Território e informação: o uso do território pelos indígenas no Catu e Amarelão, RN

Abstract

The premise of the nonexistence of Indigenous peoples in Rio Grande do Norte has been contested since the 2000s, when individuals living in rural areas of municipalities in eastern Potiguar began to reclaim their ancestry as descendants of the original peoples of this territory. The Indigenous community of Catu, which disputes the use of its territory with the sugaralcohol industry, and the villages in the Amarelão dos Mendonças territory, which contest land use with the wind energy sector, have been leveraging the internet, particularly social media, to support their struggle for land demarcation. In light of this, the central question this research seeks to answer is: how do Indigenous communities appropriate the internet to redefine the uses of the Catu and Amarelão territories in Rio Grande do Norte? The general objective of this study is to analyze how the Indigenous communities in these territories use and appropriate the internet as a strategy of territorial resistance, to enhance cultural visibility and foster mobilization against the capitalist imposition of territory as a resource, especially in contesting and negotiating the impacts caused by wind energy projects and the expansion of sugarcane cultivation. To achieve these objectives, methodological procedures were divided into three parts: first, bibliographic and documental research, which contributed to the theoretical foundation and discussions; second, fieldwork, where questionnaires were applied, dialogues were conducted, GNSS data and photographs were collected; and finally, the collected data were critically analyzed in light of the chosen theory, resulting in a dissertation text containing maps, graphs, and images. As a result, it was possible to analyze the impact of the internet's evolution on the Indigenous communities of Catu and Amarelão, showing how it is beginning to transform the realities of individuals who seek to use their territories as shelter. The use of social media has a dual effect: on one hand, it enables the pursuit of public policies for Indigenous peoples, as well as the demarcation of their lands; on the other, it facilitates the insertion of ideologies from the capitalist psychosphere into these communities. Nonetheless, it is worth highlighting that the use of social media has decisively contributed, at all levels of the Indigenous struggle, to political organization, territorial resistance, and cultural visibility. Even so, upon its completion, it is evident that this work can contribute to state planning for the demarcation of the Indigenous lands addressed here, as well as provide a foundation for future studies on the subject.