Caboclos do Assú: cosmografia e identidade étnica no Rio Grande do Norte (C.2005-2020)

Abstract

At the national level, we can understand that the ethnic emergency is not a new event, different from the scope of the state of Rio Grande do Norte, which shows a very recent process of ethnic self-assertion, which contrasts with the official historiography that relegates the Indians to the disappearance. The Caboclos do Assú, our object of study, among the other indigenous groups emerging from the state, are (re) defining themselves as historically active and politically aware subjects, since they express their dissatisfaction with the political and ideological processes that have left them on the sidelines of society. And, on the other hand, of the need that they have to take for themselves the defense of a differentiated identity, showing that the indigenous history of Rio Grande do Norte is marked by conflicts and struggles, especially with regard to its territorialization, being far from this propagated of the indigenous “disappearance” in historiography. Thus, the current process (c. 2015-2020) of ethnic emergence and the construction of a differentiated and territorial identity of the Caboclos do Assú/RN Community was analyzed, using a set of different written records (reports, minutes, articles of newspapers) and using the methodology of oral history, at which time we obtained an expressive set of interviews that contributed to most of the collection of this research, which we show these peoples to society as susceptible to the specific policies of indigenous populations.