Violence and resistance in Indigenous Ceará, northeastern Brazil

Indigenous lands in the northeast of Brazil are characterized, for the most part, by reduced and insufficient size, by long and unresolved processes of demarcation and regularization, by being the target of large-scale speculation by agribusiness and private commercial exploitation, and by scarcity of natural resources due to this exploitation. Added to this, they are the sites of mega-projects of “development” by the Brazilian government itself. This chapter draws on a survey carried out as part of the project “Mapping Abuses of Indigenous Peoples’ Rights in Northeastern Brazil,” We focus the chapter on different forms of violence and resistance in three emblematic cases: an alcoholic beverage company drying up the Lagoa Encantada of the Jenipapo-Kanindé people; the shooting of the chief of the Pitaguary people because of their resistance to mining; and the land grabbing in Tremembé lands by a coconut plantation company. The cases point to intense and distinct forms of exploitation that contradict Indigenous rights, harm the autonomy of Indigenous peoples, and impede their free self-determination. At the same time, we have seen intense processes of resistance and mobilization by these peoples, aimed at reversing these violations and ending exploitation of their lands.