Peacebuilding. Conflict transformation. Ethnic conflict. Indian people. Amazon.
“When I was a child, the lake on the street from my house was beautiful, full of water lilies, water hyacinth, herons and bright alligator eyes at night.” Thus, I introduce an ethnographic text that narrates an ethnic conflict in the São Miguel/Baixo Arapiuns community village, with which I started contact during a Restorative Justice and Peacemaking Circles Training that I was an instructor. Moved by the concern when realizing that the conflict had deep structural causes, I drew an (analytical) panorama of the conflict based on John Paul Lederach and Nirson Medeiros lessons.This panorama arose in view of the following question: what was there in the past plan of that place and of those people (community and villagers) that would allow me to understand the central issue, and would lead me to contribute to the construction of the desirable future they dreamed of? Therefore, I located as a central issue the school conflict narrated during the training: the fact that some students parents from Escola São Miguel Arcanjo forbade their children to keep in touch with a teacher because she is admittedly indigenous, as well as the difficulty of dialogue between the school community and the aforementioned teacher.I located the central issue in a present plane located between the past and future planes, and I cut the panorama with vertical arrows that I called dimensions. Dimensions are all facts (accounts, documents, etc.) that present possible causes of the central issue. This research path was accompanied by the teachings of Charles Wright Mills, who taught me that “to overcome academic prose, we have to overcome academic pose”. Mills' teachings gave me security to achieve my general objective: to understand, interpret and describe the process of peacebuilding in São Miguel community village, going through the investigation of the dimensions of the ethnic conflict in the past, present and future plans, so that they could arise. underlying causes of the core issue, meeting my specific goals. Having fulfilled the objectives, I ratified and rectified the hypotheses, presenting an overview of the conflict as a research product, as well as the following conclusions: a) The (ethnic) conflict should not be separated from the past, present and future plans; b) It is not recommended to deal with a community conflict in a resolute manner, given the continuity of relations in the community context; c) Initiating conflict handling by forming peace-building circles was an efficient handling strategy; d) Peace must be built strategically, so that there is sustainability; and e) The democratic space, protagonism and the feeling of belonging help to build and sustain peace.