2023-07-26 17:00:00
Joelmir Silva and Kamatxi Ikpeng interview Francisco de Assis, director of the Xingu+ Network and president of AMORERI|Silia Moan/ISA
Coming from different regions in the Xingu Basin, the 26 Xingu+ Network communicators met in Brasilia for two main tasks: organizing the collective’s bylaws – with the construction of mutual agreements between indigenous peoples and border people to guide activities and governance – and participating in workshops and meetings to expand the group’s communication potential.
The bylaws were drawn up collectively, based on valuing the diverse thinking of communicators from the Xingu Basin.
Throughout the production of the document, they were able to reflect on the place they occupy in their societies, writing, recording and editing to report topics that they understand with their communities that are relevant.
“The main objective of building these agreements is to understand how relations between communicators, Xingu+ Network counselors and Xingu communities can be strengthened,” said communicator Arewana Juruna during the meeting.
For communicator Kujaesãge Kaibi, creating the regiment for Xingu+ communicators makes it possible for the 26 communication links in Xingu to organize themselves and understand how their community and network activities work.
“What is our role within our associations as communicators?”, she asks, to then answer: “the solution lies within the regiment that we have drawn up! This is our guide written and approved by the counselors of the Xingu+ Network, who accompany our work”.
At the meeting of Xingu communicators, the 12 Xingu+ counselors reflected with the communicators on their roles with indigenous and border associations.
“You are the eyes that publicize what happens in our territory. You are a link between associations and communities. Within the [Associação Terra Indígena Xingu] ATIX, communication is very important. We created a department to show what we do in the Xingu Indigenous Territory”, said Iré Kaibi, former executive director of the Xingu Indigenous Association and currently Regional Coordinator of Funai CR Xingu.
The regiment for Xingu+ communicators provides for monthly meetings between communicators, Xingu associations, Xingu+ advisors, and technical assistance from the Xingu+ Network for the alignment of coverage of assemblies and meetings in villages and localities of Xingu.
Kujaesãge Kaibi at the head of the audiovisual record of the meeting of indigenous women held in Rio Branco (AC) in 2017|Marilia Garcia/ISA
Mydjere Kayapó, representative counselor of the Kabu Institute in the Xingu+ Network, concluded by stating that the role of communicators is very important to record the stories of the mebêngôkre for the next generations: “communicators are circulators of knowledge between the past, present and future”, he reflected the Kayapo leadership.
In addition to looking at the daily lives of their collectives, when they are in their territories, the communicators pay special attention to the impacts of the invasion of prospectors, land grabbers and wood thieves.
When there is a setback, within the scope of indigenous and border rights in the governmental sphere, the communicators are attentive to produce and disseminate audio and images with manifestations that their communities share with the world.
In addition, over the last few years, Xingu+ communicators have participated in the collaborative coverage of Acampamento Terra Livre (ATL) – a national indigenous mobilization held annually to combat projects that threaten the lives of indigenous peoples – along with other important communication vehicles and groups, such as Mídia Indígena, Midia Guarani Mbya and Articulação dos Povos Indígenas do Brasil (Apib).
Communicating against the threats to the Xingu Indigenous communicators from TIX and border people from Terra do Meio strengthen the collaborative coverage of Camp Terra Livre|Sília Moan/ISA
“By manipulating cameras, programs and filming and editing applications, we can tell how we are being pressured by the advance of deforestation from our lenses and framing”, reflects the communicator Xokarowara Parakanã, who lives in the Apyterewa Indigenous Land, with 774 thousand hectares, one of the most threatened territories in the Xingu.
Detachment from the Apyterewa Indigenous Land
According to PRODES data, in 2019 Apyterewa ranked 2nd among the most deforested ILs in the Amazon (with 8,527 ha). In 2021, TI moved to first place in the deforestation ranking and recorded, according to Sirad-X, the Xingu + Network monitoring system, more than 8,100 hectares of deforestation.
Motivated by the desire to face the pressures and threats they suffer in their territories, the communicators expressed doubts about how to use communication to qualify complaints about destruction and deforestation in their territories.
Rio Xingu connects the 26 Xingu+ communicators who identified the territorial confluences between the Xingu communication collective during the meeting in Brasília|Rede Xingu+
Who answered was the duo Tukumã Pataxó and Kefas Pataxó, both born in the village of Coroa Vermelha, in the extreme south of Bahia. The Pataxó producers expanded to all participants of the meeting the notions of using social networks to combat prejudice, secure communications for denouncing territorial invasion and strategies for rapid and qualified dissemination of information related to demonstrations in Xingu territories.
