The struggle for blood: reflections on the construction and unity of identity of the TEMBE

Abstract

This paper is an attempt to reflect on some aspects of the processes of ‘objectivisation’ and ‘essencialization’ of symbology of ‘Indian blood’, as an element of legitimisation of the social and cultural existence of the Tembé identity or the unity authentically Tembé. This process is understood as inseparable from an analytical procedure of desubstansilisation or denaturalisation of the representation of ‘Indian blood’ from the social genesis of its construction processo. The author attempts to analyse the controversy which appears in the ‘supervised unity’ in relation to the symbology of blood, from which ideas are used as useful instruments in the dispute for the definition of criteria of inclusion and exclusion for different families.