Indigenous fashion as a counter-colonial territory

authorship, activism, and cultural diversity in contemporary Brazil

Abstract

This article aims to analyze, in the contemporary context, how indigenous fashion has been affirmed by its representatives as indices of counter-colonial territoriality in Brazil. As a concept, it is important to situate what is meant by fashion, from the perspective of modern society, and to understand it as a cultural phenomenon that accompanies capitalist development and its colonial expansion. The field of contemporary fashion is understood as a social space in dispute, which admits plural discourses about appearance. The assemblages of indigenous designers demarcate a specific symbolic territory and offer a counter-colonial narrative in the historical construction of the national fashion discourse. I privilege a reading of rights, analyzed in a broad perspective, with a focus on indigenous citizen, civil and cultural participation. I believe it is essential to pay attention to the thinking of indigenous authors, as well as to the critical listening of academic epistemology. As a methodology, I also propose to carry out a transdisciplinary bibliographic review, in dialogue with fashion, geography, anthropology and sociology. I conclude by suggesting that the fashion of indigenous authorship is today an act of resistance and agency of its subjects and collectivities, possible only with the recent constitutional recognition of the full civil capacity of its actors and their expressions as part of the Brazilian cultural heritage.