THE STRUGGLE FOR LAND IN KAINGANG TERRITORY: CONFLICT IN THE INDIGENOUS LAND XAPECÓ (SC / BRAZIL) DURING THE TWENTIETH CENTURY

Abstract

The Kaingang group represent in southern Brazil the largest indigenous population. Its territoriality is rooted in the multiple processes involved in spatial arrangements and relationships and animated the sociocultural, political and economical relations with other indigenous groups and, especially, with non-indigenous populations. The spatial reduction in southern territory changed the modus vivendi and social habitus, and consequently interfered in the subsistence and the autonomy of Kaingang with the territory and the ecosystem. In 1902, a group of Kaingang from the southwest of Paraná (Brazil) conquered a tract of land of approximately 50.000 ha from a government decree, however, throughout the twentieth century The Indigenous Land Xapecó, which currently belongs to the state of Santa Catarina, was reduced to little more than 15.000 ha. The process of expropriation of TI Xapecó by non-indigenous interested in the usurpation of land and natural resources has occurred to some extent with the seal of the employees of the Indian Protection Service and the Government of Santa Catarina. Thus, the struggle for land along the twentieth century between social actors in unequal political and socioeconomic condition allowed to keep part of the initial territory (30%) where currently live just over six thousand indigenous Amerindians.