The golden touch: (Neo)extractivism and necropolitics on Brazil’s Indigenous territories
Date
2022-12-08
Authors
Macias Gimenez, Rebeca
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Abstract
In the last few years, mainly since 2019, when Jair Bolsonaro was sworn in as President, the federal government has revamped neo-extractivist policies targeting all protected areas in the country, including Indigenous territories. The government gained the perfect excuse for boosting the country’s mining economy when the pandemic hit. With the financial uncertainties caused by the pandemic, the international demand for gold increased, as the market regarded it as the most reliable form of investment. Brazil is one of the top ten producers of gold in the world. The country's mining sector has been at the forefront of colonization strategies for over four hundred years and has been one of the main threats to Indigenous and traditional communities. In the last decades, a neo-extractivist development model based on mining, agribusiness, and infrastructure building, such as hydropower dams, roads, and ports, led to the growth of social exclusion and violence in the country, especially in the Amazon region, among traditional communities that rely on the land and forests for their survival. The presentation addresses some of the historical and conceptual foundations of this government’s discourse and actions against Indigenous peoples, as well as its attempts to make constitutional the occupation and exploitation of Indigenous territories.
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Brazil, Jair Bolsonaro, neo-extractivist development, necropolitics, Indigenous territories, pandemic, financial uncertainty, gold mining, colonization, infrastructure, Amazon region