leaders who link the rural to the urban, turning cities into resourceful spaces in the struggle for indigenous autonomy and cultural 19 preservation. (Campbell 2015: 83). The strategic urbanizer defies archaic notions about place and identity, using modern technology in an urban setting to further his political goals. Yet the strategic urbanizer and the strategic essentializer do not necessarily oppose each other. At times they even overlap, as the urbanizer may uses his modern means to tell a strongly essentialized story about indigeneity. In chapter 3 we will return to the debate on indigenous urbanization, to see how the concepts introduced above translate into politically salient divisions, dichotomies, and discourses in modern-day Roraima. 2.1.4. Forging a coherent framework In the subsections 1.1.1. and 1.1.2. above two theories have been introduced, one concerning the the making and contesting of boundaries, and one about the role art plays in the politics of representation, or the distribution of the sensible. We have also been introduced to specific vocabulary that helps understand boundaries of indigeneity in modern-day Amazon. I will here discuss the overlaps and contradictions between the two theories, and forge them into a unified framework through which we may analyze how CIARs engage in boundary-making in Boa Vista. Jeremy MacClancy, in his discussion on the links between anthropology, art and contest, relates boundary-making efforts of marginalized minorities in a post-colonial setting to the role that art has to play by asking How may they contest the model of themselves created by the colonizers? How [ ] may they use arte to fight the conditions of life and terms of thought set by the foreigners? (1997: 4) Both theories talk about structures, either represented by institutions, power, and networks, or by the conventions within Ranciéres distribution of the sensible. I argue we can see these elements as overlapping. Wimmer s institutions, power, and networks can be seen to determine and restrict what is visible, thinkable, and doable (Bleiker & Butler 2016: 72). What is thinkable and doable then translates to what the possibilities for boundary change are. Art, by making things visible and thinkable, simultaneously already does things. This brings us to the fact that both theories acknowledge the importance of agency as well. This agency lies within the possible strategies for boundary-making according to Wimmer, and with the power of art to challenge conventions according to Ranciére. Art is characterized as a medium through which agency can be asserted by an individual through his or her representations of the world, and within this research we are looking at what these representations do to boundaries. 20 Figure 1: Conceptual framework If both theories acknowledge both structure and agency, emphasizing how the former limits the latter and how the latter modifies the former, it should be possible to conceive of them as parts of one coherent structurationist framework for the analysis of agency through visual expression to challenge boundaries engrained in structure. I have mapped the assembled conceptual framework in Figure 1, with strategic urbanization, and the boundaries of indigeneity integrated into the framework. Concepts from the boundary-making theory have been added in green, those from the politics of the aesthetics in red, and those from the indigenous urbanization debate in orange. The arrows show the direction in which different elements interact with one another, the arrows from the upper half to the lower indicating structural constrains of agency, and the arrows from the lower half to the upper indicating agency directed at changing structures. 21 2.2. Methodology Now that I have put forward a structurationist theoretical framework, it is time to present a coherent strategy for data-collection and analysis flow naturally from the specific theoretical strands that form the analytical framework. This research approaches the work of CIARs in Boa Vista from a structurationist angle: as actions embedded in, and informed by a reality, that also work to recreate and modify that same reality. What it needs is information about the structures that constrain and guide the actions of CIARs, as well as information on how CIARs use the resources that are available to them to challenge the distribution of the sensible in institutions, power and alliances. As the basis for this research is the assumption that art matters to politics, I conceive of CIARs as strategic urbanizers. They might not be what we narrowly define as indigenous leaders to mean, but their location and assumed role suggest parallels that are worth investigating. In the following sections I will first present the techniques used to gather data to answer the questions presented in the introduction, and then explain how data will be coded and analyzed. I will conclude this section discussing important limitations to the possibilities of this research. 2.2.1. Data gathering When taking a structurationist approach to any phenomenon, it makes sense to collect data about institutional order and power structures as well as individuals reflections on these structural givens. Information on the the latter will be gathered in the form of interviews3, and individual artistic utterances of indigenous artists that reflect upon their societal context. Interviewees can describe the personal or organizational contexts in which the research issue is located and how they relate to it (Lewis, Design Issues 2003: 56). Both the sample selection as the data collections techniques discussed below fit within a structurationist search for balance between agency and structure. They also differ from chapter to chapter, as different questions beg for different types of information. The questions in chapter 3 are aimed at identifying historical context and discourse. These questions are answered by gathering information from a myriad of sources. A large part of the chapter s content is the result of a literature research on institutional order and power relations, on racial, ethnic, and social issues, and on indigenous people in Brazil and 3 All interviews in this research, except the one with Ana Mendina, have been conducted in Portuguese by the Author, assisted in two instances by Jay Caetano, a local psychology student. All interviews were transcribed by the author, except the conversation with Enoque Raposo, which was transcribed by Lollah da Costa. All quotes used in the thesis are translations by the author, with the original quote provided in the footnote. 22 in Roraima specifically, supplemented with a selection of news reports about the demarcation process and about manifestations of indigenous art in Boa Vista. In order to triangulate secondary sources on stigma and categorization in Roraima, a questionnaire has been conducted with two classes of students of the intercultural bachelor of the Insikiran institute for indigenous higher education. Historical information, and reflections upon events and phenomena, have also been obtained through semi-structured interviews with two history professors at the UFRR, the coordinator of the intercultural bachelor of the Insikiran institute, and some of the CIARs. The questions in chapter 4 are aimed at understanding CIARs as individuals positioning themselves within the world described in chapter 3, and engaging with the discourse in this world. These questions will be answered using semi-structured interviews conducted with CIARs, with their affiliates and collaborators, and with the academics mentioned above. All respondents have been identified and contacted using snowball-sampling through contacts at the UFRR and through Jaider Esbell s gallery. In addition to these interviews I will refer to personal observations at cultural events that took place surrounding Abril Indígena (Indigenous April). The questions in chapter 5 are about how CIARs react upon political realities, and thereby engage in boundary-making and in the redistribution of the sensible, through the representations in their work. These questions will be answered by making a purposive selection and analysis of specific works of art that materialize or contradict discourse identified in the earlier chapters. Due to the limited scope of this research I have narrowed down the analysis to this selection of two-dimensional works of art. 2.2.2. Coding and analysis The objective in this research is to let the different types of sources mentioned above enter a dialogue in which points of agreement and disagreement can be found. The value of this triangulation of sources (Lewis & Ritchie 2003: 276), lies in adding breadth and depth to the analysis of the phenomenon (Fielding & Fielding, 1986, in Lewis, 2003, p. 44). This rests on the assumption that the use of different sources of information will help both to confirm and to improve the clarity or precision, of a research finding (Lewis & Ritchie 2003: 275). Triangulation in this research is not just a tool to verify information or deepen analysis, but an indispensable element that makes the assemblage of two theoretical strands possible. When talking about how boundaries may become materialized in visual culture, it is important not to imagine this entailing actual paintings of lines between worlds. Rather than 23 looking for dotted lines between one thing and the other, one should look for stories that are told in visual form about the boundaries that have arisen in interviews and literature research. This triangulation also presents itself in the coding strategy, showing how throughout the research a dialogue between theory and evidence was sustained. The coding of interviews was informed by the conceptual framework and its sensitizing concepts, as well as by overarching themes and discursive tropes from the literature and documentary research. Coding and analysis of the works of art was informed, again, by the conceptual framework, this time complemented with three overarching themes that appear in the interviews. 2.2.3. Limitations and opportunities This research has been shaped in important ways by the limitations of the author, constraints in time and place, and by opportunities and possibilities that have arisen during its execution. The specific conceptual lens of this research also has specific limits in what it can account for, and what kind of questions it can answer. As a non-native speaker of Portuguese, I had two main difficulties conducting this research: group discussions and phone calls. Passive and active knowledge prove sufficient to ask the questions I wish to ask. But the ease of communication depended much on the situation and on the interlocutor. This linguistic limitation has inspired me to look for a subject and develop a research strategy that relied primarily upon passive knowledge of the language, one-on-one conversations, and the identification of visual cues. The research has thus been designed to suit de abilities of the author. Consequently, a researcher not limited in the same way I was in a linguistic sense may have discovered more or different aspects to the phenomenon at hand. In addition to language skills, there were also limits to my cultural sensitivity. I visited the region for the first time, having had no prior experience in Brazil or even Latin America. There are both advantages and disadvantages to looking at local art production as an outsider and a foreigner. Some messages hidden in plain sight may remain invisible to those who miss the cultural capital4 or sensitivity to identify and decode them. This disadvantage plays up even more in a short field-work period, which makes it difficult to connect certain 4 Throughout this thesis, references will be made to capital, be it cultural, intellectual, social or economic capital. I use capital in the Bourdieuan sense of the word. For further information on the different forms of capital, I refer to Bourdieu (1983) and to Nahapiet and Goshal (1998). 24 dots in time and be able to arrange follow-up interviews based upon new insights. I have attempted to overcome this challenge by adjusting the interview topic list in accordance with new insights after every interview. This also helped to establish an ongoing dialogue between theory and evidence. An advantage to being an outsider is that a sharp eye often comes from the outside. Firstly, a certain distance to a phenomenon helps seeing it in perspective and identifying links on a larger level. Secondly, the cultural and emotional baggage that opens doors of perception to locals, may also obscure elements to them that the outsider does pick up, more so if he or she comes equipped with a conceptual vocabulary that is new to the local context. This research is built upon interpretations of the world, generally going through two interpretative cycles before being written down here. There are the CIARs and their interpretations of the world around them in speech and in paintings, then there is their and others interpretation of the work their doing. What brings the work together is the author s interpretation of those various interpretations. I can thus in no way claim this work is based on absolute truths or measurements, and should carefully avoid making statements that would require quantitative backing. There are various elements in this research that are very hard to measure to begin with. One of these is the exact power or influence a piece of art has. Bleiker an Butler offer an interesting perspective on this limitation, arguing that [a] painting might function in the way Celan (1986a: 186; 1986b: 198) described the journey of a poem: as a message in a bottle , a plea that is sent out with the hope that someday it will be washed onto a shore, onto something open, a heart that seeks dialogue, a receptive political reality. (Bleiker & Butler 2016: 65). This is the way in which I approach indigenous art in Roraima as well, as messages in bottles, of which no one knows how exactly they will shape reality. 25 3. Conquest and reconquest in Roraima In this chapter I will lay down the historical and discursive context in which CIARs operate. This means to identify the influence institutions, power and alliances have had on the boundaries of indigeneity throughout Roraima s history, with the position of indigenous cultural expression in mind. The motivation behind these questions is to better understand the world CIARs are reflecting upon and representing in their art, and to acquaint ourselves with the repertoire of categories and the content of the us and them distinctions available to them. The chapter is structured chronologically, and divided in three sections discussing the history of colonization and military regimes, the process of democratization since 1988, and the history of Roraima, and the present-day situation. Through these three sections I will discuss developing institutions, power structures, and alliances, and how these developments have influenced discursive context and the occupation of representational space. This will help us understand what discourses and boundaries indigenous Roraimans today are confronted with, or confront themselves with. An exhaustive discussion on the different boundaries and identities that have played a role in Brazilian history exceeds the limits and the needs of this thesis, as does a comprehensive history of Roraima. I will focus on information that is relevant to the context in which contemporary indigenous art is made in Roraima today, and only mention those parts of the larger picture of Brazilian history and culture that are crucial to the understanding of the local context. 3.1. Invasion and invisibility In this section I will briefly discuss the influence that the arrival of European colonizers and the subsequent empires and regimes of Brazil have had on the indigenous people of Roraima. This discussion will be divided into two time periods: the era of Portuguese colonization and the time between Brazil s independence in 1822 and its democratization in 1985. 26 3.1.1. Colonization when the navigators stopped in this port there already was a village. [ ] and the Indians became invisible even though they didn t ever leave. [ ] they stopped being the owners of the place and became the servants of the people who came to colonize, Jaider Esbell, 5 April 20165 Being relatively secluded and isolated area, Roraima was only first colonized by the Portuguese by the end of the 18th century. Before that time, there had already been trade between indigenous peoples of the region and Spanish and Dutch merchants, who reached the region from the Caribbean coast6. According to Hemming, a fort that would later become the capital city of Boa Vista was built upon the remainders of a large indigenous settlement (1990: 4). From the end of the 19th century onward, people from other regions of the country started settling in Roraima in greater numbers, most of them from the northeast (Hemming 1990: 25). The first European settlers in Roraima heavily relied on indigenous manual labor, which made the growth of the cattle industry possible. They attempted to control the indigenous population by founding settlements and ranches, disrupting the nomadic lifestyle these peoples had known before (Martins 2014: 2). The expanding cattle industry gradually intruded into Wapishana and Macuxi territories (de Carvalho Cavalcante 2011). As many indigenous people were forced to relocate into land traditionally occupied by other groups, shared cultural customs arose in a process Orlando Sampaio Silva calls intertribal acculturation (2011: 326). The cultural unity in these tribally plural societies is perhaps most clearly visible today in the parixara, a ritual dance shared by many tribes in the northeast of Roraima that is often used at cultural events and receptions in the comunidades.7 The way in which indigenous life changed with the arrival of the colonizers depended largely on location, which determined both the intensity as the type of contact with European settlers. Both intertribal acculturation mentioned above and adaptation to the colonizers culture happened primarily between the savanna tribes, consisting mostly of Original quote: ...quando os navegantes pararam aqui nesse porto já existia uma aldeia eaí. Eai, nessa área fazer contatos, instalar, e aí os brancos [unintelligible] e os índios ficaram invisíveis embora de não ter saído de momento nenhum. Isso continua mas entraram num [unintelligible] de invisibilidade. Deixaram de ser os donos do lugar e passaram ser empregados das pessoas que vieram colonizar, nesse sentido. 6 Author s interview with Reginaldo Gomes de Oliveira, professor of history at the UFRR, Boa Vista, on 29 April 2016. 7 Author s personal observation, 2 April 2016. 