In Brazil, a growing number of indigenous students are seeking Higher Education in Anthropology, both at undergraduate or graduate level. According to the anthropologist Davi Werá, from the Guarani people, this search is motivated by an interest in better understanding non-indigenous thinking, behavior and institutions and results in a greater engagement of indigenous anthropologists in extra-local public sectors. This participation includes, recently, the presence of indigenous anthropologists in government policy, in national ministries and secretariats, such as the newly created Ministry of Indigenous Peoples, but also in the Ministries of Health and Education, among others.
This communication aims to analyze why Anthropology has been chosen as an area of knowledge that can enable indigenous students to have a greater understanding of Western thought, behavior and the functioning of the State. Which characteristics of learning Anthropology have ensured indigenous students to better understand the regional, national and international public spheres? We assume that the teaching of Anthropology with a critical and decolonial perspective has been important to explain dimensions of power and hierarchies of Western society. But we also believe that indigenous students’ learning goes beyond what is taught at Universities, leading to understandings about dimensions of public life and the State that have allowed them to occupy extra-local spaces. We argue that this participation has a potential to teach non-indigenous people new and more sustainable ways of doing politics
