Luciene Risso

By Renan A.S. de Oliveira and Luciene C. Risso

This article has the objective of identifying and reflecting upon the sociocultural strategies that allowed the Xavante Indians, after centuries of cultural spoliation and territory expropriation, the development of different adaptive mechanisms that guaranteed their reproduction. Here, the attempt is to show that those sociocultural strategies and mechanisms were decisive in the maintenance of its territory, social cohesion, and relative cultural autonomy. Likewise, as a specific objective of this article, one intends to identify which of those cultural changes are perceived in the landscape, seeking a deeper comprehension of the appropriation mechanisms developed by those people in the interface with the Brazilian contemporary society. The proposed methodology to reach the said objectives has been built upon extensive multidisciplinary bibliographical surveys, interviews, and field observations that made feasible, among other things, a more refined construction of the Xavante historiography and a more precise understanding of the social organization variation of those people. Finally, it is proposed here to view the Xavante people as the main subject of their decisions, capable of offering resistance to the progress of capitalist expansion fronts upon their territory and, above all, capable of maintaining their sociocultural cohesion deciding on the course of their own development.

Part of the book: Indigenous People