“Communicators can occupy spaces and take their ideas to the people who need to hear them,” said Tukumã Pataxó on the importance of using communication to denounce threats to the Xingu.
With the guidance of Tukumã and Kefas, the communicators produced videos showing the importance of the Xingu for the planet, with the aim of deepening the content production cycle so that the communicators would return with more learning to their territories.
Concepts of scripting, filming, editing and distribution were addressed by social network of the Xingu+ communicators, which was created during the meeting based on the desire of the communicators and their leaders to share their visions and ways of producing knowledge with different societies.
The social media editor of the Instituto Socioambiental (ISA), Ariel Gajardo and the intern Wuara Antezana supported the Xingu+ communicators in creating the first posts on the media collective’s social network, one of which was about the Xingu Basin.
To share with the surrounding society the importance of the Xingu to the world, the Xingu+ communicators chose a phrase that the president of ATIX Ianukula Suyá Kaibi spoke during the 8th General Governance meeting of the Xingu Indigenous Territory: “the river that passes through your house also passes through mine”.
8th General Governance Meeting of the Xingu Indigenous Territory
The GGTIX took place at the Diauarum hub, in the lower Xingu region, in the state of Mato Grosso. The meeting, which is held annually, brought together indigenous leaders from the Xingu to discuss urgent issues regarding health care and territorial rights. The Minister of Indigenous Peoples, Sônia Guajajara, was present at the meeting, which was covered by Xingu+ communicators.
For communicator Renan Kisedje, the phrase symbolizes that the river unites everyone and that what happens in the Xingu territories also impacts the rest of the planet.
From the forest to the central plateau If, on the one hand, Xingu communicators produce information based on the thoughts of their villages and communities, on the other hand, they strengthen their relationships by also exchanging knowledge among themselves in different spaces. It is by raising the 1988 Constitution in front of the National Congress that the communicator Kunity Panará celebrates the rights of indigenous peoples|Rede Xingu+
This year’s ATL was no different. The communicators mobilized to collectively produce informative photos, videos and audio bulletins with information on the agendas of the indigenous national mobilization.
They brought details of the marches and testimonials from leaders from other regions, presenting to the Xingu people who are in the village an intercultural look of the communicators on the reflections brought by the indigenous people who are connected to the guidelines in Brasília.
With an eye on the mobilization, the communicators thought of a content dissemination grid based on the ATL 2023 schedule, prioritizing important facts for their communities.
Outside the indigenous national mobilization, Xingu+ communicators photographed and filmed leaders and representatives of the Xingu+ Network during the presentation of the document Xingu under pressure to the main federal agencies.
The document denounces the increase in deforestation in the Xingu Basin, revealing that more than 730,000 hectares have been deforested in the region in the last four years, according to the Deforestation Radar Indication system. Close-X.
Xingu is one!
New this year was the participation of communicators and border leaders from Terra do Meio, such as Francisco de Assis, president of the Iriri River Residents Association, and Joelmir Silva, border communicator from the Maribel Community, located in the Cachoeira Seca Indigenous Land.
“The relationship between the indigenous peoples and border people of Terra do Meio is very important, because when indigenous territories are deforested, border territories are also deforested. It is important for us, as border people, to be in this fight for the demarcation of Indigenous Lands, because it is by demarcating the ILs that our existence as a traditional population is guaranteed”, said Joelmir Silva in an interview conducted by Naia Waurá for the production of the video The indigenous future is todayby the Xingu+ communicators about ATL 2023, which was edited by Arewana Juruna, from the Tuba-tuba village, on TIX.
During the mobilization, indigenous communicators and border workers prepared the script, interviewed and filmed the leaders, distributing in their networks the vision of other indigenous peoples who were present at the ATL about the mobilization.
The interviews took place in pairs, who together filmed and interviewed. This provided a closer interaction between the communicators, who strengthened their ties and exchanged more about their realities and audiovisual knowledge. This methodology made it possible to multiply knowledge, strengthen bonds and align strategies between the different communicators of the Xingu.
The Xingu+ Network of Communicators is formed by a group of 26 people from Xingu: people living on the edge of Terra do Meio, Xikrin from the Indigenous Land Trincheira Bacajá, Arara and Juruna from Volta Grande, Xipaya, Parakanã, Arara from the ILs Arara and Cachoeira Seca, Kayapó-Mebêngôkre , Panará, Ikpeng, Kisedje, Waujá, Kalapalo, Kawaiwete, Yudjá.
Together since 2019, the communicators have been exchanging information about their ways of life through photographic and audiovisual production to strengthen the network of relationships between the peoples who are embraced by the Xingu River.
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