"Evangelizando todas as tribos até a última ser alcançada": reflexões sobre a missão novas tribos do Brasil e a Antropologia aplicada às ações missionárias

Abstract

This dissertation is the result of a research that intends to approach how the missionary actuation of Missão Novas Tribos do Brasil (MNTB) proceeds nowadays. It is understood that the missionary activity constitutes a complex scenario that involves the indigenous peoples in a long time and that therefore their reflection is important, in the construction of a clearer understanding of the processes that involve the reality of such populations in the Brazilian context . For this, my ethnographic focus was the MNTB, but on the other hand, when I realized the relevance that anthropology had for this mission, I started from the perception that anthropological knowledge has spread beyond the academic space, being today part of other sphere of action. It is driven to know that, among other expertise, it would have the tools to deal with diversity and provide the capacity to understand different human groups. From this framework, the objective is to describe how missionaries, more specifically MNTB affiliates, have used anthropological knowledge in their work with indigenous peoples, first reflecting on the history of the missions in general and more Specifically MNTB so that we can build a more procedural knowledge of this action. There has also been an emphasis on issues of political order and the power relations that are involved in this universe, since missionary activity is part of an indigenist field of activity. In this way, we seek to map and reflect on how and where anthropology is used in missionary work and thus to visualize the potentialities and limits of this anthropological work, which, as the missionaries put it, is thought of as "an applied anthropology" or a "practical anthropology" ". In these terms, the point of view of my interlocutors is privileged here.