“Se o índio for original”: a negação da coetaneidade como condição para uma indianidade autêntica na mídia e nos estudos da linguagem no Brasil

Abstract

In this paper, I address the idea of ​​denial of coevalness and how it takes shape in media discourses and in some epistemological assumptions of language studies to which an “authentic Indigenous identity” is presumably important. In order to do so, I begin the discussion by presenting a radical and violent case of denial of indigenous coevalness in Brazilian media, and I seek, in the sequence, to deepen the understanding of this concept, from its original context of internal criticism to Anthropology, passing through its appropriation by decolonial studies. From this theoretical apparatus, I present instances of its implementation in Brazilian hegemonic journalistic discourses aiming to make explicit how the denial of coevalness is strategic and serves supralocal interests which make it easily circulate in society. Finally, I present the hypothesis that the denial of coevalness is implemented, perhaps in a more subtly and naturalized ways, in theoretical assumptions of language studies that focus on Indigenous languages ​​and sociolinguistic situations. For this, I report an empirical research, of meta-theoretical approach, whose results tend to confirm that hypothesis.