Managing Borders, Nurturing Life Managing Borders, Nurturing Life: Existences, Resistances and Political Becoming in the Amazon Forest By MARCELA VECCHIONE GONÇALVES, B.A., M.A. A Thesis Submitted to the School of Graduate Studies in Partial Fulfilment of the Requirements for the Degree Doctor of Philosophy McMaster University © Copyright by Marcela Vecchione Gonçalves, August 2014. DOCTORATE OF PHILOSOPHY (2014) McMaster University (Political Science) Hamilton, Ontario Title: Managing Borders, Nurturing Life: Existences, Resistances and Political Becoming in the Amazon Forest AUTHOR: Marcela Vecchione Gonçalves, B.A., M.A. (Instituto de Relações Internacionais PUC- Rio) SUPERVISOR: Professor J. Marshall Beier NUMBER OF PAGES: XI, 318. Abstract This study is about how two different indigenous groups in two different places of the enormous border area of the Amazon forest in Brazil (approximately 12,000 km) have been resisting displacement and appropriation, prejudice and pre-conceptualizations, ever since Brazil became Brazil and even before. The ability of these groups to resist, entangled to their capacity to endure in face of the colonization of their ways of living, enacted them to becoming political (Viveiros de Castro 1998; Isin 2002; Starn, de la Cadena 2008; Blaser 2010; de la Cadena 2010) in distinct forms depending on the geographies of relationships, land use and various forms of mobility through border areas they have been living in and within. In looking at these “resistances” and “endurances” at different places, I argue that the fact that a group of Ashaninka people became political by moving to and throughout the border between Brazil and Peru and the many reinventions Macuxi and Wapishana people in the present day Raposa Serra do Sol Indigenous Territory went through for becoming Indigenous peoples at the Brazilian borders with Guyana and Venezuela have corroborated the role of their “existences” in delineating and re-inventing geographical borders by managing the meanings and effects of these very borders on their lives as integral (and integrated) part of the forest. In a general way, it can be said that borders in Brazil came hand in hand with the appearance of the terminology “Indians” in this country, which prompted me to ask what politics emerged out of it. In a particular manner, by looking at how this politics was practiced through the articulation of the indigenous groups mentioned above allowed me to historicize their own stories about the articulation of their existence or permanence in places that coincided with the space of the border amidst the forest. As I begin this dissertation, I will show that the creation of such space meant no coincidence for governments and their legislative instruments, which equalized the space of the border with territories necessary for the expansion of economic frontiers since the 18th century. Also, and most importantly, it will be discussed that these spaces coincided with the spaces where some indigenous groups were living and moving through on a constant basis making the forest what it was but, especially, considering it the integrative space of their worlds of living and articulating relationships. The politics emerging out of the negotiation of this last world - beyond borders - with the world created and limited by the national borders, as according to the actual and contemporary political practices of the abovementioned indigenous groups, is an important part of this study. This politics will be contextualized vis-à-vis the politicization of the Amazon rainforest as a territory of dispute and a region of political possibilities (Escobar 2008) based on life projects (Blaser et al 2004) as opposed to governmental projects. In this sense, while I present stories of resistance and contentious politics experimented through collaborative work and activist research with these groups, I will introduce different readings and perspectives to life while living life (lifeways), that challenge the idea of borders as spaces of exclusion, the Amazon rainforest as an empty space and the forest as a non-political place. As I intend to show with the contrasts and similarities between the two cases, when indigenous groups and persons shifted away from impositions on them to be at the margins, they became more effective in showing the centrality of border landscapes to the production and reproduction of other conceptualizations of humanity and politics. In taking landscape, mobility and political subjectivities seriously, this study followed and sought to locate indigenous politics through specific indigenous groups’ (and persons’) stories in order to balance place and territory and to articulate their political subjectivity beyond the latter. For coming to terms with what these articulations could offer, I had to be attentive to what groups and individuals in it were saying (and not saying) about borders, politics, international relations and the environment in the Amazon forest. For this reason, this study is highly influenced by critical studies on