Death and struggle, silence and voice: the case of indigenous guardian Paulo Paulino Guajajara’s assassination, in the state of Maranhão

Abstract

The objective of this article is to analyze the case of Paulo Paulino Guajajara’s assassination, a forest guardian in the Arariboia Indigenous Land in the state of Maranhão, as well as its context and consequences for the indigenous movement. We start from decolonial thought, relating it to the concepts of necropolitics and homo sacer in state of exception scenario. In addition to discussing categories, we used ethnographic techniques to collect data: observation, public statements, documents and digital archives. Maranhão is characterized as a space in which coloniality/modernity has disregarded the local experiences and histories of peoples and communities affected by attempts to degrade, silence, and kill subjects whose humanity had been disregarded. In this scenario, the indigenous people, organized as a movement, articulated the struggle for justice and rights. Thus, Paulo Paulino’s assassination was mobilized by the indigenous movement as an instrument of struggle and enunciated as an example of resistance to coloniality. Crossed by modernity projects and by international capital, Maranhão is also a space of decoloniality, of enunciation of experiences that have no place in the logic of modernity thrown over this space, its resources, and its people.