As ceramistas Karajá e o processo de registro de suas bonecas de cerâmica como patrimônio cultural do Brasil

Abstract

It is through their pottery dolls that Karajá women (self-named In ) convey the picture their people have of themselves and their identity. By modelling clay, they take on an important role on the legitimation of the “Karajá way of being”, creating and recreating the meanings that support their world perspective, besides cultural and ethnic identity. This paper’s objective is to reflect upon the registration of these pottery dolls as a Brazilian cultural heritage (by the Artistic and Historical Heritage National Institute – IPHAN), having these potter women’s conceptions and practices as a central object in this process. Thus, I bring some thoughts on some agencies and people’s actions in the aforementioned process; on the recognition they have been seeking for as an instrument of dissemination and valuation of the potters’ knowledge and work, on the circulation of the dolls/ritxoko as a possibility for network widening and political strengthening, on the appropriation of the institutional discourse and its re-elaboration from an ethnicpolitical point of view, and on the feminine political protagonism that emerges from these potters’ work and craft.