The political construction of identity in contexts of overlapping protected areas and violence against indigenous peoples and in the Amazon

Abstract

This article aims to discuss the “Buiuçu Case” as a process of engagement of different segments – state, environmental, indigenous, extractivist – for the permanence of Cocama indigenous people and extractivists (from the same family) in their place of residence. The dispute occurred in the Santa União and Itaboca communities, in the mid-2000s, located in the Auati-Paraná de Cima River region, at the confluence between the Auati-Paraná Extractive Reserve (Resex) and the Mamirauá Sustainable Development Reserve (RDS), located in the regions of Médio and Alto Solimões, Amazonas. During the litigation process, indigenous people went through several situations of racism, symbolic and physical violence, resulting in suffering, exhaustion and the reinforcement of prejudiced notions and the stigma of “being Indian” in a region characterized by attacks on the various indigenous peoples who reside there.