Memória, identidade e um espaço de conflito: a comunidade de Nova Teutônia no contexto de disputa por terra com a comunidade Kaingang da Área Indígena Toldo Pinhal

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.