5 27 Macuxi, Wapishana, and Taurepang, which suffered greater pressure early on than secluded forest tribes like the Yanomami (Hemming 1990: 27). When German ethnologist Theodor Koch-Grünberg visited the region between 1911 and 1913, he noted many Wapishana working as cowhands and boatmen along the river, who already spoke Portuguese (KochGrünberg 1923: 3, in Hemming 1990: 14). Mário Flores relates how contact with white settlers and their religion caused the loss of traditional grafismos among the Taurepang8. It is only later, in nineteenth century romanticism, that the pristine myth arose (Denevan 1992: 369), the idea that European invaders encountered a hardly populated continent occupied by simple hunter-gatherers in perfect harmony with nature (Bolaños 2011: 63-64). This notion has been refuted by William M. Denevan, who highlights how much of the existing indigenous infrastructure was destroyed between de sixteenth and the nineteenth century (369). Both the pristine myth and its refusal are relevant notions to keep in mind for the following chapters. They often clash in the current political debate and in everyday life, as contemporary indigenous people wish to present themselves as nature people , while simultaneously demonstrating that their culture is alive, dynamic and adaptable. When looking back upon the era of colonization and conquest and considering the legacy it has left behind, many point towards the invisibilization of indigenous life that Esbell mentions in the quote above (de Oliveira Junior 1997, Lima & de Almeida 2010). Fernando de Carvalho Danta argues the invisibilization of indigenous ways of being, doing and living is a violent act in and of itself (de Carvalho Danta 2011). This sentiment comes back in Okaba s point that history is written by the winners , in the case of Roraima the white conquerors, and that the loser doesn t get to even write one line , the objective being to terminate and deny what was before in order to create a new history9. The Portuguese conquerors thus asserted themselves as the protagonists of Roraima s history, turning indigenous people into insignificant side-characters in their own homelands. 3.1.2. Building Brazil As Brazil became independent in 1822, its attitude towards indigenous people changed slightly. Where the Portuguese crown had authorized war on, and enslavement of Author s interview with Mário Flores, artist residing in Sorocaima II, Boa Vista, on 14 May 2016. Amazoner Okaba, 7 May 2016. Original quote: Quando os brancos chegaram, tinha que mudar tudo [...] a construção social das coisas, e a história é escrita pelos vencedores. O derrotado não escreve nenhuma linha, é acabar, negar, e criar a nova história. E essa história é a historia dos brancos conquistadores. 8 9 28 indigenous peoples, the new Brazilian government awarded indigenous people with the right to protection under the Justice of Orphans (Rodrigues 2002: 487). According to Maria G.M. Rodrigues, these rights were rooted in two assumptions about indigenous peoples. The first assumption was that Indians were incapable of interacting with the rest of society independently. The second assumption was that the guidance and protection offered by the state should eventually lead to the assimilation of indigenous peoples into the Brazilian society (487). A door was thus opened for indigenous people to become civilized and cross over to the other side of the boundary that separated them from mainstream society. Brazil s attitude towards its indigenous peoples would be characterized by assimilationist and paternalist ideology for the most part of the nineteenth and twentieth century, justified by development ideology (Perz, Warren & Kennedy 2008: 9). When the Fundação Nacional do Índio (National Indian Foundation FUNAI) took responsibility over the well-being of indigenous people in the 1960s, its dual objective to protect indigenous people from physical harm, and integrate them into society (Sampaio Silva 2011: 325) still reflected the same attitude as the legislation from 1831. One of the ways in which the assimilationist ideology manifested itself in the livelihoods of indigenous people in Roraima was the encouragement to clean their blood by marrying into the white population, and disidentifying themselves with their indigenous herritage. This is exemplified when one of the urban Wapishana interviewees in Marinha de Melo s research tells how her grandmother broke off contact with her mother when she married another Indian (Melo 2012: 128). As a phenomenon, reclassification and incorporation of Indians and people of mixed heritage into the dominant society was widespread throughout colonial Latin America (Perz, Warren & Kennedy 2008: 9). Before, during, and after the military dictatorship that ruled Brazil between 1965 and 1985, indigenous people in Roraima suffered a high degree of violence (Vieira & Arenz 2014: 7). Even if rights were awarded to them in name, they continued to be repressed and attacked by white landowners and miners (S. G. Baines 2012: 33). According to Hemming, no-one bothered with the welfare of the Indians of Roraima throughout the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries . Their lands were also continuously intruded upon and destructed (Hemming 1990: 14). The military leadership opposed indigenous rights to land for two main reasons. First of all, according to the prevailing national security ideology every claim for indigenous territorial autonomy would be a threat to the sovereignty of the Brazilian Nation. This sentiment is still alive today amongst the military and the right-wing of Brazilian politics, 29 and applies in particular in Roraima where much of indigenous land is located in frontier areas (Neto 2013). In addition, the creation of reserves would take away land that could otherwise be used for agriculture, mining, and expanding infrastructure, which were seen as crucial to the nation s economic security (Rodrigues 2002: 491). Figure 2 is an attempt to map the meanings and implications of the boundaries of indigeneity as they have presented themselves throughout this section. Next to a series of simplistic dichotomies that construct a negative stereotype of the indigenous, there is something else about the words above that is striking, and that relates directly to the opposition between the protagonists and the invisible. All of the discourse about these boundaries gathered here originates from the European conquerors. As they wrote history, the winners also imposed their boundaries, and decided upon their content, consequently having indigenous people themselves believe in these boundaries In Philip Gourevitch s words, Roraima s indigenous people were made to inhabit the colonizers story of their reality (2000: 48). It was during the hardships of the military dictatorship, however, that the indigenous peoples found their first allies and advocates in institutes that had previously been part of the system that had oppressed, marginalized, and assimilated them: the Figure 2: The boundaries of indigeneity between 1500 and 1985 30 university and the catholic church. The next section will be about the strides that have been made for indigenous rights during the process of Brazil s democratization, and about what these changes meant for the boundaries between the indigenous and the non-indigenous. 3.2. Democratization and demarcation As we have seen in the previous section, the colonial empire and the subsequent republics until 1985 left a legacy of domination, prejudice and indifference towards indigenous peoples in Roraima s institutions and power structures. But this adverse situation did not stop indigenous leaders from forging alliances with church organizations like the Conselho Indígena Missionário (Indigenous Missionary Council, CIMI) and the Centro Ecumênico de Documentação e Informação (Ecumenical Center of Documentation and Information, CEDI), and with Brazilian anthropologists (Rodrigues 2002: 496) In their research on the impact of the military dictatorship on the indigenous people of Roraima, Jaci Vieira and Karl Arenz note the importance of the involvement of members of the Catholic Church of Roraima with indigenous peoples in the struggle for the demarcation of indigenous lands, including the Raposa Serra do Sol. (2014: 7). It will become clear in this section how these alliances became crucial in the effort to push for change as indigenous people started the struggle to reclaim the territories that were taken from them. 3.2.1. A new constitution When Brazil elected its first civilian president in 1985, the arduous task of drafting a new democratic constitution presented itself. Indigenous leaders, having built their first alliances with the CIMI and anthropologists during the military dictatorship, were ready to put pressure on the political system during its writing. They did this by, among other lobbying tactics, maintaining an almost continuous presence at the Brazilian Congress (Rodrigues 2002: 495). The lobbying skills of indigenous leaders resulted in the 1988 constitution that explicitly recognized the rights of indigenous peoples to maintain their cultural traditions. (Bolaños 2011: 57). The constitution also acknowledged the connection between cultural and territorial rights, stating that indigenous lands are considered vital for the preservation of environmental resources necessary for their welfare and physical and cultural reproduction according to their traditional uses and customs (Mendes 2005: 15, in Bolaños 2011: 57). As indigenous peoples had their territorial and cultural rights solidified in a constitution, it became clear that having rights did not automatically mean those rights would also be honored. Predominant conservative interests in the first democratic governments often stood 31 in the way of the effort of demarcation (499), and the regional media remained on the side of the powerful (Braga, Tuzzo & Campos 2012)10. The constitution did hand the indigenous movement significant bargaining power for further lobbying efforts, and institutionalized indigenous identity as something of value, rather than something to get rid of. In addition to this achievement, indigenous leaders conquested an important space within Brazilian leftist parties during the process (Rodrigues: 494). In 1988, simultaneously with the new democratic constitution of Brazil, Roraima achieved statehood (Hemming 1990: 1). It had previously been a federal territory, created by the Getulio Vargas administration in order to populate frontier lands, and its population had grown nine fold between 1940 and 1985. (Hemming 1990: 24) A large portion of Roraima s urban population at the time was made up out of the sons and daughters of immigrants from the southern and north-eastern regions of Brazil. 3.2.2. The indigenous movement and demarcation The indigenous movement that surged in Roraima grew heterogeneous and complex, with a multitude of organizations contending over the right to represent indigenous people. The Conselho Indígena de Roraima (Indigenous Council of Roraima CIR), which evolved from the CIMI, came out of the demarcation struggles in Roraima as the main protagonist, now ruling over much of the TIRSS land11. Until today, the main focus of the CIR has remained with territorial rights and the interests of indigenous people within Roraima s rural communities. TIRSS was first identified by the FUNAI in 1977 (Silva & Braga 2011: 3), but the struggle for its demarcation would last another 32 years, and produce strong tensions. Heller and Alecrim identify three main contenders in the conflict over Raposa Serra do Sol: indigenous leaders wishing to remove all white settlers and their influence from the area (CIR), indigenous leaders favoring demarcation em ilhas12 (SODIUR), because they were afraid to lose their income working for the rice farmers, and non-indigenous rice-farmers themselves, fearing the loss of their land and their expulsion in the event of demarcation (2013: 212). 10 Author s interview with Amazoner Okaba (Emerson da Silva Rodrigues), Wapishana and Macuxi, artist residing in Boa Vista, Boa Vista, on 7 May 2016. 11 For a detailed account of the various indigenous organizations active in TIRSS alone, I recommend reading Silva & Braga (2011). 12 Literally in isles, meaning small pieces of indigenous land surrounded by freely exploitable territory. 32 Figure 3: Indigenous Territories, Conservation Units, Military Areas, and Settlement Areas in Roraima (ISA 2012: 18) A hostile attitude towards indigenous people surged among the last group, which resulted in physical violence and intimidation towards indigenous communities. These hostilities were often carried out by employees of big land holders, but could also count on the support of local authorities and law enforcement. The Associação dos Povos Indígenas do Estado de Roraima (Association of Indigenous Peoples of the State of Roraima 33 APIRR), in an urgent letter published on the website of the Instituto Socioambiental (Social and Environmental Institute ISA), mentions invasion, deforestation, physical and psychological violence [ ] carried out by inhabitants of Vila Pacaraima, incentivized by local authorities and assisted by military and civic police forces , against indigenous comunidades in the region bordering TIRSS (APIRR, 2002, my translation)13. During the demarcation struggle, most local media outlets chose to emphasise the perspective of the white farmers as hard-working victims (Heller & Alecrim 2013: 217). This perspective was taken over in Raposa Serra do Sol: A Fronteira do Abandono (Raposa Serra do Sol, the Frontier of Abandonment), a series of TV-reports by national broadcaster BAND, which also featured a high military commander phrasing his concerns for Brazil s territorial integrity (Jornal da BAND 2011). This exemplifies how big media outlets opposed indigenous territorial rights based upon ideologies of national security and progress that hailed from the military regime. In 2009, the Supremo Tribunal Federal (Supreme Federal Tribunal STF) decided to pull back all non-indigenous settlers from the area, and hand over possession of the territory to the indigenous population (Alliance for Linguistic Diversity 2015: 3). Being one of the last and largest areas to be demarcated in Roraima, TIRSS represented a landmark, with indigenous territories today making up 46,20 % of Roraima s total surface (ISA 2014). 3.2.3. Essentialization and urbanization The indigenous movement s focus on land rights was backed up by its primary advocates in the political field on a national and international level. The FUNAI and foreign environmentalist organizations, as well as social scientists, rallied to support the indigenous claim to land. FUNAI did this on the basis of Brazilian law, which stated that territory was essential to their cultural survival. NGO s like Survival International helped push for demarcation on the basis of ideas very much akin to the pristine myth, helping to market the Yanomami internationally as guardians of the rainforest (Survival International nd). The essentialization of indigenous culture by political actors was also supported by the cultural survival perspective within the social sciences which embodies an essentialism in which cultural traits or traditions constitute the essences of being Indian , that can be used to determine someone s indigeneity (Field 1994: 238). Les W. Field points towards alliances 13 Original quote: Neste local vem acontecendo casos de invasão, desmatamento, violência física e moral contra as Comunidades e populações indígenas, por parte de moradores da Vila, que são incentivados pelas autoridades locais ( Presidente de bairro, Vereadores e Prefeito ), inclusive contando com apoio da Polícia Militar e Civil. 34 between the social scientists purporting the narrative of cultural survival, and political movements of the indigenous peoples they were doing research on (239). Campbell argues that the modern nation-state s privileging of the territorial demands that indigenous leaders engage in strategic essentialism to preserve territorial claims. (Campbell 2015: 84, emphasis added). While it helped indigenous leaders to put pressure on the demarcation of land, this essentialism had the side effect of providing the basis for the Indian out of place narrative. This narrative ties indigenous identity to place so firmly that any migration to urban settings is seen to turn an indigenous person less real (Campbell 2015: 82), and to thereby weaken the indigenous claim to territory (Alexiades & Peluso 2015: 6). Thus, while indigenous claims to land in principle are supported, they are only supported so long as indigenous people remained within these territories. The Indian out of place narrative is exemplary for how the indigenous movement became imbued with the politics of authenticity. As indigenous rights were awarded to peoples to sustain their authentic traditional ways of life, players in the political field concerning themselves with these issues took strategic positions on who exactly they considered to be a real Indian (Campbell 2015: 81). According to Alexiades and Peluso, three core dichotomies were drawn upon to create criteria for an authentic indigenous person: rural-urban, nature-technology, and tradition-modernity (Alexiades & Peluso 2015: 5)14. As mentioned before in 2.1.3., a truly indigenous person would be firmly positioned on the left of these dichotomies. In Roraima the urban-rural dichotomy translated into an institutional division. Urban Indians were until recently unable to officially register themselves as indigenous and benefit from the policies directed towards helping indigenous people (Melo 2012: 62). Ironically, this essentialized narrative arose at a time when many indigenous people throughout the Amazon were migrating from their rural comunidades in search for jobs, housing, and education (McSweeney & Jokish 2015: 19). This, together with the alleged acculturation of many of the tribes that made up the population of TIRSS (Heller & Alecrim 2013: 224), created a weak spot for the indigenous movement, which had difficulties acknowledging urban Indians as indigenous15. This echoes a challenge faced by indigenous movements throughout Amazonia. Alexiades and Peluso mention how [t]he degree to Alexiades and Peluso use culture as the opposite of nature. I have opted to use technology instead, in order to avoid confusion. As the debate here is about the preservation of an authentic indigenous culture, and as many of the comments of interviewees point towards modern technology as an opposite to indigenous peoples relationship with nature, I feel this opposition is more clear and relevant in the present Roraiman context. 