- 1 The terms race and ethnicity are used with quotation marks in the first case only. Quotation marks (...)
- 2 All translations from French or Portuguese are original unless otherwise noted.
1The following observation by Philippe Poutignat and Jocelyne Streiff-Fénart also applies to Latin America, where the relationship between “race” and “ethnicity”1 has been the subject of much debate: “One of the persistent ambiguities is the difficulty in establishing a stable criterion or a set of homogeneous criteria for differentiating race and ethnicity, and at the same time, the difficulty of giving up the distinction between the two concepts” (2008 [1995]: XIII).2 Around the same time, Peter Wade also analyzed this convergence. He observed that ethnicity appeared in academia after the Second World War “sometimes as a less emotive term for ‘race’” (2010 [1997]: 14) and noted that this substitution had the effect of softening the latter concept: “Racial identities are now seen in somewhat the same way as ethnic identities: they are contextual, situational, multivocal” (2010: 18).
2On the same subject, Marisol de la Cadena draws attention to a certain reciprocal cannibalization of race and ethnicity, which she equates to culture: “In most of Latin America, ‘culture’ has been racialized” (2001: 16). “Culturalist visions of race have been pervasive among Latin American thinkers,” she adds (2001: 23). Thus, the concepts of race and ethnicity tend to be associated in the shared process of assignment to configurations defined by relationships of power and meaning.
3Should the distinction between race and ethnicity be abandoned in favor of the adjective “ethno-racial”? The editors of this issue describe it in their call for contributions as “signaling […] a space of convergence between the two concepts: both refer to the existence of groups based on a common origin or ancestry, whether biologized in the case of race or culturally essentialized in the case of ethnicity.” The suggestion is appealing. A compound word can unite the markers of difference that are often associated almost mechanically with certain populations: for Black people, race; for Indians, ethnicity.
4However, some researchers argue that a separation must be maintained between race and ethnicity precisely because of specific situations where race and ethnicity may have cumulative effects, as in the United States. For Wade, separate terms are needed to address the specific issues of various minority groups and refer to their unique histories: the history of dispossessed Native Americans, who were very early on institutionally otherized; the history of people deported from Africa and the “descendants of black Africans [who] have been located much more ambiguously, as both inside and outside the society of their masters” (2010: 3). This choice sheds greater light on national regimes of otherness, to borrow the title of the book edited by Paula López Caballero and Christophe Giudicelli (Régimes Nationaux d’Altérité, 2016), in which the State selects and organizes the criteria defining “difference” to highlight, by contrast, the idea of the nation it seeks to uphold.
- 3 Ethnographic inquiries that varied in duration (between 10 days and one month) and follow-up were c (...)
- 4 Most researchers today use the term indigenous (indígena) in their writings due to the negative con (...)
5Instead of investigating how the State treats difference, a complementary approach is to focus on the people the State claims to represent. This article follows this approach and builds on previous research regarding the social effects of ethno-legal categorizations based on ethnographies conducted in various sub-regions of the Brazilian Amazon.3 After Brazil implemented differentiated public policies in the 1990s, many populations sought recognition from the State as Black or indigenous.4 This raised questions about how the beneficiaries of these programs, namely the local populations, perceived and interpreted the ethno-legal categories under which they were asked to classify themselves. Did they draw on other concepts, not apparent in public discourse, that were put forward by either the government or activists? And how did government officials react when presented with evidence of a difference, which was unorthodox from their point of view?
6The first section clarifies the perspective of the Brazilian State, to which the populations submit their claims through government agencies, followed by the position of anthropologists who have advocated for the benevolent implementation of differentiated public policies. This brief history highlights the presence of a mirrored process of constructing ethno-legal categories that draws from traditional representations of Black people and Indians.
7The next section presents the main categories used by local populations. Most consider themselves to be a “mixture” (mistura). This hybrid local category is linked to another, the category of “blood” (sangue), which is understood as a means of dispelling the “confusion” (confusão) within a mixture and bringing out a dominant feature that is understandable to the State. These two concepts are essential to reach a convergence between administrative categorizations of differences based on a clear-cut approach to race and ethnicity, and the more flexible understanding of these categories by local populations.
