O Acesso dos Guarani e Kaiowá ao karaí kuatiá

Abstract

This paper aims to analyze the relationships that the Guarani and Kaiowá establish with the karaí kuatiá (documents of non-indigenous people), such as the Administrative Registry of Indian Birth (RANI, Registro Administrativo de Nascimento Indígena) and the Civil Registry of Birth, and how the Brazilian Government acts violently by not providing ethnic specificities in these documents. The methodology used was the ethnographic field research and analysis of other ethnographies. The field/routine of work as a Specialized Indigenist of Funai occurred throughout 2018, when I worked as a "registrar" of documents in the Local Technical Coordination of Caarapó, Mato Grosso do Sul. Identification documents are prerequisites for basic rights such as health, school education, social security and formal employment. In Mato Grosso do Sul, a state with the highest rate of under-registration among indigenous people in Brazil, the absence of these karaí kuatiá disturbs the lives of the Guarani and Kaiowá. Specificities such as naming and changing names throughout life, and breakdowns and rearrangements of kinship are not respected in these documents, which hardens their access. Territorial dynamics also influence the achievement of these roles. Families who have lived longer in Indian Protection Service demarcated reserves consequently have greater facility to obtain the ID, while those who resist in the back of farms remain undocumented. Indigenous people living in municipalities on the border of Paraguay are even more marginalized because, if they do not have documents, they are considered Paraguayans, and vice versa, in a cycle of endless difficulties. Funai, an entity that should be prepared to understand the specificities of indigenous people, sees RANI as something smaller that should be extinguished. The insufficient number of people working added to the large number of demands met contributes to the weakening of this karaí kuatiá. There is no other effective way to solve the situation of under-registration of these indigenous peoples in the country.