15 Reginaldo Gomes de Oliveira, 29 April 2016. 14 35 which the postmodern revitalization of the indigenous has drawn on socially powerful, essentialized and thus easily deconstructed, modern ontologies and dichotomies is, of course, now generating its own ironic set of problems and challenges for indigenous peoples (Conklin and Graham: 1995) (Alexiades & Peluso 2015: 9). Indigenous people in the city founded the Organização dos Indígenas na Cidade (Organization of the Indigenous of the City ODIC) in 2006 in order to fill in this gap in representation claim the rights that were now only awarded to their rural relatives (Melo 2012: 140). Simultaneous with this wave of migration to the city, their struggle for the conquest of, and well-being within their territories often required indigenous leaders to leave indigenous communities to do advocacy work in urban centers. It is these leaders, named strategic urbanizers by Campbell (2015: 83), who link the rural to the urban, turning cities into resourceful spaces in the struggle for indigenous autonomy and cultural preservation. (Campbell 2015: 83). 3.2.4. Improved participation and support The struggle for land carved out a space in politics for indigenous peoples. As indigenous people now had not just the constitution on their side, but also found ways to put pressure on the political system to enforce it, they made themselves visible as the new social and political actors in the formation of this state 16. One of the most significant results the indigenous movement in Roraima has accomplished next to the demarcation of territories, is the foundation of a center for indigenous studies within the Universidade Federal de Roraima (Federal University of Roraima UFRR). The Insikiran institute, named after a cunning trickster god from indigenous myths, today offers three different bachelor s courses specifically directed towards needs of indigenous comunidades in the areas of education, land management, and healthcare (UFRR nd). The founding of the Insikiran institute is mentioned by Jaider Esbell as an important symbolic achievement together with the struggle for territory that fostered new sense of pride within young indigenous people17. These political and social conquests countered both the paternalist and the assimilationist ideologies that had previously been imprinted in indigenous minds. Jonildo Viana dos Santos also mentions the significance of entering higher education, be it within the institute or in other faculties, because of the federal university s 16 Reginaldo Gomes de Oliveira, 29 April 2016. Original quote: ...eles se tornavam visíveis como os novos atores sociais e políticos, na formação desse estado. 17 Author s interview with Jaider Esbell, Macuxi, artist and leader of the Gallery for Contemporary Indigenous Art, Boa Vista, on 5 April 2016. 36 Figure 4: The boundaries of indigeneity during democratization and demarcation. prestige as an institute within Brazilian society18. In addition to the symbolic value he mentions the importance of forming intellectual capital, something I will elaborate further on in 4.1.1.. Figure 4 maps the changes in the boundaries of indigeneity that were discussed in this section. It becomes clear that the developments since Brazil s democratization have made the content of these boundaries considerably more complex, now that indigenous people found a way to assert their vision of the world through the indigenous movement. This complexity will increase even more in the next section. Jonildo Viana dos Santos, coordinator of the Intercultural BA programme at the Insikiran institute of the UFRR, Boa Vista, on 30 April 2016. 18 37 3.3. Protagonism, pride and peril 3.3.1. Institutional support and corporate partnership Two institutes that supported indigenous cultural expression in particular early on are the UFRR and the Serviço Social do Comércio (Social Service of the Commerce SESC). The SESC is a private institution maintained by the goods, tourism, and service industries, aiming to provide in the well-being of their workers. Its stated objective is to strengthen the exercise of citizenship and to contribute to socio-economic and cultural development (Sesc nd). It is mentioned by both Amazoner Okaba and Isaías Miliano as an important supporter for indigenous cultural expression in Roraima through the years primarily hosts exhibitions19.. The UFRR has also helped hosting exhibitions, and in addition welcomed indigenous artistic expression on its walls. Within the university campus there are many walls adorned with traditional grafismo, as well as murals with indigenous themes (Figure 5). Both Esbell and Okaba have large paintings permanently hanging in the entrance halls of buildings on the university campus. One further element that is essential to the success of CIARs, is recognition outside of Roraima. Esbell and Emiliano have both gained some fame through competing in, and winning, national art competitions20. Both have had their work exported to North America, where Esbell has also given workshops at schools. Isaías Miliano has also gained notoriety throughout Brazil, specifically in São Paulo where he lived for multiple years. He notes how this fame acquired elsewhere forced people back home to acknowledge and respect his work21. Fame outside Roraima also translated into prestige at home, where corporate entities are now eager to have work of CIARs hanging from their walls. An example of this corporate embrace are the fact that one of Boa Vista s main shopping malls, Pátio Roraima Shopping invited Ana Mendina to decorate its walls with her paintings. Esbell premiered his series of paintings called It was Amazon , a work dense with societal critique, in the same shopping mall. In addition to this, a local real estate agency invited Esbells gallery to have paintings of Esbell, Emiliano, Bartô, Okaba, and Mário Flores printed on iron partitions in Author s interview with Isaías Miliano, Patamona, artist residing in Boa Vista, Boa Vista, on 31 May 2016; Amazoner Okaba, 7 May 2016. 20 Carmézia Emiliano won the competition of the SESC s Bienal de Arte Naïf four times (Martins 2014), and also received an award for Notoriedade Cultural (cultural notoriety) by the government of Roraima in 2003. Jaider Esbell received widespread acknowledgment for his paintings and writings (Esbell nd), and won the PIPA award for contemporary Brazilian art in August 2016 (PIPA 2016). 21 Isaías Miliano, 31 May 2016. 19 38 Figure 5: Venezuelan indigenous artists painting the entrance of the Centre for letters, literature and visual art at UFRR, in Boa Vista22 Figure 6: Paintings by Mário Flores and Bartô on a street corner in Boa Vista's center23. Photo by Leila Baptaglin, obtained from https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=1130034727054874&set=pcb.1130035923721421&type=3 &theater 23 All photographs depicted in this thesis were taken by the author unless otherwise indicated. 22 39 the city center together with the agency s logo (Figure 6). Esbell emphasizes that it is not just prestige or respect that motivates corporate actors to give space to indigenous art. According to him an important motivator is the guilt of these capitalist entities that use the name Roraima without contributing much to the public good24. It is in this context that Jaider Esbell started his gallery for contemporary indigenous art in 2011, with the initial support of both the FUNAI and the UFRR (Oliveira 2015: 81). The university remains a strong partner to the gallery today, aiding in the organization of exhibitions in the União Operária, a building in the city center that is dedicated to providing a space for various forms of cultural expression25. 3.3.2. Cultural diplomacy in an identity vacuum Another entity that is very interested in coopting indigenous art is the new-born state of Roraima. As it achieved statehood, Roraima was eager to assert an identity of its own. With a large portion of the white population being from elsewhere in Brazil, the only cultural elements available that could be called typically Roraiman were those of its original inhabitants. The Roraiman government often puts the state s indigenous peoples forward as its cultural representatives. This happens on fairs in other states26, but is also visible in the obvious references to grafismos in the indoor design of the Palácio da Cultura (Culture Palace) in Roraima s city center (Figure 7). The Roraiman government is engaging in a continuous charm offensive to convince indigenous peoples they are a valued part of society, and to convince outsiders that Roraima treats its indigenous people with due respect, a project that Bleiker and Butler call cultural diplomacy (2016: 56)27. This includes pamphlets stating We are all Indians in honor of the national Semana dos Povos Indígenas (Week of the Indigenous Peoples) in 2015 (see Figure 9), as well as Roraima s governor Suely Campos publically claiming Macuxi heritage, adorned with a feathered tiara (Governo de Roraima 2015) . Another striking example is a music video made for Roraima s twenty-fifth anniversary that circulated on all main TV networks Jaider Esbell, 5 April 2016. Author s interview with Selmar Rodrigues and Raphaela Queiroz, employees of the UFRR s cultural management office, Boa Vista, on 19 May 2016; Author s interview with Reginaldo Gomes de Oliveira, professor of history at the UFRR, Boa Vista, on 29 April 2016. 26 Reginaldo Gomes de Oliveira, 29 April 2016. 27 I recommend a reading of Bleiker and Butler s 2016 article Radical Dreaming: Indigenous Art and Cultural Diplomacy, for a detailed account on cultural diplomacy in the case of Australia s indigenous people. 24 25 40 Figure 7: Grafismo on the walls of the Palácio da Cultura in Boa Vista. Figure 8: Still from ALE Roraima/25 ANOS , 2016. 28 28 Obtained from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EEoJCWIR78Y, accessed on 26 July 2016. 41 during the time of the author s stay in Boa Vista. It features, among a motley group of people representing Roraima s diversity, an indigenous man who appears when a line is sung that translates as I belong to these people (Figure 8, my translation). The symbolic tables are now turned, as those who were previously told to hide or even discard their Figure 9: Poster for the Peoples 2015 Week of the Indigenous culture in order to assimilate into Brazilian society, now have something other Roraimans are eager to get in on: a strong cultural legacy that was native to the region. The sense of symbolical empowerment that developed is perhaps best exemplified in Amazoner Okaba s quote: What is your culture, huh? What is your culture? What is your language? What makes you Roraiman? You won t see many solid elements. But the Indians, we have a language, we have a dance, we have our food, we have an ancient tradition... It is more comfortable for me to talk of an indigenous identity than to talk of a Roraiman identity. 29 This is an example of what Jolle Demmers describes as using identity in a normative sense, where those who have it are lucky, and those who do not are seen as lost and weak (Demmers 2012: 18). It also links to the reference Wimmer made in his work to the efforts of Amerindian peoples to invert the values of the boundaries that marginalized them before, finding new pride and a sense of superiority in their privilege of authenticity (2008b: 1038). Most CIARs show themselves very aware that today s apparent acceptance and inclusion did not come naturally. Persistent lobbying from the indigenous movement and their allies had been necessary to secure the execution of land rights and the implementation of policies towards a differentiated education and the preservation of cultural traditions. The long and arduous road to the execution of indigenous rights to land and education have 29 Amazoner Okaba, 7 May 2016. Original quote: Qual é tua cultura, hum? Qual é tua cultura? Qual é tua língua? Quê que te faz Roraimense? Você não vai ter muitos elementos sólidos. Os Índios não, nós temos uma língua, nós temos uma dança, nós temos a comida, nos temos uma tradição milenar... É mais comfortável para mim falar duma identidade indígena do que falar duma identidade Roraimense. 42 brought with it a strong sense of accomplishment and pride, as well as a skeptical attitude towards official inclusivist discourse. Okaba, Esbell, and Viana dos Santos all emphasize that the services that are now offered are not some sort of gift from the good nature of the government, but something the indigenous movement conquered against the odds30. They are very aware that the media, that now can t ignore us anymore , was not on their side when times were hard, and continues to purport stereotypes31. Next to a reversal of pride and prestige, Roraima s search for identity created opportunities when indigenous artists are solicited to add culture to events or places. CIARs were thus put in the position of cultural ambassadors of Roraima. The embrace of the corporate sector came for similar reasons. This dynamic opened up a vacuum in which indigenous peoples could assert themselves and their cultures as something of value. In subsection 5.1.1. I will return to this aspect, describing how indigenous artists make strategic use of this position to tell the stories they want to see told. 3.3.3. Persistent challenges and new threats , and you need to go slowly, because we do have a problem here. They don t understand the importance of having so many indigenous people here. They still think it s a rock in the way. Ana Mendina, 19 May 2016. In the previous sections I have elaborated on historical invasion and oppression, and on the conquests of the indigenous movement in Roraima today. After recognizing increased participation and representation in institutions, and growing opportunities for indigenous cultural assertion and societal critique, it is important to also mention some of the challenges that persist, and new difficulties that have arisen for indigenous people. This subsection will discuss continued and renewed invasion and threats to territory, persistent stigmatization, and some of the counter discourses that have arisen recently in response to stigmatization. Even now virtually all indigenous territories claimed by indigenous people in Roraima have been demarcated, invasion of indigenous territories has not ceased to exist. Yanomami lands are currently most subjected to invasion (da Silva 2014, Nilsson 2008: 28). Gold prospectors have been invading their land from 1976 onwards, despite occasional orders forbidding such invasions 30 31 (Hemming 1990: 29) , and these invasions persist until the Idem; Jaider Esbell, 5 April 2016; Jonildo Viana dos Santos, 30 April 2016. Amazoner Okaba, 7 May 2016. 43 present. The chemicals used by these prospectors have grave consequences for the health and well-being of the Yanomami (Malm, et al. 1995: 127). Meanwhile, according to McSweeney and Jokish, the recently demarcated lands are under a degree of coordinated assault not seen since the devastating decades of the 1960s and 1970s (2015: 16) from right-wing politicians and the agro-business lobby, who are trying to implement the infamous PEC215 law. This law would move the responsibility from the executive to the legislative branch of government, and open up finalized demarcation processes for reconsideration in the process. With the Brazilian congress largely in the hands of right-wing politicians with dubious ties to business interests, the PEC215 would pose a serious threat to indigenous territories. As such it has been subject to heavy protest from indigenous organizations throughout Brazil and in Roraima (Rosa 2014). The political situation has become even direr with the impeachment of president Dilma Rousseff in May 2016. According to Okaba the indigenous cause risks a severe regression now that the leftist and relatively pro-indigenous Partido dos Trabalhadores (Workers Party PT) has been removed from power. He thinks there is a serious chance the new government will try to get rid of the FUNAI altogether32. Meanwhile, the indigenous movement that so successfully fought for the demarcation of territories and the creation of indigenous higher education, has lost some of its vigor. Apart from its internal conflicts and corruption, which will be discussed in more detail in 4.2.1., the movement has failed to elect representatives in Roraima s government. According to both Bartô and Esbell this would be a crucial step in order to take the indigenous cause and emancipation to the next level, that will be hard to achieve with a movement that is divided33. The PEC215 can be seen as part of a broader backlash against the successful demarcation of many indigenous territories since 1988. This backlash also shows itself in how the media have portrayed the demarcation process. According to Viana dos Santos the press in Roraima still serves the powerful. During the demarcation of TIRSS they framed the indigenous cause negatively, suggesting that the indigenous movement would hand over the land to the Americans , and that indigenous people stood in the way of the countries development34. The same negative discourse is also mentioned by Esbell and Bartô35, and by Braga, Tuzzo and Campos in their article on representations of Indians in the media. The Idem. Bartô, 22 May 2016; Jaider Esbell, 5 April 2016. 34 Jonildo Viana dos Santos, 30 April 2016. Original quote: Na época discutia-se a homologação e demarcação da Terra Indígena Raposa Serra do Sol (TIRSS), e os debates eram muito naquela coisa de os índios vão entregar a terra para os Americanos, [...]. 35 Bartô, 22 May 2016; Jaider Esbell, 5 April 2016. 