8The final section examines the contrasting uses of references to “blood.” While shared blood can be used as an argument to confirm the extent of kinship ties and thereby contribute to social struggles, it can also be denied to delegitimize a claim or disqualify competing applicants. Therefore, blood also belongs to the language of conflict and can be used in both the accusation and the defense. This leads individuals who are in vulnerable positions to express their willingness to undergo a “blood examination” to establish once and for all the truth of their identity. These examples demonstrate the ability of Amazonian populations to adapt their reference systems and integrate new elements. They seem even more agile than government officials who struggle to know how to respond and frequently remain silent when facing these new uses.
9Closer investigation of the mutations in the concept of blood, the new meanings added to it, and the diversification of its uses should confirm the value of considering local categories that can reveal unexpected connections and possibly open new avenues of research.
- 5 Originally, the term Quilombo referred to the place where escaped Black slaves found refuge and, by (...)
10In 1988, at the end of the military dictatorship, Brazil promulgated a constitution that Jean-François Véran describes as “anthropological” (2013: 81). One of its new features was the inclusion of a right to be different, a right that was not only to be “recognized” but also “protected” (Mendes 2009: 17). Unlike previously, culture ceased to be perceived primarily as the culture of the whole nation, and space was gradually granted in the public arena for unique cultural expressions: alongside indigenous peoples, already considered bearers of unique cultures, Quilombola communities, defined according to a genealogical criterion (descendants of African slaves),5 gradually took their place, followed by populations qualified as “traditional,” mainly characterized by their habitat (riverbanks). These three socio-legal categories are each associated with a specific territorial status that does not fall under the same administration. Indigenous peoples, who are allowed to obtain a concession for permanent and exclusive use of indigenous land (excluding the subsoil), are managed by the National Indian Foundation (FUNAI). Quilombola communities are entitled to collective property ownership, and the National Institute for Colonization and Agrarian Reform (INCRA) is responsible for the delineation of their territories. Finally, traditional populations, for whom various territorial arrangements are provided, can be granted a concession for limited use—subject to strict specifications—by the Chico Mendes Institute for Biodiversity Conservation (ICMBio). This fragmented administrative system led to the formation of a territorial mosaic where Quilombola territories alternate with indigenous lands and extractive reserves, etc. It was built on the assumption that the principle of difference could be an effective criterion of socio-territorial organization and that its application based on contrasting characteristics (such as culture, descent, or environment) would be easy to implement.
11The populations that had previously been mostly ignored by the State placed great hopes in these new provisions, and requests for recognition have been pouring in ever since. Through its professional organization, Brazilian anthropology has contributed significantly to this awakening by making its concepts and expertise with respect to difference available to institutions. Since the 1990s, experts in the discipline have sought to support social activism by agreeing to produce the mandatory technical reports required by government agencies to settle land title claims. Some have gone even further in their social action by giving populations the means to identify with ethno-legal categories by “translating” them into language they could understand, but also by serving as mediators with government officials (Boyer 2010b: 711). Judges have been receptive to their efforts and have often referred to their reports when ruling on cases brought before them.
- 6 Capoeira and Afro-Brazilian religious expressions, rarely practiced at the time in the rural areas (...)
12Thus, these researchers have all been led to reflect on forms of otherness. In the 1990s, the first pressing issue was how to handle the novelty of rural communities that claimed to be Quilombola. To overcome the difficulty of finding a set of characteristics to differentiate their members from those of neighboring communities and thus characterize a Quilombola ethnicity,6 anthropologists turned to older discussions based on phenotype and notably drew ideas from studies on racial inequalities. In other words, even though race has always been more closely associated with Black populations than with indigenous peoples, in the case of Quilombolas, the concept took hold because the specificity of their culture was less visible. The ethno-racial model, therefore, seemed the most effective way of identifying the “difference” of Quilombola communities.
13A similar problem arose when indigenous groups gained a voice in the public sphere, and their uniqueness was not considered any more obvious than that of the Quilombolas. Once considered “resurgent,” they were now called “rexistant” to use Viveiros de Castro’s neologism (2017: 8), which suggests that existence is synonymous with resistance. Since ethnicity was the paradigm associated with indigenous peoples, the ethno-racial model was not transposed to them.
