“To be and not to be”, that is the Question: Anthropological Reports, Native Categories and Anthropology

Abstract

Historically the relationship between Anthropology and State has been marked by moments of intense and effective participation of anthropologists in the formulation and/or application of state policies. In Brazil, the political engagement with studied groups has made the discipline an eternal critique of the State, even when anthropologists are called by the State to report on the situation of its “objects” of study. There is no doubt that the relationship between Anthropology, the State and social collectives is complex, conflictual and ambiguous. In this article I intend to discuss this question from the elaboration of the anthropological report about the situation of the “quilombola” community Invernada Paiol de Telha (PR), demanded by the Brazilian State, in this case represented by the National Institute of Colonization and Agricultural Reform (INCRA). My proposition here is less a criticism of the State’s well known method of interacting with cultural differentiated social collectives and more to bring into light other elements that may enable new reflections, regarding the political theoretical and methodological assumptions of Anthropology in this triangulation with the State and social collectives.