The Munduruku people (TI-MP, Pará, Brazil) and the fight for territorial rights

Abstract

In this paper, I present reflections on a case study with the Munduruku of Planalto Santareno. The objective of the research was to understand the who are fighting for the recognition of their territorial rights and the demarcation of the Munduruku Indigenous Land of Planalto (TI-MP) In response to imminent threats of devastation of the rural lifeforms and social reproduction, resulting from the expansion of practices to the subordination by natural resources use to capitalist interests (like the formation of private land ownership and grain monoculture, in areas where customary use of possession land were predominated), the indigenous group emerged on the political scene through the reaffirmation of specific territoriality. The ethnic movement, anchored in the principles of territorial definition and the rights guaranteed in the Brazilian constitution of 1988, established a dialogue with the State through a political struggle in which they demanded the recognition of territorial rights in and for the land occupied according to ancestral bases reaffirming the community use of land-water-forest by.