Sertão de fogo à espera do progresso anunciado : as representações sobre o outro e as relações de poder no processo de apropriação do espaço e uso da natureza em Luciara, Mato Grosso

Abstract

This thesis analyzes, from different narratives, the construction of representations about the other, the space and nature located on the banks of Araguaia River where Mato Verde was built, emancipated as a municipality Luciara in the 1960s. These representations are present in several previous narratives written by different historical agents throughout the historical process of advance on that space until the end of the 19 th century. This space was represented as an unknown and “isolated” “sertão” in relation to the coast, Europe and the cities of “civilization”, even though it possesses “wonders” in its nature understood as a supplier of means, resources and raw materials, awakening different proposals for use throughout the process of advancing on that space by various historical agents. Throughout this historical process of advancement, these peoples were placed as the other and represented as “savages”, “pagans” and “barbarians”, in parallel to the attempt to territorial “esbulho”, catechization and different forms of violence. Since the arrival of the “sertanejos”, the appropriation of spaces established a border situation marked by alterity and conflict that were intensified with the purchase and land “grilagem” by farmers and of agribusiness companies in the second half of the 20th century. In view of the territorial depletion and expropriation of the appropriate areas in the highlands and in the “varjões”, indigenous peoples developed strategies to fight for the demarcation of indigenous lands, in the same way that the “sertanejos” identified themselves as Retireiros do Araguaia and claimed the regularization through the creation of the Mato Verdinho Sustainable Development Reserve. This proposal generated manifestations and acts of violence in Luciara in 2013, so that conflict has an intrinsic relationship with the historical process of advancing and appropriating space and nature marked by different social practices, power relations and the construction of representations about each other.