“Is Academia prepared to listen to an indigenous person telling a history from the 16th or 17th century as if it were yesterday?” Cemaa interviews Casé Angatu

Abstract

The interview with historian and Indigenous leader Casé Angatu (Tupinambá de Olivença) offers a thought-provoking reflection on the contemporary challenges of establishing an Indigenous Historiography in Brazil, articulating academic experience, community trajectory, and political critique. In discussing the growing presence of Indigenous intellectuals in universities, Casé highlights the structural limitations of academic institutions in recognizing epistemologies based on orality, ancestry, and spirituality. The conversation addresses themes such as disputes over territorial demarcation, the importance of historical documentation for legal processes, internal tensions within the Indigenous movement, the risks of state co-optation, and the need for ethical dialogue between Indigenous and non-Indigenous researchers. At the same time, Casé problematizes the implementation of Law 11.645/2008, warning of the danger of transforming Indigenous History and Culture into mere decontextualized content. The interview thus constitutes a privileged source for understanding the connections between history, politics, memory, territory, and knowledge production, contributing to debates on decoloniality, symmetries between distinct traditions of thought, and the directions of indigenous research in contemporary Brazil.