political ecology, citizenship, borders, political and feminist geography as well as by the so-called ontological turn in the social sciences. Methodologically and epistemologically, it shares the idea of social movements as source of knowledge and the production of knowledge as an exercise beyond the borders of traditional ways of knowing in the university (Alvarez and Escobar 1992; Escobar 2008). Activist research methods as well as the contribution of Indigenous Studies and Indigenous Research Methods were as central in this dissertation as the attempt of thinking International Relations critically. The protocols and ways of building accountability coming from indigenous persons were also fundamental to the research practices in this study that brings in the contribution of Indigenous geographies in mapping knowledge and land to debate what are the territories of politics coming from beyond the state and Western politics. Ultimately, this dissertation is an exercise in understanding how some indigenous groups kept on resisting by living in spaces constantly changed by the advances of economic frontiers that intersected with the production of borders and with the changing policies toward managing the landscapes cut across by these same borders. Opposing the idea of borders as the productive site of affirmation by negation, for the indigenous groups I engaged with in this dissertation borders are an integrated place of relationships to human beings, to other beings and to the forest within them; in other words, a landscape in constant change because of peoples’ action. The mobility of some indigenous groups throughout the forest and their contribution to design landscapes on it as related to a cosmology not centered in the human [although relying on a particular conceptualization of the human] brought to the fore of this research the aspect that there are inter-relations between nature, culture and society that do not correspond to distinctive, visible and hierarchical separation, let alone to the limits of an Indigenous Territory. In this sense, approaching different borders to understanding different indigenous standpoints on them means also approaching new worlds of knowing and living to which all sorts of borders are also imposed, including within the very Indigenous Territory. PhD Thesis –M.Vecchione-Goncalves McMaster – Political Science Acknowledgments Seven years ago, I left Brazil to start this work. Back then, I would have never imagined that along this way so many people, places, events and the rainforest would become (and they are still becoming) part of my life. By transiting within the borders of a PhD abroad, the long distance from my family and the encounter with persons that became indigenous to a still-growing activist life, I learned about commitment, faith, belief and diversity of life by living a challenging life. Even if these challenges have kept me a bit away from academia and from the PhD, it was the latter that introduced me to the challenges through conducting (or letting me to be conducted by) research. Nevertheless, it was the same challenges that showed me the academia that I want to be part. Those challenges also brought me hope that there will be no more boundaries in a near future.to the existence of knowledge otherwise in the university. This is my first thank you. To the encounters and allowances to enter worlds, histories and stories that brought me hope to write this work and share with you now. Some people, institutions and places have to have their relevance acknowledged here before any sharing process starts. I am thankful to my supervisor Dr. Marshall Beier, who since 2006, when the application process for the PhD was still starting, agreed to embark with me on stories about Indigenous peoples and borders. His work has been a great inspiration ever since. As a member of my committee, Dr. Peter Nyers was fundamental to so many choices I made on how to frame this research. Our reading course on Indigeneity and Citizenship was very important to the reflections made throughout this dissertation and his final comments important for thinking ahead. Also part of my committee, Dr. William D.Coleman was fundamental to all the steps of planning, framing, assembling data, writing and re-writing this dissertation. Without his assertive comments, objectiveness and friendship, getting close to trespassing the finishing line would have been impossible. I am very I debt to the constructive comments coming from Dr.Alex Latta. His presence in my defence really contributed to this dissertation to be a work in progress. I equally thank Manuela Dozzi, graduate administrative assistant at the Department of Political Science. She was not part of my committee, but without her work and assistance, this dissertation would not be a finitto process. Ciao, Bella! I am thankful for the funding provided by McMaster School of Graduate Studies between the years of 2007-2011 allied with the opportunity of being a Teaching Assistant in a foreign country. The latter was of a great learning to me.