Diplomacia e território: a região Pirara e a utilização instrumental do indígena.

This article aims to discuss the lack of social participation in Brazilian diplomacy. For this, it was elected the example of a negotiation between Brazil and Britain about the territory of British Guiana, where the Brazilian negotiator, Joaquim Nabuco, was defeated in his argument, representing one of the few episodes in which the country lost territory. In this case it can realize the instrumental use of social strata, as the indigenous, to justify territorial possession, based on the principle of uti possidetis and how the society is exclued from decision-making in foreign policy, going into this framework as an element, but not as a subject or part of what is called "national interest", which ends up weakening the Brazilian state with a relative loss of legitimacy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]