“A história que não está contada nos livros”: Emanuela Sousa e a construção do movimento indígena no Baixo Tapajós

Abstract

The region of the lower Tapajós River experiences a new political and social moment since the 90's of the 20th century, when part of the rural communities, called by caboclas literature, began to claim their indigenous identity, assuming themselves as subjects belonging to ethnic groups. This ongoing process, called in the Social Sciences of ethnic emergence or ethnogenesis involves the awareness or the assumption of their historically denied identities. This movement, in part, is a consequence of the work developed by the Indigenous Consciousness Group (ICG). The ICG was created in 1997, and in view of the growing complexity of the process of the emergence of indigenous peoples in the lower Tapajós, it is necessary to know more about this history of origins and to analyze the activities of the agents of this organization that somehow paved the way for the current indigenous struggles in the region. One of the ways to get into this story is through the narratives and memoirs of one of the active leaders of the GCI at that early stage of this process. For this I use the life history method, because through aspects of Emanuela Sousa's trajectory, of her ideas and values, we believe it is possible to better understand the development of the GCI and the Indigenous Movement in this region.