Indigenous issues in urban contexts: Other approaches, new perspectives on moving borderse

Abstract

The current article aims at discussing how Terena community in the urban context of Campo Grande, Mato Grosso do Sul, construct their ethnicity, in-between spaces of border relations, mantaining the community’s identity bonds with their ancesters, that is, with their tradition. From this approach, the study investigated how such indigenous group has constructed different insertion and negotiation strategies in the non-indigenous society in order to guarantee their survival, having the work as the main promoter. The family plays an important participation as the main intermediator in the origin indigenous villages displacement to the urban centre of Campo Grande, more specifi cally, to Marçal de Souza and Água Bonita indigenous villages, and thus have guaranteed their insertion and adaptation in a new social space. One can register that the emergence of conflicts caused by the indigenous population displacement to the urban centre, from 1960, has increased in the last 20 years and has caused serious sociopolical, economical and cultural problems, particularly to Terana.

Key words: Terena, urban space, ethnicity, cultural borders.