Ontological politics and the struggle for the Guarani-Kaiowa world

ABSTRACT

The article examines the political perspective of Indigenous peoples in their effort to resist aggression and reclaim back land and opportunities lost to mainstream development. The discussion is based on an investigation into how the Guarani-Kaiowa of South America have been able to maintain a socio-spatial identity, react to specific socio-spatial injustices and at the same time associate their struggle with the campaign of other Indigenous groups. This concrete example is instrumental for demonstrating the application of political ontology as a tool for interrogating the impacts of Western modernity, the advance of agrarian capitalism and commonalities with related subaltern politics.

KEYWORDS:

• Indigenous geography
• political ontology
• land struggle
• spatial justice
• Brazil
• Mato Grosso do Sul

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes on contributor

Antonio Augusto Rossotto Ioris is Reader in Human Geography and director of the MSc programme in Environment and Development, School of Geography and Planning, Cardiff University.

Notes

1 Such growing indigenous mobilization has not been ignored by the far right-wing government elected in 2018: the very first acts of the new administration were to suspend the demarcation of any disputed land, encourage farmers, miners and loggers to invade reservations and, if necessary, attack indigenous populations, and put notorious enemies of the Guarani-Kaiowa (lawyers, politicians and landowners) in important decision-making posts.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by The British Academy/ Newton Advanced Fellowship [grant number NAF2R2\100152].