Title: Legalizing identities
First published: 2009
Description: Anthropologists agree that identities--even ethnic and racial ones--are socially constructed. Less understood are the processes by which social identities are conceived and developed. This book shows how law can successfully serve as the impetus for the transformation of cultural practices and collective identity. Through ethnographic, historical, and legal analysis of successful claims to land by two neighboring black communities in the backlands of northeastern Brazil, the author demonstrates how these two communities have come to distinguish themselves from each other while revising and retelling their histories and present-day stories. She argues that the invocation of laws by these related communities led to the emergence of two different identities: one indigenous (Xoco Indian) and the other quilombo (descendants of a fugitive African slave community). With the help of the Catholic Church, government officials, lawyers, anthropologists, and activists, each community won government recognition and land rights, and displaced elite landowners. This was accomplished even though anthropologists called upon to assess the validity of their claims recognized that their identities were "constructed." The positive outcome of their claims demonstrates that authenticity is not a prerequisite for identity. She concludes that, far from being evidence of inauthenticity, processes of construction form the basis of all identities and may have important consequences for social justice
Subjects: Blacks, Shocó Indians, Ethnic identity, Land tenure, Legal status, laws, Ethnology, Group identity, Ethnicity, Social conditions, Ethnology, brazil, Brazil, social conditions, Black people, Ethnicity--brazil--sergipe, Ethnology--brazil--sergipe, Group identity--brazil--sergipe, Blacks--legal status, laws, etc, Blacks--legal status, laws, etc--brazil--sergipe, Shocó indians--legal status, laws, etc, Shocó indians--legal status, laws, etc--brazil--sergipe, Blacks--ethnic identity, Blacks--brazil--sergipe--ethnic identity, Shocó indians--ethnic identity, Shocó indians--brazil--sergipe--ethnic identity, Blacks--land tenure, Blacks--land tenure--brazil--sergipe, Shocó indians--land tenure, Shocó indians--land tenure--brazil--sergipe, F2636 .f74 2009, 305.800981/41
Places: Brazil, Sergipe, Sergipe (Brazil)
LC classification: F2636 .F74 2009