TO BE OR NOT TO BE INDIGENOUS IN 19TH CENTURY BRAZIL: a brief genealogy of the categories elaborated by the national state

• Autor(a) principal: VARÃO, LORENA
• Data de Publicação: 2022
• Outros Autores: FERRO, SÉRGIO
• Tipo de documento: Artigo
• Idioma: por
• Título da fonte: Outros tempos
• Texto Completo: https://www.outrostempos.uema.br/index.php/outros_tempos_uema/article/view/993
• topic: Identidad indígena; Resurgimiento étnico; Censos demográficos; Indigenous identity; Ethnic reemergence; Demographic census; Identidade indígena; Reemergência étnica; Censos demográficos

The article intends to discuss the indigenous identity both in the legal field and in indigenous policies of the 19th century, approaching the categories developed in this regard during the formation of the Brazilian state during the post-independence period. We observed the elaboration of the otherness of native peoples framed in constitutional debates and census statements. We propose to reflect how the official discourse of being and not being indigenous was constructed, describing meanings of terms such as “caboclos”, “pardos” and “mestizos” in laws that extinguished villages and allowed the appropriation of indigenous lands and the acquiring of workers. The methodology is structured on interdisciplinary bibliographic review in the fields of history, anthropology and law, based on the epistemological contribution of Manuela Carneiro da Cunha, John Manuel Monteiro and João Pacheco de Oliveira Filho, in order to critically examine historical continuities and discontinuities in denying indigenous identity in face of the affirmation of being indigenous in contemporary times.