Xukuru-Kariri: migrações indígenas para trabalho em Alagoas e no Sudeste do país (1952-1990).

Abstract

In this dissertation, we discuss the dimensions of the work and the many actors involved in the daily life of the Xukuru-Kariri from 1952, when the Indian Protection Service (SPI) acquired a strip of land in Palmeira dos Índios/AL, created the Aldeia Fazenda Canto and installed the Irineu dos Santos Indigenous Post to control the villagers' labor and contain the displacements for seasonal activities. However, despite official recognition, social problems, prolonged droughts, lack of jobs and the land concentration of invading farmers created a favorable arena for the search for work outside the indigenous territory, accentuated until the 1990s with the expansion of the industrial park in Southeastern Brazil. When agriculture at the Irineu dos Santos Post did not meet the basic needs of survival, Xukuru-Kariri indigenous people performed activities such as cowboys on farms in the city's melters, migrated to work in the Semiarid and the Zona da Mata de Alagoas and to various urban and manufacturing activities in the southeast of the country. Farms in the worlds of work, with unhealthy socioeconomic conditions, the end of seasonal activities and the hope of better living conditions, with agricultural practices, favored returns to places of origin. The different historical situations experienced strengthened the feeling of belonging to the territories in Palmeira dos Índios and intensified conflicts with local farmers. We base our discussions on the reflections of authors such as Edson Silva, João Pacheco de Oliveira, Marilda Aparecida de Menezes, E. P. Thompson, Carlo Ginzburg, Maurice Halbwachs and in documental analysis in the collections of the Research Group on Indigenous History of Alagoas (GPHIAL), in Palmeira dos Índios; of the Indian Museum in Rio de Janeiro; the Northeast Development Superintendence (SUDENE), in Recife; and in oral memories, personal documents, notes and photographs given by indigenous peoples. We seek to discuss the varied experiences of the Xukuru-Kariri in the worlds of work, fundamental processes for the consolidation of territorial resumptions and the requirement of constitutionally recognized rights.