Planting words, harvesting autonomies:

The consultation protocols in the defense of indigenous Amazonian territories

Abstract

In the face of growing attacks on territorial rights, an increasing number of indigenous peoples have been building autonomy processes as a political strategy for identity and territorial defense. The present article seeks to contribute to the debate from a geographical perspective, taking the so-called "autonomous consultation protocols" as the object of analysis. Such documents, which began to be built in Brazil in 2014, with the great protagonism of grassroots indigenous organizations, aim to establish the rules for the right to free, prior and informed consultation on any territorial intervention that could affect the communities directly or indirectly. Taking the Brazilian Legal Amazon as a spatial cutout –where about 98% of the area of Indigenous Lands (TIs) homologated in the country are located– we conducted an exhaustive survey of the peoples who, until September 2022, had built these protocols, projecting the geographic location of these territories cartographically. The information analysis reveals the importance of consultation protocols for constructing territorial autonomy and suggesting a spatial logic in their genesis since many of these territories are located in areas with contemporary threats of intervention by mining or hydroelectric construction. We conclude, therefore, that the protocols of consultation are a vital part of the Amazonian indigenous peoples' strategy of autonomous resistance because they make possible not only the strengthening of internal mechanisms of socio-territorial control but also an international legal shield at a time of rising authoritarianism in the Brazilian national sphere.