The Currency of Cultural Exchange: re-thinking models of indigenous development

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This research project proposes new ways to explore, articulate and stimulate cultural exchange between contemporary Brazilian indigenous peoples and non-indigenous societies as a means of more equitable economic and social development. The proposal has been devised in response to an initiative by the Kuikuro Indigenous Association of the Upper Xingu (AIKAX) to create a regular programme of residencies for non-indigenous artists and scholars within the Kuikuro village of Ipatse in the Upper Xingu region of Brazil. A network of Brazilian and British partners (academic and non-academic) will support a pilot programme enabling AIKAX to establish good practices, measure impact and demonstrate the ways in which culture exchange can stimulate economic development and welfare in ways that are not destructive to the culture and languages that have historically sustained a way of life intensely related to the land which they preserve and by which they are preserved. By establishing a controlled experiment in cross-cultural exchange that is initiated by one of the tribes of the Xingu, the research seeks to forge new connections between indigenous culture and the broader cultural industries in Brazil in the acknowledgement that this is an important feature of a development agenda. The collaboration will bring expertise on the economic and welfare impacts of arts and cultural activity to an indigenous initiative in order to extend understanding of how cultural interaction, creative innovation and collaborative cultural production can be conceived and measured as essential to the wellbeing of communities and individuals. The protagonism of the Kuikuro in the conservation, sharing, interpretation, representation, use and exchange of their own culture is the baseline for this research. AIKAX was formed in 2002 to preserve and present the Kuikuro cultural heritage and has been an active agent in determining the production and display of ethical representations which respect the rights of individuals as well as sustain their villages as cohesive communities. The research will seek to contribute to the development of professional practice by indigenous societies that engage in initiatives that propose cross-cultural exchange as a means of socially purposeful development. The AIKAX proposal seeks to make indigenous artists and thinkers protagonists in a new process of knowledge-exchange, fully aware that their experience and expertise have significant value within Brazil's own search for more effective ways to understand how culture contributes to social welfare. By creating a model that enables the Kuikuro to be agents in the process of exchange rather than passive consumers of external influences or victims of cultural invasions, the research seeks to discover and promote new learning that will strengthen capacity and define the terms on which indigenous peoples can become protagonists in the creative industries in Brazil (and beyond) in ways that resist the 'predatory nature of the productive system'. The research will recognize the legitimacy of historic cultural forms but also allow indigenous artists and artisans to develop autonomous practices in contemporary exchanges, maintaining and developing cultural production that prioritizes the preservation of the human and natural environment that maintains the lives of individuals and the welfare of the community.