Kaiowcide

This study examines the violence aimed at Indigenous peoples in Brazil, with a focus on the Guarani-Kaiowa. The author uses the term 'Kaiowcide' for the ongoing destruction of this people, a label that has been in use since the 1970s. That decade saw the Guarani-Kaiowa organize resistance to the seizure of their lands and to abuse near the end of military rule.

The work draws on extended research along the advancing edges of agribusiness, on the spatial geography of Guarani-Kaiowa territory, and on long-term relationships with the communities themselves. Rather than only recounting the catastrophe, it asks how people have continued to live under genocidal conditions and how they have worked together to move beyond them.

A central concern is causation. The author analyzes why the Guarani-Kaiowa experience unfolded as it did and what it has produced. The book challenges the view that a genocide must be proven through deliberate intent by settlers or officials. It argues instead that the destructive capacity of those driving agrarian capitalist transformation, which the national state has promoted on socioeconomic frontiers, deserves equal weight.