14Although research on both groups was not entirely separate, studies on Quilombolas mainly focused on issues relating to race, while research on rexistant Indians addressed ethnicity, leading to differences in the analytical approaches chosen. With rare exceptions, such as the work of Arruti (1997) and French (2009), researchers focused on a single ethno-legal category and ignored processes of “identity bifurcations” or internal conflicts that would arise when it was time to choose the reference ethno-legal category. These parallel approaches thus reproduced a long-standing and still prevalent division within the discipline in Brazil between ethnology (etnologia), which focuses on Amerindian populations, and anthropology (antropologia), which deals with everything else, including the more recent categories of Quilombola and traditional populations.
15More generally, Quilombolas and Indians are perceived as having distinct dominant characteristics: the former are racialized as Black and, even when this remains implicit, they are often viewed through a biological lens, while the latter are approached from an ethnic perspective, considering that culture shapes their bodies but is not necessarily embedded in their inner being. This seems to resonate with individuals or families who have recently campaigned to obtain recognition of an ethno-legal identity. They are much more likely to focus on “race” when seeking to establish a Black genealogy (nossa raça) than when seeking to assert an indigenous lineage. In the latter case, the word ethnicity (nossa etnia) prevails and is repeated like an incantation. This interpretation is far from being contradicted—and is sometimes even suggested—by external allies (notably members of NGOs, the Church, and anthropologists) who offer their services and networks to support their cause.
16In this sense, Peter Wade’s diagnosis of Colombia applies to Brazil: “the conceptual division between Afro and indigenous has a persistent force, […] which means that recent processes of political mobilization and multiculturalist reform actually tend to reestablish this division” (2018: 121). By implementing new public policies targeting specific groups, the Brazilian government has certainly demonstrated its desire to restore equity between and for populations that had previously been marginalized. However, it presupposes that the identification of rights holders on the basis of unique features simply reveals a naturally heterogeneous reality—that anyone can notice if they put on the right glasses—and thereby contributes to perpetuating powerful and enduring unspoken assumptions about the difference between Indians and Blacks: ethnicity for the former, race for the latter. Even if the criteria that define each category remain ultimately rather vague, their existence suggests that it was assumed to be relatively easy to assign specific groups to one of these ethno-legal categories.
17In reality, race and ethnicity are obviously in constant tension and sometimes feed back into each other. In Brazil, as in Peru, as analyzed by Cadena (2004), reference to race is combined with culture, and conversely, ethnicity is never completely disconnected from the idea of a shared biological ancestry. The perpetrators of ordinary manifestations of prejudice against Quilombolas and Indians do not bother with the distinction. References to the race and/or culture and/or ethnicity of each group are thrown together in public and private discourse whenever the aim is to belittle local populations. It is therefore important to turn to these populations themselves to understand how they approach otherness in a context where the issue at stake is a key means of improving their living conditions.
18In the book mentioned above, Wade points out analogies in the way ethnicity and race operate by associating, albeit slightly differently, transmission and blood:
Racial identifications use aspects of phenotype as a cue for categorization, but these are seen as transmitted intergenerationally—through the “blood”—so that ancestral origin is important; likewise ethnicity is about origin in a cultural geography in which the culture of a place is absorbed by a person (almost “into the blood”) from previous generations. (2010: 20)
19This comparison, rarely attempted in these terms, seems interesting as a way of avoiding an overly strict opposition between these concepts, and thus understanding the sometimes winding paths between the different successive ethno-legal positions of the local populations investigated here. Some, after first positioning themselves as “traditional populations,” presented themselves as Quilombolas, without completely closing the door to a subsequent change to Indians (Boyer 2022).
20Wade’s ideas are based on an article by Enric Gené y Porqueres (2007) on the use of blood in European law as a criterion for defining kinship structure: the connections between individuals are assessed in accordance with their position in lineages connecting the past to the present. In a manner that claims to be objective, the circulation of this substance is what reveals the groups that the law considers relevant. However, on the following page, the anthropologist also emphasizes the contingency of the result:
Inscribed in the past through genealogy, blood ties appear as something that constitutes the individual in his or her relations to others, thereby functioning independently of his or her actions or desires […] A person’s blood is by definition the result of the blending of the blood of the father and the mother. Obviously, in the absence of a cultural pattern impelling individuals to follow any form of positive obligations concerning alliances, the mixture could have been different from the one actually inscribed through genealogy in the body of the individual […] This rhetoric constitutes the social by providing it with a framework of meaning and, by doing so, it generates a set of plausible courses of social action while, at the same time, it makes another set of them impossible. (2007: 127-128, emphasis added).
