Waimiri-Atroari Resistance in the Presence of an Indigenist Policy of ‘Resistance’
Author(s)
Baines, Stephen Grant
Abstract
This article examines the resistance of the Waimiri-Atroari Indian people in a situation where government indigenist policy has been subordinated to the interests of large-scale economic development projects (the giant Pitinga mining complex of the Paranapanema Group and the Balbina hydroelectric scheme). The administration has appropriated a rhetoric of Indian ‘resistance’ to mask a situation of extreme domination and to sell images of a model assistance programme. The native strategy of learning the rules of the game of the official indigenist policy is examined, not as a passive but as an active reaction of accommodation to a situation of extreme domination, reflecting the immense power of large companies in controlling the destiny of Indian peoples
