30 January 2009

In Country: Thinking About Amazonian Activism

It's about 9:00pm in Sao Paulo and we're in the midst of a thunder and lightening storm. The rain is coming down in buckets and has been for a couple hours now. There it was: another close flash and huge clap of thunder. That lightening bolt seemed to have just crashed into the building next door!

Okay, back to the task at hand. I have been thinking about Amazonian activism and the World Social Forum taking place in Belem right now. As a result, I did a little checking on JSTOR, one of CRC's databases and found some articles that may be helpful in explaining why Indians protest mainstream society's degradation of the rainforest. Here are the citations:

"The Salt of the Montana: Interpreting Indigenous Activism in the Rain Forest."
Hanne Veber
Cultural Anthropology, Vol. 13, No. 3 (Aug., 1998), pp. 382-413
Published by: Blackwell Publishing on behalf of the American Anthropological Association

"Indigenous People Incorporated? Culture as Politics, Culture as Property in Pharmaceutical Bioprospecting"
Shane Greene
Current Anthropology, Vol. 45, No. 2 (Apr., 2004), pp. 211-237
Published by: The University of Chicago Press on behalf of Wenner-Gren Foundation for Anthropological Research

"Social Conflict and Political Activism in the Brazilian Amazon: A Case Study of Gurupá "
Richard Pace
American Ethnologist, Vol. 19, No. 4, Imagining Identities: Nation, Culture, and the Past (Nov., 1992
Published by: Blackwell Publishing on behalf of the American Anthropological Association

2 comments:

huevofilosofo said...

Here are some online videos about the Amazon that I came across when I was looking up what the Ecuadorian president, Rafael Correa, was doing with the oil corporations in that nation. I don’t remember if either he wanted to nationalize or renegotiate contracts with the oil corporations because they were screwing the Ecuadorian people and damaging the Amazonian rainforest...due to my slow Internet connection, I haven’t been able to fully see the videos. The first one looks very good, it focuses on Chico Mendes, the Brazilian labor activist that was killed in defense of the Amazon. The second video seems lame, but informational. Here they are:
"Rubber Jungle" http://www.chicomendes.com/rubberjungle/webcast/

"Saviors of the Forest" http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=7436176427189094677&hl=en

Maureen Moore said...

Cool, thanks! The following are some other resources on the issue. Enjoy. http://ecuador-rising.blogspot.com/2009_02_01_archive.html

http://www.amazonwatch.org/amazon/EC/

Also here is a link to info about a new documentary on the subject entitled _Crude Realities_ http://www.amazonwatch.org/newsroom/view_news.php?id=1706