Introduction
Based on a case from ethnographic fieldwork involving photographic reenactments of archive photographs with (presumably) indigenous Caixana in the Brazilian Amazon, this chapter details the unforeseen, and unintended, ethical aspects and political potential of repatriating archive material to (presumed) descendants of those (presumably) indigenous people portrayed in the original photographs.
In 2015, I was working among members of several indigenous groups in the Upper Amazon region, as part of a comparative research project involving repatriation, analysis, and re-figuration of photographic archives produced in the area 150 years ear- lier.1 The central idea of the project was to interrogate the archives with indigenous descendants through a specific methodology devised for this purpose which involved experimental photographic reenactments based on in-depth photo-elicitation (Vium, 2017a, 2018, 2020, forthcoming). A year prior, I had worked in Central Australia among Arrernte and Warlpiri people, employing this method, which had enabled a particular form of affective dialogue that opened up an enunciative space of complex biographical layers inherent in the archive material (Bhabha, 1994; Edwards, 2001, 2006; Kuhn, 2007, 2010; Vium, 2018, 2020, forthcoming). The axiom of this approach was photographic reenactments in which descendants would embody their ancestors through an improvisational mode of performative experimentation with postures, gazes, and choreographies of bodies in significant spaces, whether sacred or profane. A crucial element in the methodology is its flexibility and playfulness (cf. Agnew, 2004, p. 327). Rather than a strict protocol for 1:1 historical reenactment down to the smallest detail, it is intended to work as a dynamic and inclusive framework for extra-verbal embodiment that demands collaboration, trust, and a relinquishment of control on the part of the anthropologist (Vium, 2018, forthcoming; Waltorp, 2021). This is not a quest for historical truth, butDOI: 10.4324/9780429445668-5
Indigenous, I Presume? 55 rather a companionship toward “‘unlearning imperialism” (Azoulay, 2019) through dialogue and experimentation.
Toward the end of fieldwork along 1,600 kilometers of the Alto Solimoes River, I went with my assistant—anthropologist Edson Tosta Matarezio Filho, a colleague from Sao Paulo, who had worked in the region—to visit the Caixana settlement of Sao Sebastiao.2 We brought with us a selection of photographs that (presumably) depicted their ancestors. We had arranged this meeting from the nearby city of Tonantins, and as we arrived on motorcycle taxis, we were surprised to see a large gathering of people impatiently awaiting us, which was unusual compared to our previous experiences in other localities in the region. As we presented ourselves and proceeded to show them the archive photographs, they discussed and photographed the archives with great interest. They invited us for a guided tour around the settlement, explaining their history in considerable detail. We subsequently made a series of new photographs in which people collaborated optimistically, dedicated and focused on reenacting elements of the original photographs. All of this was photographed and filmed enthusiastically with smartphones by members of the community.
At the end of this eventful day, the same motorcycle taxis came to pick us up and bring us back to Tonantins. My driver was a young, nonindigenous woman living in the area. She asked me about the day, and when I told her of what had passed, she began complaining vehemently that the Caixana were claiming ownership of tracts of land that had been inhabited by non- indigenous people for decades. She was afraid that she and her family along with many others would lose “their” land as part of these negotiations. Together with my colleague, I soon discovered that the core issue in these negotiations, which were in their final phase, revolved around whether the Caixana could indeed be accorded indigenous status.
Central to success in this endeavor was the ability of the Caixana to assert their historical occupancy of the area and perform their “cultural identity” convincingly (Agier, 2001; Garcia Canclini, 1995; Gupta and Ferguson, 1992; Hall, 1996). Upon researching this matter further, it dawned upon us why the inhabitants of Sao Sebastiao had been so enthusiastic about our arrival with the old photographs of their presumed ancestors. Perhaps these images and our coming as foreign scientists could be used in the negotiations, given the fact that the Caixana were widely perceived as a contested indigenous group without a recognized distinct language or, for that matter, a creation myth and rituals “verified” by previous scientific studies, as in the case of their neighbors, the Ticuna and Miranha? Few, if any, anthropologists or historians had “written” the story of the Caixana people. Yet here they (still) were, claiming recognition.In this chapter, I describe and analyze how I, a foreign anthropologist with limited experience of working in the Brazilian Amazon, became entangled in a complex juridical dispute over land in the process of repatriating and reenacting a set of archival photographs. I address the notion of appropriation (Ashley and Plesch, 2002; Hahn, 2008; Schneider, 2003) and examine and question the status of photographic archives as historical evidence by analyzing how they were enacted in this particular case. In doing so, I point to the dubious nature and ambiguous provenance of the original archive photographs that, as I discovered over the course of my fieldwork, had been manipulated to an exceptional extent during recording and post-production. I argue that these canonized depictions of indigenous peoples in the Brazilian Amazon represent advanced (re)enactments of particular Eurocentric projections of indigenous “culture” largely governed by aesthetic techniques embedded within the (political) economy and icono- graphic ideology of the Romantic era at the height of colonial empires in the latter part of the 19th century. Attending to a critical interrogation of historical documents, and of how they are appropriated and come to figure in contemporary narrations of culture and identity through specific performances such as photographic reenactments, this chapter, then, inscribes itself in discussions around history, identity, and the role of archival documents in disputes over “truth,” place, and belonging.