Aldeia Três Soitas: memória, identidade e territorialidade Kaingang em Santa Maria

Abstract

The present work aims the trajectory of organization and fixation of Kaingang Indians in the urban context of Santa Maria city - RS, which occurred from 1999 and raises discussions until today. By way of analysis of sources in various supports, such as interviews, the study of information obtained through articles in the newspaper “A Razão” and other written sources from the internet, such as the repossession process number 50092819120114047102, it is constituted a varied documentary corpus, paying attention to a qualitative methodology capable of covering different points of view, guaranteeing a more complex analytical conception. Based on the interpretive basis, the New Indigenous History, a method of analysis developed in Brazil since the 1990s, we seek for understanding different ways of acting of the indigenous people in a medium transformed by the colonizing practices undertaken by the State, mainly from the century XIX with the villages, highlighting the active character of these subjects in History. Given the circumstances, the concept of ethnogenesis is used, which becomes fundamental, in reference of displacements exercised by the Kaingang, after a long period of changes. In this sense, it demonstrates indigenous historicity, inserted in a dynamic scope of culture and ethnicity, pointing to the use of elements from the past that are re-signified in the present, so, it serves as support for the collective struggle in the claim of rights and in the recognition of identity in an environment permeated with difficulties. Important mechanisms, such as Indigenous School Education, insertion in public spaces, re-adaptation of handicrafts for commercialization in the cities and support in the legal apparatus are considered essential in the Kaingang ethnogenesis process of Três Soitas, for fins of legitimacy related to the occupation of territories traditionally recognized through collective memory.