Paper short abstract

The Dourados Reservation (DR) is home to approximately 15,000 indigenous Brazilians. Half of the population is under 20. The population is caught between indigenous and western ways of life. The youth of the DR experience rejection and try to create places where they can feel they belong.

Paper long abstract

The Dourados Reservation (DR) is home to approximately 15,000 indigenous Brazilians on 3,560 hectares, where the Guarani (Kaiowá and Ñandeva) and the Aruak (Terena) tribes live together. Approximately half of the population is under 20. Located between two cities Dourados and Itaporã, it is cut in half by a state highway that links these two cities and is only 100 km from the border with Paraguay. Being between the two cities, the population is caught between indigenous and western ways of life. A cultural dialog, the consequence of a hybrid process, is replete with tension and conflict.

For the youth of the DR, the city is equated with desire and frustration, while the reservation is the place they must leave, since there are almost no jobs and because they occupy a nonexistent position in the community social order, that of unmarried young adults.