THE (UN)LIKELY ENVIRONMENTAL FOOTPRINT: AN ANTHROPOLOGICAL REFLECTION ABOUT THE IDEA OF SUSTAINABILITY AMONG “INDIGENOUS PEOPLES”

Abstract

This article is a call for a reflection on the perspectives adopted by the general public and some researchers about the “Indians” and their relations with the natural environment. The objective is to demonstrate using examples from Brazil that cultures and societies are not static in time and space, there­fore it is not adequate to think of indigenous groups out of connection with their contemporary reality. There is no ideal “traditional” society in the same way that all cosmopolitan citizens are not equally responsible for the current environmental degradation. Hence, to expect that people of any group today remain frozen in an idyllic past and not take into consideration their specificity, making simplistic generalizations about their socioecological situation is an academic temerity, and may have serious consequences for those groups and the environment. Keywords: Indians, environment, ecology, bioanthropology, Amazonia.