Brazilian Indigenous anthropologists turn the tables from 'objects of study' to active voices

by Max Baring on 20 February 2023

ST ANDREWS, Scotland — Francineia Fontes Baniwa laughs enthusiastically as she tells of a conversation she had with her traveling companion, Nelly Marubo while on the train to Scotland: “Nelly looked at me and said, ‘One day we are also going to be university professors!’ And I said, ‘for sure.’”

Nelly and Fran are examples of an emerging generation of Brazilian Indigenous anthropologists who are turning the tables on the traditional relationship between anthropologists and the peoples they study. Both are PhD candidates and visited the UK in September 2022, along with Glicéria Tupinambá, an Indigenous activist and artist.

The purpose of the trip? It was precisely to lecture at St Andrews, one of the UK’s top universities. Here, Glicéria lectured to first-year anthropology students about the Tupinambá’s land struggle, while Fran’s and Nelly’s lectures advocated the advantages of themselves as graduating Amazonian women anthropologists.

Nelly talks to the gathered faculty of anthropology about growing up in the forests. She remembers her mother telling her, “Anthropologists write everything wrong. You have to go there and write from our voice [because] anthropologists talk about us in their way, not in our way.” And it was exactly what the three Indigenous women went to Scotland for.

While they come from very different regions of Brazil, all three women share the experience of struggling with their peoples for their Indigenous lands. Their stories paint a picture of a deeply racist country with an anti-Indigenous police force, judiciary and rural populations.

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