Tomar as palavras: política entre as mulheres Guarani e Kaiowa

This text reflects on the fabrication of the body and construction of personhood among the Guarani and Kaiowa, highlighting the centrality of women in social organization and political action. Women wield a political potency that acts in several spheres of social life, through different mechanisms that all originate in their prerogative of “feeling more.” However, their position in the social organization sometimes allows them to harden their speeches, especially those addressed to the outside of the village, while seeking softness in the internal relations within the tekoha, when imminent risk to life is perceived. We discuss the processes of producing feminine bodies and words, understood as possible practices of “presentative” politics in which we identify the effort to produce beautiful, light, happy, but also warlike bodies. Those are the bodies that occupy the trenches of the land repossessions, the center of the great assemblies, and other strategies of Guarani and Kaiowa political action in Mato Grosso do Sul, Brazil.