Abstract

FREITAS HONORATO, Bruno Eduardo  and  SILVA SARAIVA, Luiz Alex. Ethnic Tourism and Cultural Dynamics in the Terra Indígena do Rio Gregório, Acre, Brazil. Estud. perspect. tur. [online]. 2019, vol.28, n.2, pp.465-485. ISSN 1851-1732.

Considering the process of touristification observed in many indigenous communities in Brazil, our goal in this study is to investigate the tensions associated with the rescue/invention dynamics of Yawanawa culture in the Terra Indígena do Rio Gregório in Acre, Brazil. The research, based on an ethnography, assumes that tourism consumes cultural traits of a people, while contributing to rebuild, produce and maintain the local culture. The main results suggest a wide hybridism associated with the process of social composition in Yawanawa collective, because the same need for cultural self-affirmation that justified the expulsion of missionaries and the rescue of traditions is challenged by a capitalist scenario from which these people can not escape, even being in the middle of the Amazon Forest. The relation with white man is complex in several senses, especially in those linked to the territory, because he is part of who Yawanawa are, to the ethnicity, due to the need for constant cultural preservation / updating due to the contact with other peoples, and to the economy, which turns into consumption the forms of indigenous existence, onde they need to qualify to attract tourists and earn resources for the maintenance of traditional communities.

Keywords : Touristification; Ethnic tourism; Cultural dynamics; Indigenous peoples; Yawanawa.

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