21In this quote, the author brings out several relevant points. He shows the relationship between blood and genealogy (one is the language of the other), a certain autonomy granted to blood in relation to the subject (the substance apparently links people independently of their will), the actions that the notion of blood makes possible, and the boundaries that can thus be constructed (processes of inclusion and exclusion). It should be noted that his reasoning introduces, as a counterpoint to determination by blood, the idea of a “mixture” as a vehicle for other possibilities, an idea that resonates strongly in Brazilian Amazonia.
22Thus, as soon as anthropologists spend some time in the villages and show a willingness to listen, the villagers talk about a “mixture” that has shaped them through complex personal and collective histories: “We are mixed” (somos misturados) or “It’s all a mixture” (é tudo uma mistura) is a shared observation. References to a “truly Indian” (índia mesma) great-grandmother, a “Portuguese” (português, without further clarification) great-grandfather, and a “very Black” (bem pretinha or morena) grandmother are recurrent. The expression “to be mixed” should not be confused with the scholarly term “miscegenation” (mestiçagem or miscigenação), which in Brazil and more generally in Latin America implies the production of a new being capable of embodying the nation. In a very distinct way, the native “mixture” suggests an accumulation that does not imply any miscibility. This means that a group of relatives considers itself to be the holders of various moral and physical characteristics preserved in their integrity, which come from their ancestors and will then be passed on to their descendants.
23By situating family trajectories within networks of mutual acquaintances rather than in relation to “major” national events, the villagers of the Brazilian Amazon seem to have the same perspective as the inhabitants of the Baixo Urubamba River in Peru, who describe themselves as sangre mezclada (mixed blood) and believe that “history is kinship”:
For indigenous people, history is not experienced as an external force which disrupts a timeless structure of kinship duties and obligations. Kinship relations are created and dissolved in historical time, and historical times derive their meaning and power for indigenous people from being structured by kinship relations. (Gow 1991: 13-14)
24In Brazil, however, a particular historical moment tends to stand out today as an essential reference point: the date these targeted public policies were created. What is celebrated is not so much the unprecedented implementation of a principle of social organization that restored equity following the 1988 constitution; rather, it is the possibility of observing its concrete effects close to home, among neighbors or relatives who have “mobilized” to have their differences recognized.
- 7 The terms used here and in the quotes are those used by the people who refer to themselves as Black (...)
- 8 Further ethnographic details are provided in my articles cited in the bibliography.
25For those who want to follow the same path, it is not enough to simply demonstrate that there has been a mixture: to transform the mixture into a resource, it must be broken down. To analytically clarify what is obviously mixed, two operations are involved. First, the heterogeneous nature of the mixture must be recognized to establish the possibility of revealing primordial matrices to which a connection could be made. This means that from the point of view of the local populations, being truly Indian or Black does not imply a denial of the “mixture”; rather, it is considered an exploration of its possibilities. Second, the mixture must be examined, most often far from institutional representatives but possibly with the help of an anthropologist committed to the cause, in order to propose an interpretation that resolves the uncertainty of the group’s ethnic nature. In this context, it is common for people to disclose a dominant bloodline, which would explain things as diverse as a phenotype, a territorial anchorage, or a collective trajectory. The next examples were statements heard in a community perceived as Black7 by the authorities of the state of Amapá and in Quilombola and rural indigenous communities in the neighboring state of Pará:8
- 9 All names in the article are fictitious.
Black blood is stronger than white blood. Vavá9 has this [light] color but he is the son of a Black man (filho de negro). (Woman, 70, Black, Amapá, 2010)
Recently, they [town officials] came to hold a meeting so that we could make up our minds, [to] explain what the advantages and disadvantages are, [to] look for the roots, if we really are, if we had Indian or Black blood, if we wanted to declare ourselves Quilombolas or Indian. (Man, 45, Quilombola, Pará, 2013)
I consider myself Indian because I have some blood. The Indians were the first to arrive. So, it’s us. Some still have very strong blood. (Woman, 40, indigenous, Pará, 2017)
We are a group of Indians (indianados) with indigenous blood mixed with cearense [people of the state of Ceará in the Northeast Region]. (Man, 50, Indigenous, Pará, 2017)
26These statements show how the vulnerable populations refer to their blood as their strength, and it allows them to position themselves as a minority, even when their phenotype does not completely correspond to the expectations of the State. This capacity was also noted by Edwin Reesink in the Northeast Region, where bodily substance is held to be “a substantialized vector of sociomoral characteristics [which] transmits the quality of being different directly to the descendants of Indians” (2008: 127). It was also reported in the Volta Grande do Xingu Region (state of Pará) by Eduardo Ferreira (2024, chapter 4), who emphasized the superior “strength” attributed to Indian blood, which persists regardless of the other contributions to the mixture.
