Noopolitics of consumption and colonization: resistances and (re) existences in contemporary indigenous art

Abstract

This article is based on an ongoing research carried out at the Eicos program - Psychossociology of Communities and Social Ecology at UFRJ, integrated to the Psyccon group (Psychosocial Communicative Processes of Consumption and Communication), and proposes the idea that the dissemination of society and consumer culture can be configured as significant contemporary mechanisms of colonization of different indigenous populations, not only by the invasion and exploitation of productive sectors in their territories, but also by noopolitics, directed towards consumption, associated with the very offers of industrialized products, capable of producing transformations in their territories. ways of life, subjectivities, social relationships, daily rituals and landscapes. Exploring the friction between different cultures, worlds and cosmovisions, the narrative follows the imprint of consumption, through an approach centered on action, agency and the mediation exercised by contemporary indigenous art. The article's scenario covers questions about the Anthropocene, a present era of environmental and health catastrophes, and also addresses the systematic obliteration of the knowledge and practices of indigenous populations. However, it finds signs of resistance to this subjective and even territorial invasion in the creation of singulars universes, which are inscribed in the arts, spirituality and political manifestations that are increasingly frequent and powerful.