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Description

In 2011, the Brazilian Government began dismantling the country’s robust framework for Indigenous land rights by enacting measures to deny Indigenous Peoples’ access to their ancestral lands. From 2019 to 2022, the government did not recognize or title a single hectare of Indigenous lands, despite more than 700 pending requests for demarcation (or formal designation and titling). A change in government and six land demarcations in 2023, however, show signs of a new era for Indigenous Peoples’ rights and relationship with the state. This chapter analyzes evolving Indigenous land rights pre- and post-constitutionalization in 1988, the result of intense political mobilization and shifting colonialist perceptions of Indigenous Peoples. This chapter also discusses the main obstacles faced by Indigenous Peoples in enforcing Brazil’s protective land rights framework, accounting for the structures of settler colonial states – structures that permit institutional and physical violence against Indigenous Peoples by state and non-state actors alike. Finally, this chapter examines the opportunities created since the change in government in 2023, proposing new avenues to advance Indigenous Peoples’ constitutional land rights in Brazil.

ISBN

9781009521581

Book Title

Land Rights Now: Global Voices on Indigenous Peoples and Land Justice

Editor(s)

William Nikolakis

Start Page

50

Publication Date

9-6-2025

Publisher

Cambridge University Press

Keywords

Brazil, land rights, Indigenous Peoples, Amazon, demarcation, Temporal Framework Doctrine

Disciplines

Human Rights Law | Law | Property Law and Real Estate

Recognizing and Reclaiming Indigenous Peoples’ Constitutional Land Rights in Brazil

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