32 33 44 latter argue that within the contentious process of the demarcation of TIRSS, opponents of the indigenous cause had ample space in the media to assert their vision. As it wasn t contested, this vision had the opportunity to naturalize within the perception of nonindigenous Brazilians (Braga, Tuzzo & Campos 2012: 14). Although tensions rose and stigmatization intensified during the contention revolving around TIRSS, anti-indigenous sentiments do not just show themselves on these specific contentious occasions. Multiple interviewees, as well as secondary literature, point towards a persistent stigmatization and marginalization of indigenous people in the media and in society in general36. Viana dos Santos mentions the continued challenge of ridding families and the educational system from racist and marginalizing ideologies, as he sees it is there that the seed of prejudice is being passed on to next generations37. In modern society it is increasingly difficult to use the old stereotypical dichotomies, as the process of indigenous urbanization has rendered these distinctions largely obsolete. In both following chapters I will elaborate on how exactly these notions are refuted. The new stigmatization shows a combination of the archaic stereotypes, being that of the naked forest-dweller38, the backward, lazy person39, the opponent of development, with new elements fashioned to fit this image more to the present reality. The new Indian is portrayed as a thief, as a drunkard who beats his wife40, but also as an aggressive political actor that persistently claims what he thinks is rightfully his. The incapable subject is now allegedly manipulated by the church and foreign NGO (de Lima 2001), which is a direct subversion of the political initiative and protagonism indigenous people have showed. Even the historically constructed invitation for individual boundary-crossing appears firmly engrained in the imagination of the non-indigenous majority. Okaba says many of them don t even see indigenous people as such if they don t meet stereotypical criteria. If they come to the city, dress normally , drive cars, and use cell phones, they would suddenly not be indigenous anymore. It is these seemingly trivial boundary rules that make it a continuous challenge for indigenous people to adapt to contemporary society without allegedly losing some of their identity. This is a prejudice that isn t just directed from the dominant society towards the indigenous. Urban indigenous people are also confronted by their relatives from the comunidades with the warning not to lose their culture, or the Reginaldo Gomes de Oliveira, 29 April 2016. Jonildo Viana dos Santos, 30 April 2016. 38 Jaider Esbell, 5 April 2016. 39 Author s interview with Enoque Raposo, Macuxi, tourism entrepreneur and affiliate to the Gallery for Contemporary Indigenous Art, Boa Vista, on 17 April 2016. 40 Jonildo Viana dos Santos, 30 April 2016. 36 37 45 accusation that they already have. Both Kopenawa (2016) and the leader of Sorocaima II employ this discourse41. In the findings of their research on the representation of indigenous culture in Boa Vista s main newspaper during the 2015 Semana dos Povos Indígenas (Week of the Indigenous Peoples), Roni Pettersonde Miranda Pacheco and Luis Francisco Munaro suggest that even though indigenous people may have become impossible to ignore completely, the main local media outlet of Boa Vista is still trying its very best to invisibilize and silence Indians (Pacheco & Munaro 2015: 13). Various discursive tools have made themselves available to indigenous inhabitants of Boa Vista to tackle their invisibilization, and defend themselves against attacks on their authenticity. A first way is to appeal to the discourse of Kuwai Kîrî (Gomes de Oliveira 2010: 70) or the grande maloca, which holds that Indians didn t come to the city, but that [t]he city came to the maloca (emphasis added)42. In a project by ODIC in cooperation with the history department of the UFRR, the indigenous origins of the city itself where asserted, as well as the historic presence of indigenous people in the city (Gomes de Oliveira 2010). A second way is to counter the traditional notions of boundaries of indigeneity by asserting that using a notebook43, or not performing the same rituals44, do not stop anyone from remaining indigenous. A third strategy, often used by indigenous leaders in the process of strategic urbanization, is to contextualize one s move to the city within the larger frame of the conquest of the city by indigenous people. Here it averts a potential accusation of abandonment by turning indigenous city-dwellers into pioneers for the cause of reclaiming the city. Subsection 4.1.1. will further elaborate on the theme of conquest. 3.4. Conclusion The objective of this chapter has been to lay down the historical and discursive context in which CIARs operate. What I have found is that this context is one where contradictory and changing notions of indigeneity clash. In large part these notions are still linked to the Author s personal observation, 24 March 2016. Amazoner Okaba, 7 May 2016. Original quote: os brancos [dizem] Ah, os Índios entram [na] cidade . Mentira! A cidade vem para a maloca (knocks on the table), não foi a maloca que veio para a cidade. 43 Jonildo Viana dos Santos, 30 April 2016. 44 Reginaldo Gomes de Oliveira, 29 April 2016. 41 42 46 dichotomies between nature and technology, tradition and modernity, and urban and rural, They are essentially about where an indigenous person is supposed to stand on these three contradictions. In Figure 10 I have mapped the most recent developments surrounding the boundaries of indigeneity, including the blurring of these dichotomies. This has been touched upon briefly in this chapter, but will be elaborated more on in the chapters to come. Historically, indigenous people in Roraima have been faced with stigma and prejudice. This has taken different shapes throughout history, but the bottom line is that being indigenous has long been considered something to be ashamed of, something to hide, something to escape from. The developments of the last thirty years have had a dual effect on these boundaries. On the one hand the struggles and achievements of the indigenous movement have resulted in a sense of pride and solidarity. Many indigenous people in Roraima today embrace their indigenous heritage and are eager to demonstrate this embrace. On the other hand, stigma and prejudice have been long from eradicated from society, as Figure 10: The boundaries of indigeneity post-demarcation. 47 was shown in the last section. The achievement of the demarcation of territory meant others had to leave those territories, and the tensions that arose from this contention have resulted in a newly hostile attitude towards indigenous people in Brazil as a whole, and in Roraima specifically, as it was the site of one of the largest and most contentious demarcations of the country. What we have seen in the last section is that current stigmatization is often a refashioning of old stereotypes into new molds in order to fit the realities of the present better. I have tried to visualize this in Figure 4 and 10 by not removing previous meanings of the boundaries of indigeneity, but rather leave them in lighter colors to indicate their decreased salience, but maintained presence in the discourses and imaginaries engrained in society. In the following chapter I will introduce CIARs as an embedded agents within the context laid down above, showing how they position themselves in relation to the world that surrounds them. 48 4. Indigenous artists within the city s walls After having discussed the political and discursive context in which indigenous artists do their work in chapter 3, it is now time to shift focus towards the artists themselves. The goal of this chapter is threefold. The first objective is to paint a nuanced and accurate picture of the CIARs, their educational and political backgrounds. The second objective is to see how they engage with the discourse surrounding the boundaries of indigeneity, and to examine their efforts to position themselves within the boundaries of indigeneity. The third objective is to come to an understanding of the motivations and ideals behind their work, and the way in which their insertion in an urban context is strategically relevant to the achievement of those goals. Prior to the analysis of a number of works of art in chapter 5, it is essential to first get a grasp of who the artists behind these works of art are, and what informed them in their creative process. The questions posed here will be answered throughout the following sections with the help of statements from the interviews with CIARs, completed with some statements they made in earlier interviews, as well observations from attended cultural events. 4.1. Embedded cultural actors As I have explained in the introductory chapter, I am using the term CIAR in this thesis to refer to a Contemporary Indigenous Artist of Roraima. The definition of a CIAR for the purpose of this research is: an artist, residing in Roraima, who engages with indigenous thematic in their artwork, and either identifies as indigenous or artistically represents a specific indigenous tribe. I am not talking about a clear-cut, homogenous group with welldefined boundaries. The artists whose voices are heard vary in a number of ways, their degree of membership of a well-defined group being one of these ways. Most artists mentioned here belong to the collective started by Jaider Esbell in 2011, Galeria Jaider Esbell de Arte Indígena Contemporânea (Jaider Esbell Gallery of Contemporary Indigenous Art). The artists interviewed who are part of this collective are Esbell himself, Amazoner Okaba (Emerson da Silva Rodrigues), Bartô (Bartolomeu da Silva Tomaz), Carmézia Emiliano, Isaías Miliano, and Mário Flores. Together they represent four of Roraima s 11 tribes: Wapishana, Macuxi, Taurepang, and Patamona. An artist that is neither part of the collective, nor indigenous herself is Ana Mendina, who does maintain friendly ties with multiple artists within the collective. The reason she is included here within the category of CIAR, is that as an artist she is explicitly dedicated to 49 representing the Yanomami tribe. She works closely together with Davi Kopenawa, a wellknown Yanomami leader, and takes most of her inspiration from their culture (Oliveira 2015, 83). She sees herself as kind of [ ] a bridge between cultures45. As there are no established Yanomami artists present on the scene in Boa Vista yet, and their culture and experience is significantly different from that of other tribes, Ana s story provides valuable insight into their experience, in addition to highlighting an interesting non-tribal member perspective on the other artists. Figure 11: Isaías Miliano, Jaider Esbell (third from the left), Mário Flores, Bartô, Amazoner Okaba, and Carmézia Emiliano at the joint exposition Meu vizinho Karaiwa at the União Operária, August 201446. Most, but not all, CIARs work and reside at least partially in Boa Vista (Roraima s capital city). Of the artists discussed in this thesis only one, Mário Flores, resides in an indigenous comunidade in the rural area. Being a largely urban group, identifying explicitly as contemporary, they immediately defy two of the dichotomies introduced in the previous Author s interview with Ana Mendina, artist residing in Boa Vista, and affiliate to the Hutukara Yanomami Association, Boa Vista, on 19 May 2016. 46 Photo by Yolanda Simone Mêne, used with permission, obtained from https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10203357083302471&set=t.100003892802126&type=3&th eater 45 50 chapter, which categorizes indigenous people as rural and traditional. As such, they often need to defend themselves against people who may say: But you want to participate in the big world, right? How will you continue to be an Indian? . It will become clear throughout the chapter that all three dichotomies are challenged by CIARs, and that they have indeed found ways to continue to be indigenous within a contemporary setting. 4.1.1. Academics and artisans Indigenous artists vary greatly with respect to their intellectual formation. While some of them enjoyed university education, others grew up with little to no schooling. Most CIARs are autodidact artists, having acquired techniques themselves rather than through formal artistic training. Esbell and Okaba were both students at the UFRR, Esbell studying geography, and Okaba anthropology and history. According to Reginaldo Gomes de Oliveira, professor of history at the UFRR, this academic education has shaped the way in which they assert themselves as artists. In the case of Esbell this articulation took place mainly in his endeavors in literature and poetry, where Okaba still engages as an academic within different groups of research and debates47. Okaba himself emphasizes the importance of indigenous people coming to the city and capitalizing themselves intellectually, socially, and politically48. Bartô, himself also a politically well-articulated individual, approaches the university with more reserve. Although he acknowledges the potential positive impact of gaining intellectual capital, he cautions for the ways in which such an education may tempt young indigenous people to cut their ties with the comunidades and become individualists and egoists. He thereby echoes a sentiment that is commonplace among indigenous community leaders (Kopenawa 2016)49. The trajectories of the other CIARs in this thesis are diverse. Emiliano taught herself how to paint in order to be able to paint scenes from the community where she grew up (Pimentel 2014). Flores also taught himself by drawing since he was a young , until he started working with Esbell in 2012. He had been painting by himself in the comunidade where he grew up since he was little50. Mendina and Miliano received more of a targeted education in the arts. Mendina studied art in Costa Rica, Australia and New Zealand, as well as in São Paulo and 47 Author s interview with Reginaldo Gomes de Oliveira, professor of history at the UFRR, Boa Vista, on 29 April 2016. 48 Amazoner Okaba, 7 May 2016. 49 Author s personal observation, 24 March 2016. 50 Mário Flores, 14 May 2016. 51 Brasília (Mendina nd). Miliano was an apprentice of ceramics master Ramos when he lived in Rondônia, and spent time in São Paulo studying scenography (Coelho 2011). The collective thus harbors a great variety in life stories and backgrounds. This variety causes different perspectives on the world, and on their role in this world. We will see in the next subsections how differences in intellectual formation translate into variation with respect to political awareness and commitment, and ideological resolve, and articulated objectives behind the artistic work of CIARs. 4.1.2. Independent warriors for the cause we see the injustices that exist in a let s say democratic country, that makes us believe policies are really happening, and it s a lie. Bartô, 22 May 201651 There is also great variety in the degree to which CIARs align themselves with the indigenous movement of Roraima, whose main representative is the CIR. Some CIARs feel more of an affinity with the movement, emphasizing its pivotal role in the recent positive changes in society, while others place more of an emphasis on current corruptions and malfunctions within the movement. Okaba and Bartô are the most closely aligned with the indigenous movement in Roraima. Okaba stresses his commitment and militancy for the indigenous land rights struggle52. Bartô explicitly conceives of himself as a product of the social movements of the Catholic Church, from which the CIR evolved53. He vividly remembers how the struggle for indigenous rights started, a decade before the constitution, initiated by the church.54 Emiliano has strong ties with both the CIR and its affiliate, the Organização das Mulheres Indígenas de Roraima (Organization of the Indigenous Women of Roraima - OMIR). In a more academic context, when Martins started to study the discourse within Emiliano s work, she found it to be highly congruent with the official discourse of the indigenous movement55. Bartô, 22 May 2016. Original quote: a gente vê as injustiças que existem num país... digamos... democrático, que faz com que a gente acredita que as políticas verdadeiramente acontecem, e é mentira. 52 Amazoner Okaba, 7 May 2016. 53 Bartô, 22 May 2016. 51 Author s interview with Elisangela Martins, Professor of history and art at the UFRR, Boa Vista, 21 May 2016. 55 52 All CIARs I have spoken to during this research are united in their critique of the government and its policies, the progress-oriented right-wing of Brazilian politics, and the corrupt political system in general. Important in this respect is the frustration expressed above by Bartô, and echoed by Esbell, that even if in name and in law the democratic regime is inclusive and respectful of minorities, this isn t guaranteed in practice, it is denied [ the law guarantees [our rights], but the law itself helps not to guarantee [them]. 56. ], They thereby show themselves sympathetic to the struggles of the indigenous movement. In general, CIARs align themselves with the quest for demarcation of indigenous territories, which has been the main struggle of the indigenous movement over the last 30 years, even if they may disagree with how indigenous territories are now governed57. Enoque Raposo, a close affiliate of the gallery, and himself the son of Caetano Raposo, an important indigenous leader of the past, is less enthusiastic about the indigenous movement, its discourse, and its actions. According to him the CIR has developed into an organization with corrupt and authoritarian aspects, that isn t eager to allow dissenting voices58. Esbell, who acknowledges the CIR for its past achievements, shares a sceptic view of the role they currently play. He points at the corruption within the movement where indigenous leaders use their power to benefit their sons, and at the hypocrisy of organizations who advocate that Indians should stay in the reserves instead of living in the city, while at the same time not being able to live without the city59. Flaws within the movement organizations are not the only reason for Esbell to distance himself and the gallery from them. He highlights the importance of free and independent thought as a value in itself, allowing him to voice criticisms he may have. He doesn t align himself with any organization precisely because if he would organization , he would be repeating their talk 60. adopt the ideas of an Isaías echoes this individualistic attitude towards life and politics in the sense that he likes to place emphasis on personal freedom, showing reluctance to commit to any coordinated group activity. His work and his words indicate that he is well articulated in the specific messages that he wants to get across, Jaider Esbell, 5 April 2016. Original quote: Isso na prática não é garantido, é negado, com o apoio da própria lei que garante. [ ] a lei garante, mas a própria lei ajuda a não garantir. 57 Idem. 58 Enoque Raposo, 17 April 2016. 59 Jaider Esbell, 5 April 2016. 