Identidade e memória de habitantes de Fortaleza-CE originários da comunidade Tremembé de Almofala-CE: ramas de raízes indígenas em trânsito na cidade

Abstract

This research addresses the process of identity metamorphosis among the Tremembé people of Almofala (Itarema-CE), who now live in Fortaleza, in a context of invisibility and lack of recognizability. It aims at understanding, through their narratives, how the varied groups of families elaborate their indigenous identities in tandem with the work of collective memory around the relation between the land of origin and the land of destiny where they work, considering their exchange with relatives, their opinions about the struggle for land demarcation and indigenousness in the land of origin, as well as the dificulties and the possibilities of an indigenous citizenship within an urban context. The life history and testimony of fourteen different tremembés living in the capital and of twelve relatives living in the land of origin constitute the principal base of our data. Drawing from a hermeneutic critical perspective and following the lines of direction provided by the methods of historical materialism and phenomenology, the analysis shows how the subjects of research elaborate their identities in an urban context through a process of metamorphosis different from the process of indianization of their relatives living in Almofala, the latter closely connected to the indigenous political movement. The identities articulated within the urban context, nevertheless, continue to build themselves on the affective structure of belonging to the land of origin as land of the indians , and on the attachment to the family matrix in this land of origin performed through collective memory and the exchange of information, opinion, conflict, healing practices, social knowledge and other Tremembé traditional practices. The different individual opinions about indigenousness, land demarcation, dificulties and possibilities of organization in the city tend to converge to a family group opinion, and the latter differ from one another, though they do agree in a few points, such as the recognition of belonging to a Tremembé indigenous community and the victories of indigenous political organization in Almofala in contrast to the difficulties of living in Fortaleza. It is thus possible to conclude that the identity of the tremembés living in Fortaleza presents itself in suspension regarding a current indianization, but with a paradigmatic tendency towards a pendular potency for new transformations that ground the process of their identity metamorphosis. Such identity formation then is understood as the preparation of new generations as actors of indigenous emancipation and citizenship