Kitseha: indigenous media and 2018 presidential elections in the Upper Xingu

Abstract

The article analyses the process of production and circulation of the music video Kitseha, a collective video creation made in Aiha village of Kalapalo people, in the Indigenous Territory of Xingu, in Central Brazil. The video is a political strategy for Kalapalo people public positioning themselves during Brazilian presidential elections of 2018. During the shooting, a concern with the presence of non-indigenous elements and their self-representation made an older group of Kalapalo stand against the circulation of the video. However, the electoral context, the encounter with different alterities, the reflexive capacity of the indigenous media and socio-cosmological aspects operated for the community make a decision to disseminate the video. We believe that this process, driven by the Amerindian capacity of assimilation of diversity, created the possibility for non-indigenous elements to transit in the borders of the native category of traditional, updating the way the Kalapalo represent themselves.