60 Jaider Esbell, 8 May 2016.Original quote: Se eu assumir o pensamento de alguma organização, eu vou estar repetindo a fala deles, 56 53 revolving around environmental issues rather than cultural politics, and that he doesn t feel the need to articulate those messages collectively61. The variation in political backgrounds helps understand why the collective is not explicitly aligned with any specific movement organization, and why the collective itself is no homogeneous entity. Even when trying to bundle forces into a targeted movement, freedom remains and important element to Esbell. He emphasizes that everyone s individual freedom should be guaranteed. This freedom is visible in the way the collective fluctuates, with people joining and leaving as they please.62 4.2. Authentic indigenous artists Now that we have discussed the background of CIARs in intellectual and political terms, seeing them engage with indigenous movement organizations, and balancing between commitment to a common cause and maintaining intelectual and creative independence, it is time to take a closer look at the way they engage with their surroundings discursively. What do they think about the boundaries between the indigenous and the non-indigenous? In this section I will discuss CIARs responses to discourses about who is indigenous, and about what it means to be indigenous, to then examine how they position themselves in relation to those boundaries. 4.2.1. Who is and who is not indigenous I am an Indian. Obviously I m an Indian. But when I m here in the city I m not. Why? I am in the city. I am using the clothes, I am eating the food of white people. Therefore I am not Indian. But when I go [back] to the comunidade, I am Indian there. Mário Flores, 14 May 201663 In subsection 3.3.3., a number of positions have been presented on what exactly makes an Indian, putting up lines between those who still speak the language, live in the homeland, and participate in the rituals, and those who don t. We will now look at what makes the difference between being an Indian and not being one according to CIARs. We are not Isaías Miliano, 31 May 2016. Jaider Esbell, 8 May 2016. 63 Original quote: Eu sou índio. Claro que sou índio. Más quando eu estou aqui na cidade eu não sou índio. Por quê? Eu estou na cidade. Eu estou utilizando a roupa. Eu estou comendo a comida dos brancos. Aí não sou índio. Más se eu vou para a comunidade, eu sou índio lá. 61 62 54 engaging here with debates about official documents proving one s indigenous status, but rather with social rules of membership. In general, CIARs do not show themselves eager to pass a judgement on who is and isn t indigenous. Esbell states that nobody, exactly nobody, can say that you are not what you say you are 64. He thereby puts the power to categorize with the individual. This also creates a line of defense against people that may cast doubt on one s authenticity. Esbell does mention the importance of being able to have a house in a comunidade, [b]ecause the big tie of the land is reference. [ ] It is there that the ancestors are buried [ ], all the memory, the landscape, the sacred places [ ], the waterfalls, [the] forest, that is still there , but he also maintains that he could go anywhere in the world and still be indigenous there65. The importance of maintaining links with the homeland is echoed by other CIARs, both in words and in actions, as will be elaborated on below in 4.2.3.. Flores is the only interviewee who, as can be seen in the quote above, endorses the urban-rural dichotomy. Whether this is to be related to his intellectual formation, or with his perspective as a rural indigenous person, is unclear. It may well be a combination of the two. When talking about what made them belong to a group, be it indigenous or tribal, most CIARs interviewed refer to familiary links, rather than language or location. This makes sense because many indigenous people in Roraima, even within indigenous territories, have ceased to use their ancestral languages on a daily basis. It follows logically that language loses itss salience as a boundary. It also makes sense that a group of self-identifying indigenous artists residing in an urban location will conceive of their urban residence as a negation of their indigenous identity. Their location in combination with their autoidentification in itself is already a negation of the urban-rural dichotomy and its salience as a boundary between the indigenous and the non-indigenous. 4.2.2. What it means to be indigenous When it comes to the meaning of being indigenous, responses of CIARs show a certain ambiguity. This ambiguity is inherent in their attempts to challenge stereotypical conceptions of their indigeneity, while at the same time embracing and taking pride in the image of the Indian as a guardian of nature. Looking at de discursive strategies here as an Jaider Esbell, 5 April 2016. Original quote: A minha opinião é sempre de dizer que ninguém, exatamente ninguém, pode dizer que você não é o que você diz que é. 65 Idem. Original quote: Porque o grande laço da terra e referrência. É o lugar da memória, da ancestralidade. É lá que estão os enterrados dos antigos, então cemitérios, toda a memória, a paisagem, os lugares sagrados e tudo, os cachoeiras, floresta, que ainda tem. 64 55 example of transvaluation, it is unclear at times whether the goal is to challenge the content of a boundary, saying No, we are not all naked at home! , or to apply normative inversion to the content of the boundary, saying yes we are naked, and we are proud to be naked! . According to Wimmer, examples of transvaluation abound among indigenous movements throughout Latin America, where activists redefined the meaning of their ethnic category, seeing the privilege of authenticity where others perceived the disgrace of minority status (2008b, 1038). In this specific context, however, the concept of indigeneity is stretched in order to accommodate for those who wouldn t pass the strict criteria that have been established through time in the pristine myth, a notion that was introduced in chapter 2. The essence of the pristine myth, a conception of indigenous culture in Amazonia as unchanging and primitive (Bolaños 2011: 64), is echoed mainly in Mendina s comments about the Yanomami. She talks about how their relative isolation has given the Yanomami [t]he strongest connection and the knowledge from the source. , and mentions the challenge for them to participate in contemporary society while respecting the source, finding a way to present themselves to the world in their own language, before they get infected by our ideas 66. In the specific case of the Yanomami, referring to them as nature people makes logical sense. As the Yanomami have only recently suffered severe intrusion, their culture has indeed remained strongly connected to their natural surroundings, suggesting there has been much less cultural change or development among the Yanomami than among other tribes. This is precisely the difference in experience between different peoples that I have referred to earlier in this thesis. When looking at some other tribes, and CIARs in particular, the myth of unchanging culture becomes harder to substantiate, as they balance on the dichotomies introduced in chapter 3. Macuxi and Wapishana lives in particular have been strongly affected by modern technology and western culture and religion. Esbell reaches back to the notion of fluid culture as he engages the crossroads between the traditional and the contemporary: When you enter in the field of culture, as a living, dynamic thing, that flows together with time, the issue of what is traditional, and what is contemporary, comes into question. If I would only 66 Ana Mendina, 19 May 2016. 56 look for the traditional, I would have to go back in time, stagnate back there, stop wearing clothes, [ ] coming to the city. 67 This quote exemplifies how for many indigenous people in Roraima living the life of a hunter-gatherer, in complete harmony with nature, is something of the distant past. At the same time Esbell, Miliano, and most CIARs with them, do emphasize the importance of respecting and preserving the environment68. An interesting observation is that even if CIARs conceive of themselves as contemporary subjects, specific elements of modernity are still targeted as bad in their discourse, and subsequently attributed to the white world 69. This white world is a world of corruption. It is a managed world. It is a world of difference. It is a world of social asymmetry, of who has money and who has not , as opposed to an indigenous world based on values of sharing and community70. Not just capitalism and corruption, but also the very activity of categorizing people is deemed alien to the indigenous world71. It is here that we see a clear instance of transvaluation concerning the boundaries of indigeneity. The tables are turned, and the side that for centuries managed to assert itself as superior is now dethroned and indicted. 4.2.3. Affirmation of authenticity: rituals and the homeland As was alluded to above, and will elaborate on in the next section, CIARs simultaneously stand on multiple sides of the dichotomies introduced in chapter 2. Being indigenous, they don t remain neatly on the side of nature, tradition, and the rural. We have also discussed how within the current political climate, a you are not indigenous anymore -argument is often used to discredit and undermine indigenous political actors. In reference to Perreault (2003) and Valdivia (2005), McSweeney and Jokish argue how indigenous leaders derive the 67 Jaider Esbell, 5 April 2016. Original quote: Quando você entra no campo de cultura, como uma coisa viva, dinâmica, que vai se fluindo junto com o tempo, aí essa questão de o quê que é o tradicional, quê que é o contemporâneo, lá entra em questionamento. Se eu for buscar só o tradicional, teria que voltar no tempo estacionar quer dizer lá atrás, deixar de usar roupas, comer comidas industrializadas, andar na cidade, vir para a cidade. 68 Isaías Miliano, 31 May 2016; Bartô, 22 May 2016; Amazoner Okaba, 7 May 2016. 69 Indigenous people in Roraima often refer to os brancos, thereby referring not just to Brazil s eurodescendent population, but, according to Jaider Esbell to anyone who is not indigenous (5 April 2016). This includes Roraima s considerable pardo population, people of mixed African and European descent. 70 Amazoner Okaba, 7 May 2016. Original quote: E ele é um mundo de corrupção. Ele é um mundo dirigido. Ele é um mundo de diferença. Ele é um mundo de assimetria social, de quem tem dinheiro e quem não tem dinheiro. 71 Jaider Esbell, 5 April 2016. 57 authority to negotiate with nonindigenous peoples from the perceived legitimacy of their performance of indigeneity . (McSweeney & Jokish 2015: 26). Approaching CIARs as indigenous leaders in the cultural arena, it becomes essential for them to affirm their status as authentically indigenous subjects, as much as they may try to challenge those boundaries. There are different ways in which artists do this, the first of which is the maintenance of links with the indigenous homeland. According to McSweeney and Jokish, referring to Virtanen (2009), a leader s successful performance of indigeneity can fade with time and distance from home. (2015: 26). A return to the homeland is the best remedy against this wane in symbolic and political capital. All CIARs I have spoken to in this research maintain links to their ancestral homelands by moving between the city and the rural comunidades, where many of them still have friends and relatives. Stated motivations behind this circulation are not about maintaining cultural authority, however. Bartô, Okaba and Raposo all mention solidarity with the people and efforts to make life better as motivations behind their occasional return to the rural homeland72. Esbell adds to this the importance of the surroundings in the comunidades as inspiration for his creative process73. We will discuss below how CIARs maintain their links with the homeland, and how they adopt the indigenous movements discourse on the importance of demarcating indigenous lands. The second way to affirm one s indigenous identity is in the public embrace of certain traditional cultural elements and rituals. This was exemplified during the exposition in the União Operária, where the traditional Roraiman indigenous dish damurida was often served to visitors, and where one would see several cocás worn by the artists, and traditional grafismos being drawn on people s arms74. These cultural activities, as well as rituals that are performed when opening exhibitions (see Figure 12) can be seen as performative enactments of the indigeneity of the subject. This type of cultural affirmation do not only happen in the context of a public performance, however. Anater relates how Emiliano adapted to the city, integrated into the white society, but at the same time keeps asserting: I am an Indian, I will not stop being an Indian (2015: 18, my translation)75. During her interview for Pimentel s documentary, she backs up her continued indigeneity by the fact that she still eats traditional indigenous food and still speaks the Macuxi language (Pimentel 2014). Enoque Raposo, 17 April 2016; Amazoner Okaba, 7 May 2016. Jaider Esbell, 5 April 2016. 74 Author s personal observation, 11 April 2016. 75 Original quote: Eu sou uma índia, não vou deixar ser índia. 72 73 58 Figure 12: Jaider Esbell performing a smoke ritual at the opening of José Medeiro s exhibition76 Performing something doesn t necessarily mean it s not true or genuine. In this case it means making the conscious decision to show one s cultural capital to the world, and affirm one s authenticity as a real Indian in the process. Defense against accusations of inauthenticity need not be the only motive here; it doesn t even need to be the main motive. The motive that once again arises most prominently from the discourse of CIARs is solidarity77. Additional motives may range from a desire to share a spiritual experience, to keep a certain tradition alive, or to capitalize upon a market where authenticity sells. Regardless of these motives, what both homeland connections and ritual performances do as well is affirm one s status as a real Indian; someone entitled to speak to the world as an Indian, on behalf of Indians. 4.3. Motivated urban creators The objective of this last section is to move the conversation about the artists and their opinions slightly more in the direction of their art. Before getting to the actual artwork in the next chapter, I will first discuss how CIARs make strategic use of urban and transnational space to assert themselves. I will then briefly discuss what they aim to do with the space they 76 77 Photo by Jay Caetano, 26 May 2016. Bartô, 22 May 2016. 59 have conquered, identifying three overarching objective that will help us contextualize their work in chapter 5. 4.3.1. Strategic urbanizers and globalizers Throughout the previous we have seen that CIARs often find themselves on multiple sides of the division discussed in chapter 3 between the traditional and the modern, the rural and the urban, and nature and technology (Alexiades & Peluso 2015: 5). They position themselves in a world, and in a market, traditionally dominated by white elites. This takes them to expositions in big cities throughout Brazil, and even to North America and Europe78. But also just their presence in Boa Vista itself is already an immersion, especially when people from the suburban peripheries conquest the center and the more prestigious neighborhoods79. To some this may suggest there is an assimilation taking place of CIARs into dominant national culture. But the concept of individual crossing from Wimmer s boundary-making theory fails to account for the specific dynamics at play. Instead of assimilating or reclassifying themselves into the dominant group, they intentionally adopt certain aspects of dominant culture while at the same time explicitly choosing to maintain their membership of the indigenous category. In this phenomenon boundary-making theory meets the specific context of strategic urbanization, as it becomes clear that they cross boundaries with specific strategic intentions, to use these mechanisms and techniques in favor of our culture 80. While they adapt western techniques and conceptions of art in order to tell their own story, the work they do revolves around the thematic of their ethnic group , and redeeming aspects of their ethnic culture 81. The use of social media to promote exhibitions and expand visibility is a perfect example of this strategic adaptation. In chapter 2 I have discussed the unwillingness of local media to provide a platform to indigenous life and culture. We have seen how the behavior of the media changed now they cannot ignore indigenous artists anymore. But nowadays, CIARs do not necessarily rely just on traditional media to get their work to be seen by the world. Both Esbell and Okaba actively use Facebook. Esbell used the social media platform to Enoque Raposo, 17 April 2016; Jaider Esbell, 5 April 2016; Author s interview with Bartô (Bartolomeu da Silva Tomaz), Patamona artist residing in Boa Vista, Boa Vista, on 22 May 2016. 78 79 Jaider Esbell, 5 April 2016; Enoque Raposo, 17 April 2016. Amazoner Okaba, 7 May 2016. Original quote: É realmente utilizar esses mecanismos e essas técnicas em prol da nossa cultura. 81 Author s interview with Reginaldo Gomes de Oliveira, professor of history at the UFRR, Boa Vista, on 29 April 2016. Original quote: eles escolheram a temática dos seus grupos étnicos. É resgatar aspectos da sua cultura étnica. 80 60 mobilize people to vote for him in the online contest that got him the PIPA prize (see 3.3.1.). Other CIARs use the platform as well to show their art. Okaba argues that successful networking and promotion on social media has played an important part in making indigenous artists impossible to ignore82, which translated into improved coverage in traditional media. It doesn t seem any CIAR really crossed the boundary from the indigenous into the western or the white, even though their authenticity may be called into question by some on the basis of perceived individual crossing and acculturation. Rather, CIARs pulled certain elements of modern society to the other side of the border, and integrated these elements into a new and contemporary concept of what it means to be indigenous. Interesting to remember in this respect is that throughout history there has been a continuous pressure on indigenous people, Macuxi and Wapishana in particular, to adapt to non-indigenous culture. It has becomes essential for survival in the modern world to gain the cultural capital needed to assert one s rights successfully. It seems these pressures to adapt and acculturate pay off now that a certain pride has been regained. It is this partial adaptation that on the one hand makes it possible for artists from these peoples to stand on their own feet in the dominant society. Ironically, it is this same adaptation that may be used to discredit CIARs, which makes the identity performances discussed above necessary, as well as the counter discourses in defense of authenticity in an urban, modern setting. 