On the interethnic frontier: indigenous participation within the Dedicated Grant Mechanism for Indigenous Peoples and Local Communities Brazil
Participation, Development Projects, Dedicated Grant Mechanism for Indigenous Peoples and Local Communities
The present work aims to understand how indigenous people understand themselves and are understood within the context of participation within a development agenda. To do so, use the Dedicated Grant Mechanism for Indigenous Peoples and Local Communities Brazil (DGM) project as a case study, given the wealth of actors that make up its design - World Bank, Non-Governmental Organizations, federal public administration bodies, Traditional Peoples and Communities, Quilombolas and Indigenous Peoples.
Methodological development of a documentary analysis of the project and implementation of semi-structured interviews with representatives of Traditional Peoples and Communities, Quilombolas and Indigenous Peoples on two milestones of participation in the DGM: carrying out free, prior and exciting consultations for project design and the project management through the National Steering Committee. An analysis of what is said about the mediate narrative of the joint literature with the main one about participation in development projects and differentiated ethno-cultural groups.
From the analyzed data, it can be understood that such groups do not understand themselves as homogeneous, even though they share similar demands and historical contingencies. Participation for them is better when carried out in contexts of free and self-organization of times and spaces, with the execution speed of both frameworks and technical languages limiting the understanding and effective participation of the segments.
The decision-making power is considered important, even if they include the limitations imposed by the financers and trustees, realizing the existence of power disputes both between the different segments of the project, and between these and the financers and trustees. Finally, the data also indicate that participation in the DGM was considered enriching in terms of training political agents, but that the distance between the results of the consultations and the actual performance weakened the segments in relation to their organizations.