The To and Fro of Documents: Vying for Recognition in Enawene-nawe Dealings with the Brazilian State: The To and Fro of Documents

This article considers the deployment of documents by an Amerindian people, the
Enawene-nawe, in dealings with the Brazilian state and with hydroelectric dam companies. The focus is on the way the use of documents relates to existing language ideology and political practices—considered together as a style of “foreign diplomacy.” The exchange of documents is one aspect of a general dynamic of diplomatic opening and closure via which the Enawene demand recognition from powerful outsiders.argument put forward is that communication by means of documents is effective and desirable for the Enawene because documents constitute a frontier ormediator between themselves and outsiders, forging a narrow channel of reciprocal exchange in a sea of misunderstanding. As such, the Enawene instrumentalize that facet of bureaucratic formalism that is generally conceived as its limitation: its divorce from everyday modes of expression and shared understanding.