Human rights and ethnic identity: analysis of cultural transformations promoted by public policies in indigenous communities
Human rights. Public policy. Cultural relativism. Indian people.
One of the most consistent ways of guaranteeing rights is its public policy. Public policies aimed at indigenous peoples are either specific or adapted by the differentiated care issue, which is the implementation of the policy in a way that does not negatively transfigure the culture of a people. As social assistance policies, in cases of social vulnerability, such as the indigenous case in the Northeast region, they have the principles of Human Rights as a backdrop for their norms. As a starting point, we will take reflections on the experience of working in a project that brings together representatives of indigenous communities and professionals from the SUAS and SGDCA network. During the project, we came across clashes of worldviews, between indigenous culture and institutional culture, which was an estrangement between Cultural Relativism versus Human Rights. As for possible cultural changes, in the light of anthropology and studies of indigenous ethnology in Brazil, we can affirm a culture as an open and dynamic system that can be modified by external interferences or internal concerns. As part of this issue, it is necessary to understand the effects of the relationship between the State and indigenous society through public policies, as some scholars point to State procedures as the root of social vulnerability among these peoples.