Audiovisual Indigeneities and Cosmopolitics: Shifting Political Grounds in the New Landscapes of Communication and Resources of Hope in Mato Grosso do Sul, Brazil

This dissertation explores how collaborations between Indigenous audiovisual producers from different countries engender political and cultural arenas able to become resources of hope for Indigenous groups facing oppressive local practices. I centred my research on the activism of the Cultural Association of Indigenous Producers, which, since 2008, has cultivated close relations with Indigenous filmmakers from Bolivia and drawn inspiration from Indigenous audiovisual production from Canada. This independent collective is based in Mato Grosso do Sul, the Brazilian state with the second-largest Indigenous population, the largest portion of private lands in the country (92%), and the largest concentration of land for large-scale agricultural and farming operations (83% of private land) (IMAFLORA 2017). This dissertation analyzes how encounters within indigenous audiovisual production have nurtured deep research and creative explorations on subject and identity formation while propelling societal dreams confronting an increasing control of the land in the region by multinational agribusiness. It also examines how "new landscapes of communication" (Beck 2016, 112) created by the emergence of digital media-sharing platforms such as YouTube and Facebook open arenas for the "symbolic confrontation" (Gruzinski 1990) over the meaning of identities, their (re)presentations and their place in different projects of society, as well as spaces of maneuverability for carving paths for transcending the geontopower of neoliberalism (Povinelli 2016, 31). Anthropological interpretations of cosmopolitics present tools for analyzing the antagonistic relationship in Mato Grosso do Sul. Firstly, they draw attention to how political forces are increasingly being "formulated beyond the polis or state form" and how connections, discourses, and actions have been crafted simultaneously inside and outside national borders (Robbins and Cheah 1998, 23). Secondly, understandings of cosmopolitics illuminate political visions lifting the artificial divide between society and nature (Latour 1999, 267). This study is supported by multi-sited fieldwork occurring primarily in Mato Grosso do Sul but encompassing research in La Paz (Bolivia), Montreal (Canada), and online environments. Inspired by Marcus' search for new paths of connection in differently configured spatial canvas (1995, 98), it follows relationships developed during film festivals and audiovisual workshops that enabled participants to imagine contemporary ways of becoming and being indigenous.