Participatory Mapping: Supporting Community Identity Through a Focus on Territory. An Indigenous Tupiniquim Community in Espírito Santo, Brazil

Abstract

This chapter investigates the trajectory and impacts of territorial conflicts emerging from an attempt to establish a steel industry in the indigenous Tupiniquim community of Chapada do Á, Anchieta municipality, Espírito Santo state, as a part of Brazil’s late twentieth century strategy of capitalist development. This conflict with a powerful external actor stimulated resistance built on identity and territoriality in the community. In the face of the possible total loss of their territory, the Chapada do Á community self-identified as indigenous and they remained resistant to being relocated. The history of the community has seen a slow process of externally powered deterritorialization, both in terms of the dislocation or alienation from land and in cultural erosion and denigration. Beyond that, there has been a recent shorter period of reterritorialization, which we can term as auto-reterritorialization, because the awakened realization of territory is a form of resistance by the community as they re-value and re-activate their indigenous Tupiniquim identity. This chapter illustrates how a participatory approach to local spatial and historical knowledge, focused through participatory mapping, can reveal territorialization processes. In this case, the collaborative processes of mapping the territory led the local community actors together with the researchers, to revisit the customary practices, histories and local memories.