ATL - ACAMPAMENTO TERRA LIVRE

Acampamento Terra Livre’s (ATL) 20th edition initiated the largest mobilization of Indigenous communities in Brazil and neighboring territories. With over 305 Indigenous communities represented by elders and youth, the gathering occupied the central cultural axis of Brazil's capital, Brasilia and people camped from the 22nd to the 26th of April. Rooted in a fight for territorial demarcation for Indigenous communities in its first edition, the movement is organised by the Articulation of Indigenous Peoples in Brazil (APIB). This year it maintained its strength as it mobilized for the 20th time since 2004 and called for greater action from the current Lula government. It seeked to acknowledge and address social, economic and cultural oppression faced by Indigenous communities. With the focus at ATL on fighting Marco Temporal, a law that gives only partial recognition to Indigenous territories and prioritises monocultural agricultural business, discussions also extended to suicide rates within communities and Indigenous women’s rights. Against the consistent decimation, exploitation and erasure of Indigenous territories and culture. ATL is a manifestation of resistance to the monoculturalism prominent in homogenous western modernity and is set within Brasilia’s modernist architecture serving to bring the fight to the centre of Brazilian politics and bureaucracy that callously towers over the camp.  Most speakers discussed the loss of land and the loss of culture as a result of territorial displacement.