The leadership movement in Rio Negro: trajectories, transitions and continuity

By highlighting the trajectories of some leaders from the organized indigenous movement in the Upper Rio Negro as pivotal points of historical and ethnographic information, this article primarily reflects on two aspects. On one hand, it examines the different aspects of the local and ethnographic conception of leadership – a term with multiple and variable meanings over time, encompassing both belonging to ethnicities, clans or families, territorial areas, as well as education, skills to deal with bureaucracies, languages and government and/or third sector agents, among others. The second aspect regards a certain generational transition that the indigenous movement in the Upper Rio Negro has been going through. Thus, this is a contribution to the description of this social role, which reiterates, diverges from, and creates discourses and institutional arrangements based on political positions in the region such as captain, tuxaua, elder brother and shaman alongside organized civil society in support of indigenous and environmental rights. The analysis seeks to understand the relationships between individual trajectories (leaderships) and collective ones (associations and other political spaces). To achieve this, it draws on conversations, interviews and texts from the leaders; institutional documents and observation of FOIRN’s activities and part of the ethnological and ethnographic literature on the region.

Keywords
Indigenous leadership; Indigenous movement; Upper Rio Negro