O “VíDEO PARTICIPATIVO” COMO MEIO DE REFLEX O E AUTORREFLEX O SOBRE IMAGEM E IDENTIDADE DE GRUPOS INDíGENAS REEMERGENTES NO NORDESTE BRASILEIRO

Crises and change have affected the Brazilian indigenous population for more than 500 years. While for centuries their struggle against colonialism and dominant national society resulted in an ever shrinking population, the last decades have seen an unfamiliarphenomenon: the rise of “new” indigenous tribes in areas which were long considered as “acculturated” by both the state and public opinion. In their pursuit to be both legally and actually recognized by the authorities and by fellow Non-Indian citizens, these “reemerging” Indians, have continually confronted and carried out a peculiar re-construction of their “image” as Indians, torn between romantic ideas of Indianness, and the demand to fullyintegrate within national society. Drawing on recent fieldwork experience in north-eastern Brazil, this paper discusses how the visual-anthropological method of “participatory video” can be used as a means of reflecting on and catalyzing the identity formation process of minority groups within a local-global context.