Lideranças Pitaguary de Monguba: estratégias do bem viver e de compromisso ético-político

Abstract

Indigenous peoples in Brazil still face the consequences of the violent process of colonization that took over their original lands, denied their identities and violated their rights and an ongoing coloniality project. Despite the declaration that in Ceará there were no indigenous people since the nineteenth century, the Ceará ethnic groups survived and engendered the process of ethnogenesis, especially from the 1980s. Considering Psychology's ethical-political commitment to this situation and its need to reformulate itself, breaking with the elitized model and with little scope with which it has traditionally acted, this research takes as its theoretical posture the Southern epistemologies, represented, among others, in the HistoricalCultural Social Psychology and Environmental Psychology. The Environmental Psychology Research Laboratory (Locus-UFC) is developing investigations in these areas. The study aims to understand the affects involved in the experiences of indigenous leaders, related to the proposal of good living. Methodologically, the research is qualitative, characterized as ethnographic, and has data collection methods the field diary and life history, and data analysis method thematic content analysis, with the aid of software Atlas.ti and complementary analysis by Iramuteq software. The results of the research imply the very process of construction of the researcher and the theme field, in a dialectical socio-historical movement, in which the conceptions of the leaders about the indigenous being are expressed as implication with culture, ancestry and commitment to future generations, which drives the struggle in defense of life and Mother Earth. In this process, the depotentializing affects of leadership action relate to internal and external conflicts, lack of recognition and support, and weakening of ties between equals and places. Action and permanence in the Pitaguary fight are related to joy, originated from the recognition of the gains of its action, festive moments, rituals and “co-living”, which also appear as strategies of good living, together with the deep relationship with nature, the creation of spaces for dialogue and the strengthening of indigenous struggle. We consider the urgency of practices that prevent the various violence against the original peoples; to think collective strategies that contribute to the care of the Common House; as well as possibilities for respectful intercultural encounters, which enable the “co-living” of the diverse possibilities of existing.