27The case of the Arara Indians, who have been campaigning for official recognition since the 2010s, is particularly interesting because their claims were made in the context of the social struggles, notably those of Amerindians, against the construction of the Belo Monte dam (2010-2019) in Altamira, which will be discussed further below. As part of the impact studies carried out before the dam was built, genealogies were recorded in which the circulation of blood appears to be an effective marker of difference. Ferreira (2024: 165) observes that, in these genealogies and those subsequently collected by an indigenous activist, non-indigenous people tend to disappear. Within the broad range of indigenous ethnic groups, blood is also used to distinguish those who more specifically belong to certain sub-groups (in the case studied by Ferreira, to distinguish between Arara, Juruna, Xipaya, and Curuaya) and to establish ethnic kinship networks that extend to families located further away geographically.
28Blood is thus placed at the center of a game that consists in reconstructing genealogies, identifying origins, and finding one’s way in the vast web of collateral relatives. This practice is quite common in Brazil and particularly in Amazonia (Pace and Lima 2023: 249-250). It should nevertheless be noted that this criterion is flexible and can be used both to establish a link with people who are genealogically distant but geographically close, and to create a distance with unappreciated relatives living close by or further away. This is part of a wider process of qualification and requalification that depends on the context and the issues at stake. Interpretations of kinship based on blood do not always reach the same conclusion, and some individuals do not agree with the identity assigned to them because their projects are different. The Arara of the Volta Grande do Xingu once again provide a good example: one man refused to join the struggle of his Juruna neighbors to obtain common indigenous land, even though they considered him a relative, and chose to assert his independence later by requesting recognition as an Arara (Ferreira 2024). Instead of claiming family ties that would contribute to a shared ethnic cause, this leader preferred to select relationships among his very close relatives that would later enable him to build his own project.
29In general, local populations seek to avoid the negative consequences of the loss of memories and reference points, which they call a loss of “identity” that ultimately exposes them to a loss of rights. It appears that since blood serves both to examine their mixture and identify kinship ties, it allows them to deal with crucial challenges they encounter. If those who share the same blood belong to the same family, then they also all belong to the same race or ethnic group. By playing the role of a reliable tool in the struggles waged, blood thus generates solidarity between a group of more or less close relatives.
30This process of using blood to bring order into the disorder of a mixture is interesting because it does not focus on the process of excluding an Other whose origin, appearance, or customs conflict with the national ideal. On the contrary, it is fundamentally focused on the inclusion of those who want to use it, who nevertheless remain in the specific position of a minority. The emphasis here is not on forcefully claiming that others are different, but on finding a way to declare and position oneself as different. Likewise, having one’s Indian or Quilombola identity contested can have harmful consequences because it undermines the basis for obtaining access to the status of minority. The next section examines the reactions to this type of controversy and shows how blood is once again used by those involved to prove their case.
31Despite the capacity of blood to establish connections and identify kinship, disputes and accusations nevertheless occur in the social field. Many of the individuals and groups encountered complained of constant challenges to their positioning on the ethno-legal spectrum of difference. These challenges came from farmers and herders who had often illegally seized land and used it as a pretext to drive out its occupants. However, local populations repeatedly reported that strong opposition could also come from others similar to them, who either refused to acknowledge the evidence of a kinship that someone was insisting on establishing or simply accused them of lying.
- 10 The people living in the region have been severely affected by the socio-environmental disruption r (...)
32Before giving a few examples gathered around the town of Altamira, where the Belo Monté dam mentioned above is located, it is important to provide the regional context in which these claims to a difference are made to shed light on the issues involved. To “compensate for” and/or “mitigate” the many negative effects of the dam’s commissioning,10 the Norte Energia company in charge was legally required to implement a Basic Environmental Plan (Plano Básico Ambiental - PBA) which had two parts: one for the “general population” and the other for the “indigenous component.” Without going into detail, it should be noted that the latter was considered more advantageous than the former in terms of compensation, possible projects, and loans granted. The local populations were therefore seeking to include themselves in the PBA-Indigenous Component by claiming an Indian identity.
