Cantar pindorama: indiofuturismos na cação brasileira

Abstract

Brazilian popular songs provide an opportunity to investigate the figuration of indigenous peoples and their cultural criticism, creating a panorama and proposing the expansion of their studies. Contextualized in the convergences of the fields of Cultural Studies and Critical Utopian Studies, this thesis aims to generate new theoretical postulates of such representations. For that, I analyze in the Brazilian repertoire its poetic discourses and thematic and imagery recurrences. Having as starting points mapping, reading and listening to and analyzing the corpus, formed by seven songs related to the proposed theme and selected from a wider survey of 80 songs launched between 1960 and 2022, I elaborated 3 analytical axes addressed in an interconnected way: 1. indiofuturismo; 2 gender representations and 3. relations with the land. Thus, I postulate the concept of indiofuturismo, based on Bloch's (2005) theories on utopianism, the concepts of hybridity and cultural third place (BHABHA, 2003), as well as on American Afrofuturisms (DERY, 1994), indigenous futurism (DILLON, 2012) and Brazilian anthropophagy (ANDRADE, 1928; ANDRADE, 1924). In the introductory chapter I discuss the basic concepts of the thesis. In the second chapter, I focus on the songs “Um Índio” (1977) by Caetano Veloso, “Xondaro Ka'aguy Reguá” (2020) by Kunumi and “Tubi Tupy” (1999) by Lenine and Rennó, whose analyses lead to the proposal of the concept of indiofuturismo. In the third chapter, I approach the figuration of the indigenous woman, by studying "Indígena futurista" (2022), by Katu Mirim, and "Mãos Vermelhas" (2019), by Kaê Guajajara, from the perspective of Gender Studies, seeking similarities and differences between theories of intersectionality (CRENSHAW, 1986; LUGONES, 2014; ANZALDÚA, 2016; MENDOZA, 2016) and community feminism (PAREDES, 2010; 2015; 2018). In the fourth chapter, I propose a scrutiny of environmental issues and outline dialogues between the concept of bem viver (as systematized by Acosta, 2016), which is based on the philosophy of indigenous peoples and ecofeminism, and the songs “Serpente-Mulher” (2021), by Suraras do Tapajós, and “Amor de Índio” (1978), by Beto Guedes (1978), focusing on the ways in which the aforementioned fields of study intertwine with the idea of ancestry. The works of Canclini (2008), Krenak (2020), and Wisnik (1989; 2019) are used throughout the analytical path, as they raise problematizations that permeate the thesis. The results of the analyses demonstrate that indiofuturistic songs are guided by indigenous worldviews that oppose capitalism and the Anthropocene. From this critique, I conclude that indiofuturismo is not linked to linear time, but to ancestral conceptions of spiral time. In addition, the analyses are in line with the principles of bem viver which, as an especially important concept in Latin America, has closeties to the local indigenous peoples. These peoples' social and environmental claims and struggles are present in these compositions, instigating us to explore new strategies for inhabiting Pacha Mama and Abya Yala in respectful coexistence with others life forms, based on ancestral knowledge. This thesis contributes to the expansion of the postulates of the areas of study mentioned above, by proposing indiofuturismo, which is a theoretical approach still in development in Brazil.