Indigenous Struggles for Land
摘要
This chapter aims to report on and critically analyse patterns of homicides involving indigenous people in Brazil. We begin by discussing the recent killing of Nega Pataxó, whose assassination underscores the escalating violence against indigenous communities over the past decade, the intensifying struggle for land, and the alarming rise in the deaths of women in territorial disputes. Drawing on a recently updated dataset from the Comissão Pastoral da Terra (CPT)—Pastoral Land Commission—we examine the spatiotemporal dynamics of these deadly conflicts across rural Brazil from 2003 to June 2023. We select two cases of indigenous resistance (the Guaranis and the Yanomamis) in areas of high levels of violence to further exemplify the violent dynamics that characterise “dominant rationality” and “counterrationalities”. We conclude the chapter by reflecting on the need for further research that enriches our understanding of territorial conflicts, broadens criminological literature, and challenges dominant narratives that obscure the agency of marginalised communities in shaping their own spaces and the Brazilian territory.