33This was the case for a sixty-eight-year-old fisherman interviewed several times in 2024, notably at his house, three hours away from the city by boat. During our conversations, Francisco told me how, in a surprise attack, Kayapó Indians killed most of his family and kidnapped his maternal grandmother and aunt, whom he believes to be from another Kayapó group. Much later, in the 1980s, at the funeral of his father (described by Francisco as a “white” man), he found out that his aunt had become the wife of one of the Kayapó leaders and, considering that this union made him a “relative,” he decided to go and live with her in the village on indigenous land, where he stayed for more than ten years. Back in town at the time of the intense protests against the construction of the Belo Monte dam, he identified as a Kayapó Indian, claiming to “have their blood,” and he became known to everyone as Francisco Kayapó.
34When I met him, he was seeking to have his relatives (his sister and his niece) recognized as belonging to this “Kayapó ethnic group” to be able to benefit from the indigenous component of the Basic Environmental Plan. As proof of his good faith, he drew from a file of precious documents a certificate with the letterhead of the National Indian Foundation and the Ministry of Justice confirming his self-declaration (which, unknown to him, had been obsolete since 2020) and another from an association of Altamira’s urban Indians, which he helped found in the 2000s. He also claimed that his maternal cousins in the Kayapó village had “recognized” him as one of their own.
35However, when the opportunity arose to talk with one of his cousins, a sixty-five-year-old Kayapó living six hours away from Francisco’s home by boat, instead of recognizing the kinship, the cousin disavowed it. While Damio was very kindly telling me his life story, his attitude changed radically when I mentioned Francisco. In a tense conversation reproduced here to describe how disqualifying arguments are constructed, Damio brushed aside his cousin’s claims to Kayapó Indianness with a wave of the hand:
Véronique: I knew Francisco Kayapó.
Damio: Francisco, he has the name of Kayapó, but he’s not Kayapó, no.
Véronique: But doesn’t he say that your mother is his aunt?
Damio: Yes. But it’s because he was in trouble that my brothers registered him (cadastraram) as Kayapó.
Véronique: Why did they register him?
Damio: Because he was there in the middle of the village, wasn’t he?
- 11 Their decision might have been motivated by reasons other than compassion. As recently noted by Cés (...)
36After protesting the theft of an ethnonym, Damio admitted, though briefly, that he had a blood link with Francisco and that Damio’s mother was indeed Francisco’s aunt. He also confirmed that his brothers recorded Francisco on the list of registered indigenous people of the village, justifying their decision by the pity they felt for a vulnerable man who happened to be living with them.11 In other words, Damio is not accusing Francisco of lying by inventing a shared blood relationship, but he strongly refuses to let a kinship relationship with Indians, which is legitimate beyond doubt, serve at the same time as irrefutable proof of ethnicity. This reasoning is quite similar to the attitude of the Arara man in the example mentioned above who, while admitting being one of their relatives, refused to be considered Juruna.
- 12 In the 1990s, when I was working on possession cults in Belém, children designated as “foster” chil (...)
37Others go even further by adding other arguments to contest the consanguinity of a kinship relationship. For example, an indigenous Xipaya, who helped many others clarify their connections with an Indian identity by drawing up their family tree, denied that Francisco had any blood relationship with the Kayapó (whom I have so far been unable to interview) and claimed that Francisco was not rightfully a son, but a “foster” child (de criação). Another Xipaya activist questioned about the status of these children explained: “Because I’m raising him, [a criação child] will be [a child] of my heart, but he’s never going to be of my blood.” These words reflect a general and long-standing opinion among “mixed” populations.12 In the absence of shared blood, there is no legitimacy. The flexible practice of referring to blood either to include or exclude, as mentioned in the previous section, is maintained and enriched by new arguments linked to the benefits or disadvantages at the time of claiming or contesting ties, as in this case by separating kinship from ethnicity and consanguinity from adoption.
38Furthermore, to “show their Indian face” (mostrar cara de índio), many individuals decide to wear pearl necklaces, feather crowns, and body paint, but that is not always sufficient to silence the critics. João Maria, a Juruna man in his forties, learned this the hard way during a public hearing when he was accused by the lawyer of a major mining company of “disguising (fantasiar) himself as an Indian, even though his relatives did not recognize (não reconhece) him” as such.