4.3.2. Objectives and motivations As we have seen above, Esbell started his collective of CIARs to make targeted art in a way contextualized with the indigenous movement 83. Esbell saw an opportunity to bundle the artistic spirit of a number of individual artists into a movement that could work together towards specific goals, through joint exhibitions and joint promotion of their work. This attitude is exemplified by his statement that this is not a house of painters. It is a house of those who wish to think beyond painting 84. So what exactly are the objectives set out by indigenous artists? What do they want to achieve? In this section I will briefly discuss the three main strands of motivation that arose from the interviews with CIARs, which are defiance, critique, and community. These motivations will be unpacked in more detail in Amazoner Okaba, 7 May 2016. Jaider Esbell, 8 May 2016. 84 Idem. Original quote: Aqui não é uma casa de pintores. É uma casa de quem quer pensar além da pintura. 82 83 61 chapter 5, where I will attempt to show how they appear in artwork and other activities of CIARs. Section 4.1. above showed great variation within the collective when it comes to political allegiance, as well as intellectual formation. It logically follows that not all artists have articulated their motivations and goals to the same extent. Where Esbell and Okaba demonstrate a well thought out position on why they make art, Emiliano and Flores are rather modest in their articulation as conscious political actors, even though much meaning can be, and is, externally ascribed to their work (Moreno et. al. 2015). Still, three overarching themes could be identified in in CIARs accounts in interviews. The first theme is defiance against stigmatization and the content of the boundaries of indigeneity as it was established by the dominant society. This is part of a broader defiance of persisting European dominance, and comprises a reconquest of territory, visibility, and protagonism. The challenge is to construe a contemporary notion of indigeneity that uproots the dichotomies between tradition and modernity, and between nature and technology. In the more modest formulations Flores and Emiliano this translates to preserving their culture85. Carmézia says in this respect I thought to portray my culture [ ], how I lived in the old days, [ ] to not forget my culture (Pimentel: 2014, my translation)86. The second theme is a critique and concientization of the injustices perpetrated by the dominant, white and capitalist forces in Brazilian society. It comprises an indictment of the intrusion and destruction of the natural environment, and of a corrupt and unjust political system that fails to represent indigenous people. In an interview with Régis Calixto (2008), Okaba mentions that it can t just be esthetic. It s necessary to also demonstrate a critical stance with respect to the analyzed matter 87. The third theme that shines through the work of CIARs is solidarity, mentioned above in 4.2.3. in relation to visits to the homeland and the performance of rituals. Solidarity is most present in the way they exhibit their work and interact with the rest of society. This comprises symbolic intertribal fraternity, as well as efforts to help sustain and improve the life of indigenous communities through activities in the city. Mário Flores, 14 May 2016. Original quote: Pensei de retratar a minha cultura [ ], como que eu vivi antigamente, [ ] para não esquecer a minha cultura . 87 Original quote: Não pode ser só estético. É necessário demonstrar também uma carga crítica a respeito do assunto analisado, 85 86 62 4.4. Conclusion The goal of this chapter has been to introduce the CIAR as an actor embedded in the historical and discursive context identified in chapter 3. This has been done by examining the educational and political background of the artists, discussing their take on the boundaries of indigeneity, and by identifying the motives behind their work. Throughout the chapter, a diverse group of people has become visible, with varied backgrounds and political commitments. This group defies the dichotomies between rural and urban, between tradition and modernity, and between nature and technology, at showing affinity with both sides at every step. Instead of discarding the dichotomy as obsolete however, some of its content is still considered salient in a division between the indigenous and the non-indigenous. We have also found out how indigenous artists employ their urban location and modern technology strategically to get their work to be seen, and to get the messages in these works out into the world. Three overarching objectives have been identified as driving the production of art and the organizing of other activities. The next chapter will delve into what the messages in the artwork are exactly, and how they connect to and materialize defiance, critique, and community. 63 5. Paintings about boundaries In the previous chapters, the discursive and political realities surrounding indigeneity in Roraima have been presented, as well as CIARs as individuals embedded in these realities. Towards the end of the previous chapter, three overarching themes have been introduced in the motives and objectives of CIARs. This last chapter will explore the way indigenous artists work towards those goals, and how this involves them engaging in boundary-making, as well as in the redistribution of the sensible. The content of this chapter will be organized into four parts. The first three sections are organized around the three overarching themes: defiance, critique, and solidarity. In the fourth section I will briefly reflect upon the power of visual expression to get certain points across to a diverse audience. In subsection 3.3.2. I have discussed how Roraima s search for identity has created a vacuum in which CIARs can take the stage as cultural ambassadors for their own people as much as for the region. The objective here is to explore how this stage is used by indigenous people to present themselves and their ideas to the world. The material analyzed in this chapter consists of works by Carmézia Emiliano, Amazoner Okaba, Bartô, Ana Mendina, and Mário Flores, as well as an exhibition by Jaider Esbell, and a pamphlet for an event designed by Esbell and Flores. This purposive sample selection was made in an effort to bring together the works that best exemplify the way the authors give expression to their political opinions, and simultaneously show the great variety of styles that exists among Boa Vista s contemporary indigenous artists. 5.1. Defiance against the boundaries of indigeneity The first overarching theme that presented itself in Roraima s contemporary art is the defiance of the traditional meanings of the boundaries of indigeneity. This theme is visible in CIARs work in two distinct yet interconnected ways. The first of these is the conquest of visibility for people that were historically marginalized and invisibilized by the structures of society. The second is an effort of normative inversion, conceiving of the indigenous as a positive rather than a derogatory term. 5.1.1. The conquest of visibility contemporary indigenous art [ ] is a powerful tool of communication. It offers a way for the Indian to present himself properly to the greater society. Why? Anthropologists always 64 interpreted the Indian from their own perspective. They never let the Indians talk for themselves, write their own thoughts. Jaider Esbell, 5 April 201688 Throughout the previous chapters, it has become clear that CIARs show themselves conscious of the past physical and symbolical violence committed on the indigenous peoples of Roraima, and of continuing injustices today. One of these historical wrongdoings has been the invisibilization of indigenous peoples that occurred when history was written by the winners 89. The quote above shows Esbells critique of how even when indigenous peoples were written into history, this was done by non-indigenous writers. In his interview in Talita Oliveira s Artistas de Plastico, Jaider refers to his wish since childhood to write our own (hi)stories (2015: 79, my translation).90 This subsection will look at the way in which indigenous people are written into Roraima s visual culture, and at how these writings consitute a redistribution of the sensible. First of all, there is a defiance of previous structures of visibility and invisibility in the way indigenous artists have occupied a central role in visual and cultural production since the cultural vacuum opened up that was mentioned in 3.3.2.. Okaba stresses that over the past years, those who produced the most in Roraima where the indigenous artists. He adds that this is one of the reasons indigenous artists in Boa Vista have been impossible to ignore91. Another reason for this it the national and international recognition that some of these artists have gained. CIARs have, by their accomplishments as successful visual artists, taken up a role as indigenous protagonists. But it is also the presentation of their work which, according to Viana dos Santos, is a powerful vehicle of logic reversal and reinterpretation that can be used by indigenous people to counter the existing idea that they are a being without culture, a wiped out being from the past 92. No specific piece of art is necessary to confirm this notion. The exhibition events that Esbell s gallery organizes are filled with works of art and a diverse collection of Jaider Esbell, 5 April 2016. Original quote: a arte indígena contemporânea ja vem negando [isso], na minha perspetiva. [...] É uma ferramenta poderosa de comunicação. Dá uma forma para o índio se apresentar devidamente para a grande sociedade. Por quê? Os antropólogos sempre interpretaram o índio da perspectiva deles. Nunca deixaram os índios falar por conta própria, escrever o seu próprio pensamento. 89 Amazoner Okaba, 7 May 2016. 90 Original quote: E queria também escrever nossas próprias histórias. 91 Amazoner Okaba, 7 May 2016. 92 Jonildo Viana dos Santos, 30 April 2016. Original quote: cai aquela lógica de que o índio é um ser sem cultura, é um ser apagado da história, 88 65 artesanato93. Showing such a lively contemporary production of paintings, wood carvings, and adorned clay pots is in itself a refusal of the notion that indigenous culture would be something of the past. In Viana dos Santos words, the exhibitions are an important opportunity to say: We produce, we exist 94. Another way in which this assertion of indigenous existence is furthered is the prominent presence of indigenous art and symbolism in places where it would not be visible before. Mendina s indigenous themed paintings adorning Boa Vista s biggest shopping mall are a strong example of this, resulting from the partnership with the private sector described in subsection 3.3.1.. Mendina has used this opportunity to put indigenous symbolism right in the face of Roraima s elite as they walk through the mall to do their shopping. The painting we see in Figure 13 plays this part by giving grafismo, which represents an important part of indigenous culture, a prominent place in a location where it was heretofore absent. This in itself is a clear rejection of the invisibilization that indigenous people have suffered historically. Relating to the insertion of indigenous art in places like the shopping mall, Esbell notes that If the space is conquested, be it as merchandize or by own merit [ ], it means a step forward 95. This conquest does not just happen in Boa Vista s shopping malls, but in the city center and in university buildings as well, as was discussed in 3.3.1.. Step by step, indigenous art is gaining space in the public eye, and though themes may vary from painting to painting, this often means the visibilization of aspects of indigenous life. A telling example of this visibilization are the paintings Cereia (Mermaid) and Timbó by Emiliano (Figures 16 and 17). Visualizing a scene in which indigenous women take a bath in the forest, and portraying the traditional means of subsistence of a comunidade, she engages in an act of redistribution, showing something previously unseen. According to Eisangela Martins, Emiliano s work may be understood as a way to reclaim the past, to rewrite history and redistribute the roles, making new choices about who to show and who not to show. A past that was until recently only documented by white men is now conquered by an indigenous woman, who explicitly gives a space to women within this history, and to the everyday traditional occupations of these women (Martins 2014: 7). Author s personal observation, 11 April 2016. Jonildo Viana dos Santos, 30 April 2016. 95 Jaider Esbell, 8 May 2016. Original quote: Se o espaço for conquistado, seja como merchandize 93 94 ou como merecimento mesmo [...], dê um passo mais adiante. 66 Figure 13: A arte de todos os povos (The art of all the peoples), Ana Mendina 200996. Another way in which the visual is used to challenge the invisibilization of the indigenous, is in the materialization of the narrative that the city came to the Indians, rather than the other way around. This narrative, presented in subsection 3.3.3., has found its way to the twodimensional realm as well, as can be seen in Figure 14. The two images presented here portray the city map of Boa Vista as an imposition, its rigid geometric shape either glued into or hovering over the green and blue of nature. In both instances, however, a closer look at the image reveals nuance. Esbell and Flores poster shows all asphalted roads connect to brown and grey paths that mire out into a network connecting the comunidades. The result is that Boa Vista becomes a hub where indigenous roads meet. Okaba explains that the red line through the city center in Amazônia Exuberante serves to show how even in this imposed plan there are indigenous symbols to be discovered.97 We see how in different ways, these works of art effectively claim a space for indigenous people in modern society, giving them a presence where they were long ignored, and proving their culture is alive where it was considered something of the past. According to Viana dos Santos, art has thus become one of the mediums through which indigenous people 96 97 Image obtained from http://www.anamendina.org/413025286, accessed on 27 July 2016. Amazoner Okaba, 30 May 2016. 67 Figure 14: Poster for the Festival das culturas nativas - Jaider Esbell and Mário Flores 2015; Detail from Amazônia Exuberante Amazoner Okaba 2007. can visually demarcate space for themselves within society where, much of Roraima s new non-indigenous population doesn t want to see the indigenous98. 5.1.2. The portrayal of beauty and protagonism I go through the beauty to talk about the ugliness. Surely afterwards you have to talk about the problems. But then you ll already have more knowledge to understand the weight of that side. Ana Mendina, 19 May 2016. A second way in which the newly conquested visual space is used to defy old meanings of boundaries, is in an effort of normative inversion, reinventing the adjective indigenous as a positive rather than a derogatory term. The purpose of art becomes to show the Indians like they have never been shown before 99, in a positive light, and in a universe where they play the central role. In addition to making the indigenous visible, the objective is to make it visible in a positive light. About the reasoning behind her partnership with the mall, Mendina says: [If] I show them here that lots of people on the planet care about the forest and the indigenous and all Jonildo Viana dos Santos, 30 April 2016. Jaider Esbell, 5 April 2016. Original quote: Para quê que serve a arte? Para mostrar os índios como eles nunca foram mostrados. 98 99 68 Figure 15: Sonho Amazônia (I dream Amazon) - Ana Mendina100 that, maybe they will get touched. It s a very hard mission. It s a slow way to educate them and show them the beauty. 101. This is also part of the idea behind another one of her paintings that adorn the shopping mall s walls. Sonho Amazônia (I dream Amazon, Figure 15) shows the national flag of brazil made up out of elements that echo both nature and indigenous culture. The national motto, Ordem e Progresso (Order and Progress) has been replaced with indigenous grafismo. This replacement is meant to refer to the indigenous heritage of Brazil that Mendina thinks deserves to be respected more (Personal communication 1 August 2016). Presenting the indigenous world as a world of beauty is often an automatic by product as CIARs, in their role as artists, operate in the realm of esthetics. Their works carry, next to any political messages they may have, opinions about what is beautiful and what isn t. In that sense, painting indigenous lives and indigenous themes already carries the statement that the indigenous is esthetic. Looking closely at the visual works I present in this chapter, one will always find implicit or explicit statements about beauty and ugliness visible in them. Emiliano s works Cereia and Timbó (Figures 16 and 17), as well as Flores Voltando para casa (Figure 18) can be seen as a clear example of statements about beauty. While from http://www.anamendina.org/413025286?i=98348493, accessed on 27 July 2016. Ana Mendina, 19 May 2016. 100Obtained 101 69 redistributing the sensible, as described above, these drawings can be read simultaneously as statements about the beauty of undisturbed traditional indigenous life, in perfect harmony with its rich natural surroundings. An example of such statements is identifies by Régis Calixto in Okaba s work, where he sees the indigenous world portrayed as a semi-paradise (2008). The aspects of indigenous life that are glorified here, turn Emiliano s, Flores , and other CIARs paintings into an embodiment of the paradox, discussed in 2.1.1. and in 4.2.2., that arises when trying to challenge stereotypes while at the same time embracing them and inverting their meaning to a positive. Nature, tradition and the rural radiate from many works by CIARs. The paradox lies in the fact that the artists thereby confirm dichotomies surrounding indigeneity in their work, that they challenge through their contemporary urban livelihoods. Esbell demonstrates awareness of this paradox, as much as he demonstrates awareness of elements of hypocrisy within the indigenous movement. He acknowledges that in much of CIARs work, the line between acceptation and contempt remains a fragile one102. Figure 16: Cereia (Mermaid) - Carmézia Emiliano 2010 Jaider Esbell, 5 April 2016. Original quote: É essa linha, essa divisão entre, essa questão de aceitar e condenar é muito frágil, né, muito, chamamos no português é muito tenro. 