Indigenous Labor and Land Resources: Guarani–Kaiowa’s Politico–Economic and Ethnic Challenges

Antonio A. R. Ioris
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Antonio A. R. Ioris: School of Geography and Planning, Cardiff University, Glamorgan Building, King Edward VII Avenue, Cardiff, Wales CF10 3WA, UK

Resources, 2020, vol. 9, issue 7, 1-16

Abstract: The article deals with the meaning and the management of land-based resources by indigenous peoples, which are analyzed through an assessment of the lived spaces of the Guarani–Kaiowa indigenous people in the Brazilian state of Mato Grosso do Sul. The discussion follows an analytical framework that is focused on land, labor and ethnicity. These interconnected politico-economic categories provide the basis for understanding the violence and exploitation perpetrated against indigenous groups, as well as their capacity to reclaim ancestral territories lost to extractivism and agribusiness development. Empirical results indicate that ethnicity is integral to labor and land management processes. In the case of the Guarani–Kaiowa, not only have they become refugees in their own lands due to racist discrimination, but also their labor has been incorporated in the regional economy through interrelated peasantification and proleterianization tendencies. The result is a complex situation that combines major socio-spatial asymmetries with the strategic, exploitative use of land and labor and the growing political contestation by the indigenous groups.

Keywords: Brazil; Mato Grosso do Sul; agribusiness; agrarian disputes; land conflicts; land grabbing; political ecology; rural sociology; indigenous geography; justice (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: Q1 Q2 Q3 Q4 Q5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020
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