Acceso usuarios
Tracy Devine Guzmán
Claiming the authority to adopt the pen (and the laptop) on behalf of their communities and in the interest of “all humanity,” Native Brazilian writers call into question the nationalist rhetoric, colonialist rationale, and neoliberal math that have been used by the state and propped up by its dominant majority to justify recent anti-indigenous public policies in the name of Brazilian sovereignty and development. Key among these is the Belo Monte hydroelectric dam, revived from military rule by the administration of President Luís Inácio Lula da Silva, and currently a lynchpin of the Rousseff administration’s Accelerated Growth Program (PAC). In seeking to halt the dam project through national and global alliances in support of non-economic interests, they speak and write from beyond the circumscribed realm of “authenticity,” with a strategic embrace of Portuguese as an indigenous language; with careful study of the Brazilian Constitution and international law; and with a post-national appeal to the value of peace, justice, reciprocity, and sustainability that they share with Native and non-Native peoples from across the Americas and around the world.
