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“Hegemonic cultures try to impose their monoculture on the earth” Ailton Krenak of the Brazilian indigenous movement Latin American and Caribbean Prize for Social Sciences at the 9th Latin American and Caribbean Conference on Social Sciences in June in Mexico City, Ailton Krenak, philosopher, writer, ecologist and member of the Brazilian indigenous movement, visited the headquarters of the CLACSO Executive Secretariat in Buenos Aires and was interviewed for CLACSO.tv Born in the state of Minas Gerais, on the banks of the Doce River, he moved with his family to the state of Paraná at the age of seventeen. In the 1980s he dedicated himself exclusively to the indigenous movement. In 1985, he founded the non-governmental organization Center for Indian Culture. Elected to the Brazilian National Congress in 1986, Ailton served on the National Constituent Assembly that drafted the Brazilian Constitution of 1988. That same year, he helped found the Union of Indigenous Peoples to represent indigenous interests on the national stage. In 1989, he joined the Alliance of Forest Peoples, a movement seeking the establishment of natural reserves in the Amazon. Since 1998, the organization has been organizing a festival designed by Ailton in the Serra do Cipo region of Minas Gerais: the Festival of Indian Dance and Culture, to promote integration between the different Brazilian indigenous groups. He is currently a special advisor to the Government of Minas Gerais on indigenous issues. In 2008, he received the Order of Cultural Merit from the Brazilian Ministry of Culture. He is the author of the books “Ideas to postpone the end of the world”, “The place where the earth rests”, “Tomorrow is not for sale”, “Life is not useful” and “Places of origin” in co-authorship with Yussef Campos, where they present a confrontation with the symbolic monoculture that hegemonic cultures try to impose on human beings and the planet.