‘Marco Temporal Não’: Indigenous Territoriality in Brazil and Latin America

• In Event: Anticolonial Worldmaking

Abstract

In this paper, we—a theorist and a comparativist—examine conceptions of territoriality advanced and articulated in recent Indigenous struggles in Brazil, especially against the marco temporal (temporal milestone) legal thesis being considered by the Brazilian Supreme Court since 2019. Supporters of this thesis claim that demarcation should be limited to Indigenous groups who “possessed” the claimed territory by the time of the promulgation of the Brazilian Federal Constitution (1988). Putting a variety of qualitative data on the recent mobilizations in Brazil (2021-2023) in conversation with key interventions on property, collective rights, territoriality, and Indigeneity in political theory, we contend that the struggle of Indigenous peoples in Brazil against the marco temporal offers a novel and constructive conception of territory. We find that such a conception challenges contemporary arguments that Indigenous claims to land have somehow “expired.” We also explore how it offers a far more fluid and politically generative understanding of territory that can better account for the historical and material effects of colonialism, forced displacement, and assimilation of Indigenous communities that is strategically overlooked by “essentialist” conceptions like the marco temporal. By conclusion, we consider the significance of this conception by comparing the mobilizations in Brazil to similar Indigenous struggles taking place elsewhere in Latin America and explore how it might intervene in the growing debates over territory across comparative politics, international relations, and political theory.

Authors

• Paul M. B. Gutierrez, Boston University

• Karla Mundim, John Jay College