“ETHNIC RECOGNITION GIVES POWER TO THE PEOPLE”: a look at the function of Terreiros and ritualistic practices in the process of ethnic identification of the Jiripankó in the second half of the 20th century
Borders. Indigenous. Identity. Religion. Spatiality.
The Jiripankó ethnic group lives in the rural area of the municipality of Pariconha, Alagoas. Since its origins in the 19th century, its members have received strong influences from the regional context in which they are inserted, establishing intense contacts with non-indigenous people and carrying out a series of exchanges of social customs that led them to re-elaborate their cultural practices. These are people who constructed and redefined their identity based on their relationship with other ethnic groups and institutionalized agents of national society, thus marking the production of otherness outlined by religion and a symbolic system in force within the indigenous community. This research aims to investigate the role played by Terreiros and ritualistic practices during the Jiripankó ethnic identification process, in the second half of the 20th century. To do this, we base the discussion on the bibliographical study of the works of authors such as Amorim (2017), Arruti (1995, 1996, 2006), Barth (1976, 2000), Bourdieu (2007), Candau (2012), Chartier (2002 ), Certeau (1998), Elhajji (2002), Geertz (1989), Martin-Barbero (1997), Nora (1993), Oliveira Filho (1998, 2004), Pollak (1989, 1992) and Peixoto (2018), in together with other researchers who carried out approaches to the function of rites and customs, as well as the process of ethnogenesis of indigenous identities in the Northeast region. The theoretical basis follows the perspective of Cultural History, which is in line with the methodological framework that, in turn, guided the research stages, allowing us to discuss the religious elements that were strategically activated by indigenous people during the historical process of affirmation and official recognition of the Jiripankó ethnic identity in the Alto Sertão region of Alagoas, in the last two decades of the 20th century.