Ethnoracial Land Restitution: Finding Indians and Fugitive Slave Descendants in the Brazilian Northeast

Ethnoracial land restitution Finding Indians and fugitive slave descendants in the Brazilian Northeast Jan Hoffman French This chapter considers how a desire for land and development can lead to a refashioning of ethnoracial identities and identifications. Debates in develop-ment studies have centered on culture as an impediment to development. I turn that debate on its head and argue that new assertions of cultural particularity have in certain settings advanced the equity goals of development. The chapter explores the contrasting responses of two neighbouring communities of related African descended, mixed race ntral workers who over a 25-year period (1975-2000), under new laws, were recognized and given land by the Brazilian government. One was identified as an indigenous tribe, the other- the primary focus of this chapter- as a community of descendants of fugitive slaves