Workshop of Consultation to the Database

The monitoring carried out at TIX entrances produced, between the months of May and October 2020, records of the movements' passersby (age, origin, destination, among others) which were filled in handwritten tables. These records were transcribed into Excel spreadsheets, which, compiled in a single file, formed a database. Given the extensive database built (over 60,000 records), doubts arose among the Xakriabá about how these data could be consulted and how to manage Excel tools more efficiently. With this in mind, the Systematisation of the Monitoring and Counter-Cartography Experience Working Group divided its actions into three workshops, one of which was the Database Consultation Workshop. This workshop was conducted by three undergraduate students from UFMG with the support of a postdoctoral student, and was designed to take place in four meetings. First, Excel and its main tools were introduced. Then, participants were asked what information they would like to extract from the database. In the second moment, a guide on how to find such information was presented. In the third meeting, the participants had contact with the complete database and a question was posed: how to go through the data analysis process to produce information and knowledge.

 

Faced with this important reflective process, a professor from the UFMG team, who works in the area of demography, at the final meeting, argued about the process of analysis that implies perceiving and comparing the numbers with the research experience they had lived through. The assiduous participation of the Xakriabá in the meetings was fundamental, since the perspective of those who worked in the barriers and those who reside in the territory in interpreting the data provides elements that the database and quantitative data alone cannot reach. The use of the database, in addition to validating monitoring efforts, can help to recognise important issues for sovereign territorial management and, thus, support the actions of the local community organisation.

 

Below is an example of the result achieved in the joint process of querying the data from the Xakriabá Community Monitoring database: Table and graph produced in a joint consultation with the Xakriabá Community Monitoring database between the UFMG team and indigenous representatives (in Portuguese).