Apr. 15, 2025 — The department is excited to share that it will host Dr. Katiane Silva (PPGA-Federal University of Pará; Visiting Fulbright Scholar, University of Georgia) for a brown bag talk on Tuesday, April 22, 2025. Her presentation, “Socio-Environmental Conflicts and Resistance in the Demarcation of Indigenous Lands in the Brazilian Amazon,” will be held from 12p-1pm in the Founders’ Room, Heroy Hall 407. An abstract for the talk is below.
Socio-Environmental Conflicts and Resistance in the Demarcation of Indigenous Lands in the Brazilian Amazon
Indigenous territorial rights are frequently challenged by commercial interests to serve global markets. They have been disputed since the colonial period. In the Brazilian Amazon and state of Pará, these rights and broader forest conservation efforts are affected by the advance of soybean monoculture. Throughout the Amazon region, indigenous presence is perceived as mitigating the impacts of the expanding the agricultural frontier, resulting in complex and often violent territorial dynamics. I propose an ethnographic study of socio-environmental conflicts generated by the demarcation of the Munduruku and Apiaká Indigenous Land in Santarém, a region known as the Santareno Plateau along the lower Amazon River, and its local and global impacts. This project examines the resistance strategies of indigenous people and contradictory state practices in a context characterized by increased violence and anti-indigenous policies between 2018 and 2022.
