Abstract:
This dissertation presents a case study on the construction of history by a community
that lives in a space of conflict and under the risk of being uprooted. It interprets a situation in
a context of immigration with interethnic elements, discussing the dispute over land between
a Kaingang indigenous community of the Toldo Pinhal Indigenous Area and families of small
farmers in the region of Nova Teutônia, municipality of Seara, state of Santa Catarina, Brazil.
These families, who were attracted from Germany and southern Brazil by the colonizing
company, Luce Rosa & Cia since the beginning of the 20th century, bought plots located in
traditional indigenous territories. At present, as they are on the brink of losing their land, since
the Brazilian state has recognized the original rights of the indigenous minority, the memory
and identity of these families are constituted by remembrance and forgetfulness, omission and
silence. The research project, which was developed on the basis of theories of memory related
to anthropology and the so-called New History, is built on documents and narratives of
immigrants who, by reconstructing their history, work out the experience of living in a
situation of conflict of rights and interests. It also identifies different groups as well as public
and private institutions that are involved both in the conflict and the search for solutions. It
particularly analyzes the action of the Lutheran church in the region where this community is
located. This analysis is made from a historical point of view and from the point of view of
the Lutheran church s attitude toward agrarian problems and issues related to the indigenous
people. One of the hypotheses confirmed by this dissertation has to do with the importance of
the land for small farmers, viz. the land as a space of historical and traditional territoriality
that becomes explicit in the construction of the relation between memory and identity.
