The "time of the bush" lives on

the Laklãnõ Xokleng struggle against racism and ethnogenocide in Santa Catarina, Brazil

Abstract

This article focuses on one facet of the Laklãnõ Xokleng struggle in Santa Catarina, Brazil, between the mid-1850s and 1914. The article provides a glimpse into some of the documented narratives about memories of the “time of the bush” – the social and political organization of the Laklãnõ Xokleng before colonization. The results demonstrate that the anti-colonial struggle of this people began with physical confrontation, a counterattack in defense of the “time of the bush”. The violence produced by the government yesterday and today is configured as a method that assumes the idea of ​​race, of white racial superiority, and that is lethal. Even with all the death toll produced by the territorial and economic expansion projects yesterday and today in Santa Catarina, the “time of the bush” resists through anti-colonial actions today, such as those of the youth who seek to make their ancestry visible and create ways to confront the racist assumptions that continue to operate the ethnogenocide of today’s colonization.