Seminar

In search of a land with lesser evils: the Watu, environmental crime and the web of life

Ailton Krenak (Militante indígena dos direitos humanos)

March 16, 2016, 17h30

Room 1, CES-Coimbra

Comments Boaventura de Sousa Santos (CES) and Felipe Milanez (CES)

Abstract

The Watú followed its course of generations of abuse from people that drained from its waters their living needs, carries in its  body the marks of violence and degradation that enterprises, industries, trade (of large and small towns), in turn giving clean air, health and life.This seminar intends to present an indigenous perspective on earth, life and territory, conflict and resistances in maintaining the delicate balance of our unstable relationship with all beings of creation that make the web of life on this planet we call Earth.


Bio notes

Ailton Krenak is an indigenous human rights activist. Born in 1953, from the Krenaki tribe in the Vale do Rio Doce, Minas Gerais. In 1987, he captured media and public attention by painting his face black with jenipapo stain while delivering a speech in the National Congress, as a gesture of mourning for the retrocession in proceedings on indigenous rights. He founded and directs the Indigenous Culture Centre, and is director of  the Dance and Indigenous Cultures Festival, in  Serra do Cipo (Minas Gerais).

He received the prestigious Premio Onassis - Man and Society, Aristotle Onassis Foundation in Athens-Greece, in 1990; National Award  for Human Rights - Brazil - 2005; Commendation of the Order of Cultural Merit of Brazil, in 2008; Presenter of the TV series "Indios no Brasil", 1998; TV-Canal Futura series "Tarú Andé", 2007. Author of several papers and articles published in anthologies and journals in Brazil and abroad. In 2015, he published the book Encontros com Ailton Krenak (Azougue Editorial).  In January 2016, he received an Emeritus Degree  by the Federal University  Juiz de Fora-UFJF.


Activity within the Doctoral Programmes "Human Rights in contemporary Societies" and " Postcolonialisms and Global Citizenship", with support from the project  ENTITLE - Rede Europeia de Investigação de Ecologia Política  and Ecology and Society Workshop