Militarized coloniality: the crisis in Yanomami indigenous land as a historical process of violent State-building

Abstract

This article examines the increase in violence against indigenous people as a practice stimulated by a militarized coloniality historically identified in the Brazilian State. In particular, it examines the crisis — health, socio-environmental, civic and ethnological — in the Yanomami Indigenous Land (TIY). Conceptually, we interpret Coloniality as operationalized by Aníbal Quijano and Walter Mignolo. By contextualizing the colonial phenomenon, we recapitulate notable territorial interventions in TIY, carried out by the Brazilian State during the civil-military regime imposed in 1964. Listing aspects and motions of a state coloniality engendered by the process of militarization of Brazilian institutions accentuated since 2019, we observe that violence is current and intrinsic to the formation of the Brazilian State itself. The study follows a qualitative approach, proposing three axes to measure violence, identified as legal, institutional and discursive. Finally, the study assumes the humanitarian commitment of scientific social knowledge and the relevance of applying Peace and Conflict Studies (EPC) to indigenous peoples.