39However, it can be observed that those who suffer from these attempts at disqualification do not abandon the reference to blood in favor of more standard arguments based on culture, lifestyle, or something else. Against all expectations, they still consider blood the ultimate proof that could allow them to reverse an unfavorable balance of power. João Maria claims that he immediately told the lawyer attacking him:
So, I said to him, “Then take all my blood. Because you mean I’m not Indian? Because it’s in the blood. It’s not just paint that will tell whether I’m Indian or not.” […] I don’t think you lose [this quality] because the blood of [my great-] grandmother passed to my grandmother […] He meant that I wasn’t indigenous just because I was characterized (caracterizar). So, I said to him, “Then you have to draw all the blood, all of it, the blood of my ancestors.” So, it’s something that’s not in the appearance, not in the paint. It’s something more.
40For João Maria, emphasizing an identity by “characterizing” himself (caracterizar) is very different from pretending to be something by “disguising” himself (fantasiar). He claims that the proof is in the blood flowing through his veins, which he is prepared to have tested. In the same way, faced with the denial of her ethnicity by her father’s cousin, Clara, Francisco’s niece, declared that she was ready:
To prove [her Indian identity] through an examination […]. It was there, at the Funai […] that I had to do a kind of test; I had to prove that I was his niece […]. It’s through the blood, not through the register [the document previously issued by the Funai]. Because no one could go there and say that I’m Indian without deeper proof.
- 13 When faced with these requests, government officials usually say that they advise these people to f (...)
41These references to “blood examinations,” frequently mentioned in the region, remain somewhat mysterious. Firstly, they are primarily declarations of intent: local populations claim to willingly submit to them, but no one has ever provided written results. Secondly, the civil servants interviewed denied having carried out or required these tests, even though some of them felt, as João Maria also confided to me, that they could have helped them more quickly dismiss cases that they considered weak. That being said, there is little reason to doubt that local communities consider them a possible option to unblock stalled situations, and officials expressed their surprise at the growing number of requests for tests.13
42So, regardless of whether these “examinations” were actually taken, the fact that they were regularly mentioned confirms once again the central role of blood in representations of markers of difference. It should be noted that this is not just a metaphor for close social relationships. Unlike a lifestyle that can change over time as unions are formed with newcomers who have different habits, and unlike language that can be lost for the same reasons, blood apparently never changes. It is said to remain stable because it is inside the body, hidden from view, unlike all other “appearances.” The “deeper proof,” in bold in Clara’s quote above, is thus to be taken literally.
43This shows that the way blood operates to interpret the “mixture” can be reinvented, without losing what makes it unique, by connecting to very modern interpretations of the quest for origins. “Blood examinations” evoke the idea of DNA testing, yet the statements collected almost never mention DNA tests and instead refer to routine blood tests rather than mouth swabs. In both cases, the aim is to go beyond the phenotype to find a “truth.” However, the intentions behind them are almost opposite. While DNA testing is intended for personal use and for intimate knowledge of oneself or the identification of a family relationship between two specific individuals, “blood examinations” have a more pronounced collective dimension because their aim is to improve the living conditions of a group of relatives by assigning them to a new ethno-legal category.
44Finally, another, perhaps less acceptable and more often implicit motivation is worth mentioning: the results of the blood “examinations” are expected to make it easier to distinguish between all these faces that look alike. When I asked João Maria, in an intentionally provocative way, why he had referred to his blood and not his physical appearance when answering the lawyer, he remained speechless at the time. In a later conversation on WhatsApp, he explained to me that “many people have [Indian] features, while true blood that comes from the forefathers, the ancestors, is rare.” Now that the twists and turns of regional history have produced a “mixture,” most individuals seeking recognition of their difference have a similar appearance. However, since minority status is considered exceptional, blood could be what sets them apart; it could be the means to distinguish those who hold legitimate claims from the others. Ultimately, this eminently political category circles back to issues of inclusion, but this time from the darker side of limited access to State resources.
45This Amazonian ethnography suggests that differences can be explored and questioned without using the notions of race and ethnicity as organizing principles (they may be mentioned as qualifiers, but never as the focus of the arguments). Local populations have found another way to define the public image they wish to present, which is to mobilize the “blood” category to interpret their “mixture.” In contrast to a “mixture,” which explains why the association of culture with ethnicity and phenotype with race is no longer always relevant for outsiders, blood buried inside the body can reveal what dominates among a person’s multiple roots (raizes) and, therefore, what must be seen beyond physical appearance. As a revealer of truth, blood is considered the criterion par excellence for proving a person’s specificity, which has become an increasingly urgent necessity as identification with a minority is now a major issue for rural populations.