102 70 Figure 17: Timbó - Carmézia Emiliano 2009 Figure 18: Detail from Voltando para casa (Going home) - Mário Flores nd. 71 5.2. Critique along the boundaries of indigeneity it can t just be esthetic. It s necessary to also demonstrate a critical stance with respect to the analyzed matter . Amazoner Okaba (Calixto 2008)103. The second overarching theme in indigenous works of art is societal critique. CIARs frequently incorporate elements of critique towards Brazilian society in their paintings, which then become efforts to bring political injustices to the conscience of their spectators. The first subsection below will be specifically about works that carry a direct accusation towards colonialism, the capitalist system, and the various types of abuse they spawn. The second subsection continues the conversation about normative inversion that was started above, discussing how accusations against historical and present injustices turn into condemnations of the white , thereby turning the stigmatizing table on Roraima s nonindigenous population. 5.2.1. Indicting oppression I talk about this in my works [ ], I talk about social injustice, the devastation of the Amazon, the creation of hydroelectric projects where we don t want them. Bartô, 22 May 2016104 Many of the works exhibited in Esbells gallery that carry a direct or indirect accusation towards colonialism, the capitalist system, and various types of abuse. They often show an indictment of the intrusion and destruction of the natural environment, and of a corrupt and unjust political system that fails to represent indigenous people. In this way, according to Okaba and Viana dos Santos, CIARs become protesters in a rebellion that is fought out by 103 Original quote: Não pode ser só estético. É necessário demonstrar também uma carga crítica a respeito do assunto analisado, 104 Bartô, 22 May 2016. Original quote: ...eu falo nos meus trabalhos sobre isso [...], falo de injusticia social, a devastação da Amazônia, criação de hidrelétrica onde não queremos hidrelétrica. 72 cultural means105. Bartô also contextualizes his work in a world where they smashed our culture, but we are resurging. 106 Esbells series of paintings called It was Amazon is a perfect example of how this critique is given shape and form in art. The series consists of sixteen drawings depicting a variation of historic injustices and current issues, from challenges for the indigenous community to threats to Roraima s natural environment. The six drawings selected in Figure 19 address different ways in which the present day capitalist system puts pressure upon Roraima s flora, fauna, and it s indigenous inhabitants. This message is given a new dimension by being exhibited in Patio Roraima Shopping, as discussed in 3.3.1., which could be seen as a symbol for Roraima s capitalist consumer society. The exhibition could thus be seen as an effort to call the capitalist system to answer for its devastating effect on Roraima s environment. Much of the critique that Esbell expresses in the series above, can be found in Meu Amigo Karaiwa (My White Friend) by Bartô as well, brought together in a painting dense with meaning and symbolism. In addition to deforestation, infrastructure and hydroelectric projects, he added prostitution, and the germs and viruses that European settlers introduced to Roraima. The ominous image is completed by a portrait of an ape facing the spectator with a look of deception and mistrust. In response to people criticizing him for being negative, for painting too bleak a picture of Roraima s reality, Bartô answers no, this the day to day, it is what happens, I am not fooling anyone 107, asserting himself firmly as a realist rather than a pessimist. Esbell and Bartô both stage a rather obvious accusation towards the white world , exposing its oppressive nature, its hypocrisy, its corruption and its disregard of those it tramples. Such obvious attacks are not omnipresent in the work CIARs, that is often more nuanced and subtle. An example of such subtlety can be found in Mendina s Eu Sonho Amazônia. Although Mendina herself doesn t characterize her work as overtly critical, and a passer-by may only notice a Brazilian flag with feathers and leaves, there is also a hidden accusation in the painting. The normally yellow part of the flag looks like solid gold, and upon asking, Mendina reveals that this gold indeed refers to the gold in Yanomami territory, that is coveted by the world and thereby threatens the Yanomami. Amazoner Okaba, 7 May 2016; Jonildo Viana dos Santos, 30 April 2016. Bartô, 22 May 2016. Original quote: Essa cultura, sobre a outra, desmagando outra cultura [...]. Desmagou a nossa cultura, mas estamos resurgindos lá. 107 Bartô, 22 May 2016. Original quote: Eu digo não, isso é o que é o dia a dia, é o que acontece, não estou enganando ninguém. [...]. 105 106 73 Figure 19: A selection from It was Amazon: O progresso barato (Cheap progress); Alcoólismo entre os índios (Alcoholism among the indians); Atropelamentos (Roadkill); Poluição (Pollution); Desmatamento (Deforestation); Mercúrio mata Yanomamis primeiro (Mercury kills the Yanomami first), Jaider Esbell 2016.108 Obtained from https://www.facebook.com/jaider.esbell/media_set?set=a.906678529445725.1073742051.10000310760 0872&type=3 108 74 Bartô refers to a dynamics, where even though indigenous art is now welcomed by the corporate world, it is only desirable insofar as it is esthetically pleasing. This means that while Mendina s hidden and subtle critique slips through the cracks into the shopping, overt accusations such as Bartô s painting depicted in Figure 20 are still hard to get exhibited in a space like that109. Change may be underway here, however. In April 2016, Esbell did get his series It was Amazon exhibited in the shopping, before taking it on a tour through the whole of Brazil. This may indicate that, with the recognition Esbell amassed, or by making the right connections, overt and blunt critique can indeed make it into the center of Roraima s consumerist society. Figure 20: Meu amigo karaiwá (My white friend) Bartô n.d. 5.2.2. Turning the tables on the white In section 5.1. I discussed how indigenous people are portrayed as protagonists, and how positive qualities are attributed to being indigenous, countering past and present stigmatization and marginalization. In the subsection above, a direct critique towards the oppressive structures of society is uncovered. In this subsection I will discuss a phenomenon 109 Idem. 75 that links to both these elements: the invisibilization and the negative portrayal of the white. Simultaneous with their celebration of a new found indigenous pride, CIARs turn the tables on those who are perceived to embody the oppression that was, and is still, suffered. The first way in which the tables are turned is through the near complete absence of nonindigenous people from indigenous art. We have seen in the last section how Emiliano s work pulled indigenous people to the forefront. What happens at the same time, however, is a near denial of the existence of anything other than the indigenous world. Martins observes that [i]f it weren t for some sparse pieces of western clothing (a dress, a Bermuda), one could affirm that the native life portrayed by the artist is prior to the contact with the colonizer (2014: 7, my translation)110. Such invisibilization happens in the work of many CIARs. Non-indigenous people or things were hard to find in any of the paintings exhibited in the União Operária111. When the non-indigenous, or the white, does have a role to play in CIARs paintings, it is usually the role of the colonizer, the oppressor, or the corrupt. In this sense paintings are taken as an opportunity to cast blame where for centuries the hegemonic forces had been able to act as they chose with impunity, without anyone being able to speak up for themselves and call them out on their wrongdoings. Bartô explains that by portraying parasites and viruses, he intended to portray the illness of the white man, and the threat and danger white people pose to us , the indigenous112. The inversion of norms is perhaps most clearly visualized in Okaba s Amazônia Exuberante (Figures 21 and 22), which is also the only work of art I encountered where the boundary between indigenous and non-indigenous was materialized the most literally. Looking at Amazônia Exuberante we see an image divided in two parts by a traditional indigenous weapon. On the left there is the unsoiled indigenous world, filled with nature and indigenous symbolism. On the right side we see the imposed city map discussed above, as well as various symbolic references to a specific corruption scandal that happened in Roraima. It is in relation to this painting that in 4.2.2. Okaba talks about the white world as a world of corruption , a managed world , and a world of difference 113. What surfaces Original quote: Não fosse a presença de parcas peças de roupa ocidental (um vestido, uma bermuda), se poderia afirmar que a vida nativa retratada pela artista é anterior ao contato com o colonizador. 111 Author s personal observation, 11 April 2016. 112 Bartô, 22 May 2016. 113 Amazoner Okaba, 7 May 2016. Original quote: E ele é um mundo de corrupção. Ele é um mundo dirigido. Ele é um mundo de diferença. Ele é um mundo de assimetria social, de quem tem dinheiro e quem não tem dinheiro. 110 76 in Okaba s work and in discussions of his work seems to be a dichotomy between brancos (white people) and nature, as much as between brancos and índios, carrying the suggestion that the sustenance of a close relationship with nature would somehow be an ethnic monopoly of indigenous people. Figure 21: Amazônia Exuberante (Lush Amazonia) Amazoner Okaba, 2007 Figure 22: Amazônia Exuberante (Lush Amazonia) Amazoner Okaba 2007 77 Taking into consideration the historical the historical context of abuse and environmental destruction by non-indigenous intruders, It should not come as a surprise that that a critique towards invasions is often colloquially phrased as an indictment of the world of the white , or of the white man . The white man is not just indicted for his past and present crimes, however. Simultaneously he is pitiable in the eyes of the newly proud indigenous person. In subsection 3.3.2. I quoted Okaba expressing the opinion that there is not really a Roraiman cultural identity other than that of its indigenous tribes. This idea is echoed in Amazônia Exuberante, where a wealth of indigenous symbols and grafismos on the left faces a poverty of culture on the right. The only seemingly prestigious element, the Portal do Milênio (Gateway of the Millennium), is stripped of its glory by implying its corruption. In the cultural and identitary sense, thus, indigenous people have become the haves, and Roraima s nonindigenous inhabitants the have-nots. Following Demmers logic of identity being used in a normative sense, non-indigenous people are now lost and weak (Demmers 2012: 18). This humiliation of the non-indigenous does not turn into a blind, irrational hatred. Although their judgements look harsh, both Esbell and Okaba find a way to nuance what they may say about the white man . Before his characterization of the white world as corrupt, Okaba stresses that every world has its flaws114. Esbell argues that an Indian who loses his spirituality and his respect for nature to the desire for consumption may be just as hurtful and destructive as the white man, or even more 5.3. 115. Solidarity within the boundaries of indigeneity The third overarching theme in artists motivations and objectives is about solidarity and community. This theme will be discussed more briefly, as it shows more in activities outside the paintings, and as it works within existing boundaries, rather than challenging them. Throughout the previous sections we have already seen a shared sense of pride in cultural wealth and diversity, and in moral superiority over white corruption. The central theme here is actual solidarity and community practiced by bringing people together, offering a stage to young indigenous creative minds, and a platform for the independent commercialization of indigenous handicraft from the comunidades that is often sold at CIARs exhibitions. Amazoner Okaba, 7 May 2016 Jaider Esbell, 8 May 2016. Original quote: Índio sem sprititualidade, sem respeitar a natureza, é muito complicado. Ele é tão danoso, tão destruidor quanto o branco, ou até mais. A vontade de consumir é imensa. Comprar, comprar, consumir, consumir [...]. 114 115 78 The exhibitions organized through Esbell s gallery have carried the name of encontros de todos os povos (encounters of all the peoples) ever since they started in 2011. These encounters seem to express Esbell s firm belief in the power of art to unite people116. The stated objective was to reunite artists of various tribes , and to stimulate these people to present themselves, feel invited to take part. (Oliveira 2015: 81, my translation)117. This uniting effort can also be seen within the context of the indigenous movement, that combines the forces of all Roraima s indigenous tribes in order to achieve things politically for the common good. An example of a strongly contextualized act of solidarity is that of Bartô, himself a member of the Patamona tribe, who signed his paintings with Bartô Macuxi during a time of political struggle. Bartô says that they were persecuting our Macuxi parentes118 a lot. So to be Macuxi was a way to fight, to express my disagreement119. Solidarity is expressed through more tangible actions than such symbolic gestures alone, however. In chapter 4 I already discussed frequent visits to the comunidades that may serve to affirm one s indigenous identity. There I already mentioned that such visits generally have more concrete objectives that have to do with solidarity, either by passing through knowledge, or just by keeping in touch with their parentes day-to-day struggles. One very concrete way in which solidarity gets form in the context of artistic expression, is the partnership between the gallery and producers of handicraft in the comunidades. By exhibiting handicraft and art together, both add prestige and value to the other. The handicraft increases in status by being part of an exhibition of art, turning them into objects of art, while they lend the prestige of their cultural authenticity to art produced in an urban context. In this way, art exhibitions become a world in which the ties within the boundaries of indigeneity can be strengthened. 5.4. Between what is painted and what is seen This chapter has been sustained with artists interpretations and explanations of their own art, which was an indispensable asset in order to be able to fully understand what was being Jaider Esbell, 8 May 2016. Original quote: A gente trabalha no coletivo o encontro de todos os povos, a gente reúne artistas de varias etnias e a partir da reunião desses artistas, a gente foi estimulando pessoas dessas mesmas etnias a se apresentarem, a sentir convidadas a participar. 118 Parentes, literally meaning kin or relative, is a way in which many indigenous people in Roraima refer to other indigenous people. It is a term of endearment that signals brotherhood and solidarity among indigenous people. 119 Bartô, 22 May 2016. Original quote: porque como eles estavam perseguindo muito os parentes indígenas Macuxi. Então ser Macuxi é um tipo de briga, de discordo, [...]. Aí eu colocava Bartô Macuxi. 116 117 79 said in specific works of art. These explanations uncovered much of the information upon which an argument could be built regarding the boundary-work that was done. It is important to acknowledge that as much of the information here is taken from interviews, there are limits to what art can be argued to do or say all by itself. Many of the messages, criticisms, and symbols used in these paintings may be unreadable to uninformed eyes, who may indeed just see a pretty little bird 120. Esbell states that his art is open to anyone who has the sensibility to look at it, and the insistence to look further than what they see at first sight.121 At the same time he does indicate that, at least partially, his work is directed towards the non-indigenous, as it is the white man who needs to be able to see, grab, and touch things in order to believe them to be true122. Viana dos Santos also sees an obvious objective in CIARs art to touch and change mainstream society123. I mentioned the ambiguous relation between contemporary indigenous art and stereotypical dichotomies in 5.1.2. What is important to add to this point is that this is yet another instance in which the spectator determines what part of the message comes across. While the message of protagonism, empowerment and valorization may come across to much of the audience interested in contemporary indigenous art, passers-by may view these portrayals differently. To those elements of society that have anti-indigenous stereotypes and marginalization engrained in their subconscious, many of the paintings exhibited by the collective of CIARs may confirm their notions of indigenous backwardness and otherness. The effort to change the way indigenous culture is interpreted in society also surfaces in the audiences that are targeted. The importance of education and reaching a younger generation, mentioned by Viana dos Santos in 3.3.3., is acknowledged Esbell, Miliano and Bartô, who all participated in projects bringing art to schools124. Mendina also expresses the wish to organize project bringing art to schools in Boa Vista125, and Flores stresses the importance of educating the young kids in his comunidade so that they too can learn to express themselves126 Jaider Esbell, 5 April 2016. Original quote: Se eu, que sou índio, não te falar disso, tu nunca vai ficar sabendo, vai achar só que é um pássarinho bonito. 121 Jaider Esbell, 8 May 2016. 122 Jaider Esbell, 5 April 2016. Original quote: Mas o branco não, ele quer ver, quer pegar, quer tocar. 123 Jonildo Viana dos Santos, 30 April 2016. 124 Jaider Esbell, 5 April 2016; Isaías Miliano, 31 May 2016; Bartô, 22 May 2016. 125 Ana Mendina, 19 May 2016. 126 Mário Flores, 14 May 2016. 