Práticas e táticas de um fazer econômico : Os Kaingang do setor Pedra Lisa - TI Guarita

Abstract

Anthropological studies about indigenous people can be held by different approaches. The present study seek for its comprehension taking as a starting point the questions referring to economical practices and unfolding interfaces among Kaingang members. This study is supported by an ethnographic research done at Pedra Lisa sector in Terra Indigena Guarita - Rio Grande do Sul state - Brazil, observing indigenous people moving to Santa Maria city, also in Rio Grande do Sul state, and taking as highlights factors related to handcrafting and selling of native artisanal goods, as well as the emergence of a group of artisans at the Pãri, a Guarita sector which serves as a passage to the city. The dissertation examines the historical path of this Kaingang group as they arrived to Santa Maria and the creation of economic practices underlying its ethnic identity, passing by cosmological and structural questions of Kaingang society, and theories dealing with construction of identity and ethnicity to seek for the comprehension about an economy developed and exercised by indigenous people. The study observed that Kaingang group necessity of entering in an urban area activates its ethnical identity and position themselves in a social layer where they were not used to take part as agents, obliging them to dispute social space and roles, and to articulate cultural and economic characters that until than were just something external. This research shows how the movement of coming to the city and of finding the others stimulated the group to strengthen its internal ties and to elect diacritical signs that could be activated, demonstrating the group skills to refresh its culture and to relate to it.