46The formation of this specific mechanism is probably closely linked to the efforts of the populations to appropriate, in their own terms, the ethno-legal categories introduced by the State in the 1990s and 2000s. When the Brazilian State sought to put the spirit of the 1988 constitution into practice and repair the injustices of colonial history, it adopted a classification terminology based on criteria that were not viewed positively by local populations. The communities to which rights were granted were defined by race or ethnicity, concepts that until then had been associated with exclusion and domination. It goes without saying that their definition as social constructs remains an abstraction that makes little sense to them. In this context, it is likely that “blood,” usually mentioned to emphasize kinship ties, was seen as an adequate translation of the ethno-legal categories of race and ethnicity. In doing so, populations felt they had an effective tool to investigate their family history and position themselves to potentially benefit from targeted public policies.
47This interpretation aligns with the work of Fredrik Barth, who pointed out the importance of State action in differentiation processes and suggested that the legal categories associated with specific rights created by the State encouraged concrete groups to take initiatives to become compatible with them:
Valued resources are arbitrarily allocated, or denied, by bureaucratic action, thereby creating communities of fate—which will next tend to emerge as social, self-aware groups—from formal legal categories. (Barth 2000: 19)
- 14 Those who were opposed to simple individual declarations offered two main arguments: first, it woul (...)
48However, this did not resonate with government circles and anthropologists interested in the new claims; rather, it was Barth earlier writing on defining an ethnic group by examining its boundaries (which can also be applied to race): “The critical feature then becomes […] the characteristic of self-ascription and ascription by others” (Barth 1969, p. 13). This quote is cited in every bibliography and sometimes even in the opinions rendered by judges. This popularity probably explains why, in the early 2010s, the State decided to restrict the criteria for inclusion in public policies in an almost direct application of Barth’s proposal. Thus, the principle of self-definition initially adopted was now combined with “hetero-identification” (Leite 2024). This new requirement may also reflect an attempt by the State to regain control. The argument that this was enacted to fight “fraudulent”14 declarations suggests that the decision was motivated by the excessive number of applications. “Difference” was considered a rare occurrence and was to remain so.
49The emergence of the practice of using blood to define mixture seems to reveal attempts by local populations to conform to official language. However, as soon as they stepped out of invisibility to assert their minority position, they had to provide evidence for their claims, notably third-party testimonies. This requirement soon led to tensions between groups, who found themselves competing to forge alliances with individuals already “recognized” by the State. “Blood” then took on a new dimension. It not only represented the bond between relatives and helped them understand the language of the State, but it also became a category of accusation in an attempt to overcome the obstacles to redistribution.
50In Joanne Rappaport’s book, which addresses the theme of difference based on the figure of the mestizo in New Granada in the 16th and 17th centuries, she indicates that this term functions as a category of exclusion (2014: 13) and, further on, she adds that it serves as a metaphor for the “outsider” (2014: 16). Like race or ethnicity, mestizo is not a concept used by the populations of the Brazilian Amazon. They prefer the term “mixture,” possibly because they prefer to define what unites a group rather than what characterizes a type of individual. However, they face a similar logic of rejection due to a lack of purity and/or “indigenousness” when they are unable to have their self-declaration confirmed by others.
51This observation shows the importance of considering both the connections between the past and the present and the disruptions expected to lead to a better future. In this respect, the interpretative frameworks that refer to race and ethnicity clearly remain deeply entrenched. When justifying or protesting power relations, reference is often made to physical appearance, whether to phenotype or bodily hexis. Everyday racism also draws on these elements, and both race and ethnicity are widely used concepts among the activists who employ them to demand justice. The advantage of the term “ethno-racial” is that it captures the convergence of processes that were previously treated separately.
52Nevertheless, when considering how difference is treated and otherness constructed in concrete situations, the primary focus must be on historically and socially situated registers, arenas, and actors, as was attempted in this article with respect to blood and mixture. Ultimately, the issue is not so much about moving beyond race or ethnicity, or even constructing a concept that includes both, but rather about placing these concepts in their proper context in the specific situations in which they are observed.