120 80 5.5. Conclusion The objective of this chapter has been to show how works of contemporary indigenous art may serve as representations and boundary-making pieces that challenge the status-quo. The two central ways in which CIARs visual art engages with the boundaries of indigeneity is through representations enhancing the visibility of one side of the boundary over the other, and through a normative inversion of the meanings and value of the boundary. Much of indigenous artistic expression in Roraima can be perceived as an act of defiance against the modern, of which artists themselves may very well be part, and the construction of a place where their specific skills and abilities are valued. They also change representational space through their choices of who to portray and who not to portray. In this way art is also a vessel through which protagonism can be asserted. The work done through paintings is thus mainly directed at changing the meaning of boundaries rather than their location. Through sections 5.1. and 5.2., it becomes clear that protest in paintings is not directed at the existence of boundaries themselves, but rather at the meanings and values that make up the content of these boundaries. In this sense, while chapter 4 has shown CIARs livelihoods to contest and blur parts of the boundaries of indigeneity, the main boundary-making strategy to be identified in their actual work is clearly transvaluation. In that sense art has a different impact upon the boundaries of indigeneity than the artists themselves have through the lives that they lead. 81 6. Conclusion In the three previous chapters we have gotten to know the political and discursive context of Roraima, seven visual artists embedded in this context, and a selection of the artwork they have produced. In this final chapter I will bring together the findings from these three chapters in order to formulate a response to the main question stated in the introductory chapter: How do Roraima s contemporary indigenous artists negotiate boundaries of indigeneity in the urban space of Boa Vista, in the aftermath of the demarcation of the indigenous territory of Raposa Serra do Sol in 2009? After answering this question, I will add a brief discussion of the theories used in this research, and how the findings reflect on those theories and their applicability in this specific context. I will also propose some suggestions for further research, before concluding the thesis. 6.1. Questions answered In the first empirical chapter, that was aimed at laying down the historical and discursive context in which CIARs operate, I chronologically discussed three time-frames to identify what specific structures and narratives indigenous people faced in the period before 1988, in the democratic transition and demarcation period between 1988 and 2011, and from 2011 until present day. In short, what came out of the chapter was that the context in which CIARs operate today is one where highly contradictory notions of what it means to be indigenous clash. In large part these notions turned out to be linked to the dichotomies between nature and technology, tradition and modernity, and urban and rural, they are essentially all about where an Indian is supposed to stand on these three contradictions. The goal of the second empirical chapter has been to introduce the CIAR as an actor embedded in the historical and discursive context identified in chapter 3. This has been done by examining the educational and political background of the artists, discussing their take on the boundaries of indigeneity, and by identifying the motives behind their work. Throughout the chapter, a diverse group of people has become visible, with varied backgrounds and political commitments. This group defies the dichotomies between rural and urban, between tradition and modernity, and between nature and technology. Instead of discarding the dichotomy as obsolete however, some of its content is still considered salient by CIARs in a division between the indigenous and the non-indigenous. In chapter 5, the last empirical chapter, the objective was to identify the ways in which indigenous artists work towards three goals: defiance, critique, and solidarity, and to show 82 how this involves them engaging in boundary-making, as well as in the redistribution of the sensible. The two central ways in which CIARs visual art engages with the boundaries of indigeneity is through representations enhancing the visibility of one side of the boundary over the other, and through a normative inversion of the meanings and value of the boundary. The work done through paintings is thus mainly directed at changing the meaning of boundaries rather than their location. A compact answer to the research puzzle, combining the knowledge gained throughout this thesis, reads as follows: Roraima s contemporary indigenous artists have negotiated the boundaries of indigeneity in the aftermath of the demarcation of Raposa Serra do Sol in two different ways: firstly they challenged the existing content of the boundaries by leading modern, urban lives, and participating in mainstream society as protagonists; secondly they use their artistic expression do visibilize the indigenous and to situate it in a positive light, challenging stigma s and negative stereotypes, while at the same time reifying aspects of the boundaries of indigeneity previously established. While it is obviously impossible to catch the nuances of a research as broad as this one within a single sentence, this is the core of the answer to the research puzzle as it was formulated in the introductory chapter. 6.1. Theoretical implications 6.1.1. Boundaries and the visual realm With regard to the boundary-making theory, an interesting observation throughout the thesis is that as people aim to change the meaning of boundaries that have long ago been imposed on them, these boundaries may still retain much of their salience to them. In the eyes of CIARs, it still matters whether one is indigenous or not. Even if at first sight their urban and modern lives may seem to challenge the existence of any boundary, CIARs give great importance to the fact that they are indigenous, and authentically indigenous at that. This observation challenges the boundary-making theory in its division into clearly defined subgroups of strategies. Even if Wimmer may acknowledge the simultaneous occurrence of different strategies, this division may suggest that actors need to choose which one they want to pursue. One of the core findings of this thesis is how individual crossing interacts with a normative inversion of the boundaries of indigeneity. Another implicit suggestion that lies within the word strategy is that transvaluation, crossing and blurring will always be taken up purposefully as a coordinated effort by a conscious political actor. What has become clear throughout the thesis, however, is not just that multiple strategies may be employed simultaneously, and interact with one another, but 83 also that boundary-making often occurs spontaneously, and that what is intended to be one strategy may play out in reality to have a different effect. None of the CIARs has expressed the desire to cross over the boundary and become non-indigenous. Still their insertion into a non-indigenous environment and their intellectual capitalization in the non-indigenous education system may indicate to an outsider that they are indeed crossing a boundary. How useful is visual culture for the changing or making of boundaries? One of the core assumptions that this thesis was based on was the expectation that the politics of the aesthetics could operate as a sensitizing framework in harmony with the boundary-making theory. In general, throughout the thesis, these two frames for interpretation demonstrated the overlap necessary to integrate them, and to write coherent chapters where they combined and interacted. Overall the cooperation between these two theories has proven useful. It is important to realize, however, that artists are not political actors in the way Wimmer may have imagined them, and that they don t necessarily have the power to impose one set of distinctions rather than another. In artists we are not so much looking at people who have the institutional power to impose whatever set of categorical distinctions they may like. We are looking at people who, without much power in the institutional or coercive sense, have found a way to use their artistic capacity to challenge boundaries imposed on them by others. When talking about how boundaries may become materialized in visual culture, it is also important not to imagine this entailing actual paintings of lines between worlds. Amazoner Okaba s work Amazônia Exuberante stands alone in this thesis as a work where the boundary is actually given physical form. I have not encountered any other art-works during my stay in Roraima that visualized the boundary of indigeneity quite as explicitly. Rather than looking for dotted lines between one thing and the other, one should look for stories that are told in visual form about the boundaries that one already suspects to be there from speech and from documentary information. In that sense triangulation in the combination of these theoretical angles is not just a tool to verify information or add new perspectives, but an indispensable element that makes a cooperation between two theoretical strands possible. Certain paintings do indeed only have meaning- and boundary-making qualities as they are placed and observed within a discursive context. A last aspect that is important to mention is the fact that multiple things may happen in a single picture, and that they might not be the things that the creator intended. At the end of chapter two I quoted Bleiker and Butler, who argued that [a] painting might function in the way Celan (1986a: 186; 1986b: 198) described the journey of a poem: as a message in a 84 bottle , a plea that is sent out with the hope that someday it will be washed onto a shore, onto something open, a heart that seeks dialogue, a receptive political reality. (Bleiker & Butler 2016: 65). In the specific case of Roraima s contemporary indigenous art, I would like to add to this metaphor that the bottle is often made of ground glass, making it hard for some to realize there is a piece of paper rolled up inside it. And even those who find the piece of paper and unroll it may not be able to read the language that the message was written in. 6.1.2. The strategic urbanization and globalization of indigenous art Another assumption that this thesis has leant on was that the insights about strategic urbanization from the indigenous urbanization debate would apply as well to contemporary indigenous artists as they do to the indigenous leadership figures they were based on. The findings of this thesis point indeed to a strong parallel between the experiences, actions, and motivations of these distinct groups of people. This suggests that they may not be as distinct as they seem, as CIARs do present themselves, and are seen, as leaders in a cultural sense. It applies as much to leaders as to artists, that it has become essential for survival in the modern world to gain the cultural capital needed to assert one s rights successfully. When this much needed cultural capital resides outside of what is traditionally considered authentic , it thus it becomes necessary to refashion the definition of authenticity. Even if this parallel had not been there, the indigenous urbanization debate would have provided an important basis of knowledge and insight indispensable to one aiming to fully understand the dynamics that confront indigenous actors in contemporary urban environments. With this parallel experience in our hands, however, it becomes interesting to look at what new insights indigenous artists experience have to offer to the debate. One of the things that makes them interesting to observe in this respect is that they engage explicitly with the urban societies in which they are inserted. 6.2. Suggestions for further research This research has been limited in scope because of constrictions on time and place. The possibilities for follow-up interviews were limited due to a short field-work period in which the phenomenon had to be mapped out before an actual focused research could commence. The findings of such a small-scale and local research using only qualitative data can hardly substantiate definitive statements about the power of art to change the boundaries of indigeneity. The findings do raise interesting questions, however. There are a number of ways in which follow-up enquiries into this phenomenon may be interesting and useful. 85 Firstly, a follow-up research in Boa Vista over a longer time-period could facilitate a more intensive triangulation, follow-up interviews, and would enable the researcher to dive deeper into the details of specific paintings. This thesis is a broad engagement with the phenomenon, and as such facilitates a good view of the large picture and an inventory of diverging opinions and viewpoints, but doesn t attain the depth of analysis that would have been possible with a narrower focus. Now that the activities of CIARs in Boa Vista have been broadly charted in this research, such a focus could be laid upon specific aspects, such as the dynamics of normative inversions in painting, so that these aspects may be subject to a deeper and richer analysis. Another question that arises looking at the dynamics in Boa Vista is how indigenous artists in other urban centers in the Amazon engage with political realities within their work. Does the parallel discovered between contemporary indigenous artists and indigenous movement leaders in terms of strategic urbanization appear in the same way in other cities? Case studies in other cities throughout the Amazon could be fruitful providing comparable findings. This would help determine to what extent the case of Boa Vista s CIARs is unique, and to what extent it is part of a more widespread phenomenon. As was discussed in more detail in chapter 2, the author experienced certain linguistic and cultural limitations carrying out the research. Although these limitations have largely been overcome, and the author s capacities were sufficient to research the phenomenon, the findings presented in this thesis remain interpretations of an outsider. In many ways such an outsider perspective has its merits, as it may uncover insights that are obscured to locals. On the other hand, it would be interesting to see how a local researcher would look at the same paintings, and talk with the same people. Would they come to the same conclusions, or would they discover elements and nuances that were lost on the author? I am confident that a follow-up research on this phenomenon by, or in cooperation with, a researcher native to the area would prove very interesting by adding yet another dimension of triangulation to the analysis of the phenomenon. 6.2.1. Paradoxes and fabric Before closing off, I would like to add a personal note on what the findings of this research mean to the researcher, and to what they may mean to the people this thesis is about. First of all, throughout the thesis, a number of ambiguities and contradictions have been identified in the words and actions of CIARs. When pointing towards contradictions or paradoxes within the work and talk of Roraima s indigenous artists, the objective is obviously not to 86 discredit them. It is not to call into question their authenticity, their honesty, or their intelligence. Rather, the objective is to point towards the complexity of the world they are surrounded by. Naturally, representing a muddy, messy world full of paradoxes, leads to representations that are muddy, messy, and full of paradoxes. Those characteristics then unquestionably flow into the boundary work in those representations. On the front cover of this text, a colorful band is portrayed, a work of textile that consists of cotton threads knitted together: fabric. This is not a new or particularly original metaphor. When talking about societies and social orders, fabric is never far away, and those analyzing discourse are not new to patterns woven through speech. I do think it is a useful metaphor. Approaching this piece of handicraft chronologically offers an interesting perspective on the fabric of a society, for when a knot is made it s very hard to unmake. It is even harder to untie knots that were made hundreds of years ago. Yet there is always still threads, and although history may have determined their color, we have the opportunity today to tie them in whichever direction and combination we may want. And this is exactly what I perceive the role of Jaider, Isaías, Bartô, Mário, Carmézia, and Ana to be. Their power may be limited to visual expression, but in an important sense I think they do hold the threads, or at least some of them, and I am curious to find out where they will tie the next knots. I believe that Boa Vista s indigenous artists have a great opportunity to help shape the future in a direction where dignity and respect are awarded to all. 87 Bibliography Primary sources INTERVIEWS Amazoner Okaba (Emerson da Silva Rodrigues), Boa Vista, on 7 and 30 May 2016. Ana Mendina, Boa Vista, on 19 May 2016. Bartô (Bartolomeu da Silva Tomaz), Boa Vista, on 22 May 2016. Elisangela Martins, Boa Vista, on 21 May 2016. Enoque Raposo, Boa Vista, on 17 April 2016. Isaías Miliano, Boa Vista, on 31 May 2016. Jaider Esbell, Boa Vista, on 5 April 2016 and 8 May 2016. Jonildo Viana dos Santos, Boa Vista, on 30 April 2016. Mário Flores, Boa Vista, on 14 May 2016. Reginaldo Gomes de Oliveira, Boa Vista, on 29 April 2016. Selmar Rodrigues and Raphaela Queiroz, employees of the UFRR s cultural management office, Boa Vista, on 19 May 2016. EVENTS AND OBSERVATIONS Visit to the indigenous community of Sorocaima II, on 24 March 2016. Visit to the indigenous community of Malacacheta, on 2 April 2016. Opening of the exhibition at União Operária, Boa Vista, on 11 April 2016. Book launch Visualidades: Carmézia Emiliano at União Operária, on 13 April 2016. Visit to the exhibition Índios de Roraima by Jorge Macêdo at Palácio da Cultura, Boa Vista, 19 April 2016. Opening of the exhibition Já Fui Floresta by José Medeiros at SESC Mecejana, Boa Vista, on 27 May 2016. WORKS OF ART Sonho Amazônia (I dream Amazon) Ana Mendina 2014. A arte de todos os povos (The art of all the peoples) Ana Mendina 2009. Cereia (Mermaid) - Carmézia Emiliano 2010. Timbó - Carmézia Emiliano 2009. Voltando para casa (Going home) - Mário Flores n.d.. Meu amigo karaiwá (My white friend) Bartô n.d. Amazônia Exuberante (Lush Amazonia) Amazoner Okaba 2007. 88 Era uma vez Amazônia (It was Amazon) Jaider Esbell 2016. OTHER SOURCES Coelho, Márcio. Tribos de Roraima - Entrevista: Isaias Miliano. 09 08, 2011. http://tribosderoraima.com.br/2011/09/08/entrevista/ (accessed 08 10, 2016). Costa, Gilvan. "Canaimé, União pela Arte." 05 Overmundo. 15, 2006. http://www.overmundo.com.br/overblog/canaime-uniao-pela-arte (accessed 05 06, 2016). Esbell, Jaider. Galeria Jaider Esbell. n.d. http://www.jaideresbell.com.br/site/sobre-o-artista/ (accessed 08 10, 2016). GloboTV. "Raposa Serra do Sol [Report]." Youtube. 2008. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hbRy3A43qcQ. Governo de Roraima. COMEÇA A SEMANA DOS POVOS INDÍGENAS 2015 - SOMOS TODOS ÍNDIOS. 04 14, 2015. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GBxTUL5IEWA (accessed 07 15, 2016). 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