Two decades of research with the Xakriabá from the Norte of Minas: from economic diagnosis to the monitoring of the Covid-19 pandemic

Abstract

This paper addresses a twenty-year research process with the Xakriabá indigenous people, confronting its beginnings in the early 2000 decade, when we carried out a diagnostic survey of their economy, and the contemporary context of Covid-19 pandemic. It attempts to build dialogues and to emphasize the differences in order to indicate possibilities for its continuation. Beyond the local references, our reflection shows the displacement of questions towards an approach of the economy understood as the management of life space. Such an approach gains prominence and leads to new relationships between nature, life space and urbanization. The participation of the Xakriabá in the research processes at both times shows their roles as protagonists in controlling their own territory, in appropriating public policies and in interacting with partners from the University. The mutual learning of both academic researchers and the Xakriabá population – today, also ‘academic’ researchers – strengthens possibilities and reinventions of 'other' economic practices, constituting contemporary challenges for researchers, teachers and citizens.