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Abstract
International boundaries in the lowland Amazon forest were historically drawn according to the scramble for natural resources. This paper uses a case study from the Peruvian and Brazilian border and the Ucayali and Juruá watersheds to understand the political ecology of a border process from contact to 2004. Results demonstrate how global resource demand and ecological gradients drove boundary formation and the relocation of indigenous labor to the borderlands. Forgotten in the forest after the fall of rubber prices, the borderland Asháninka emerged to challenge loggers incited by the global demand for high grade timber. The transboundary impacts of this resource boom highlight discrepancies between the Brazilian and Peruvian Asháninka's ability to mobilize power. A transboundary political ecology framework is necessary to grasp the heterogeneity and dynamism of natural resource management along boundaries and borderlands forged and tempered by historical resource booms.
Acknowledgements
This research was supported by funding from Fulbright-Hays, The Nature Conservancy, ProNaturaleza, the University of Richmond, and the Universidad Nacional de Ucayali. We would like to thank Greg Knapp, Karl Butzer, Bill Doolittle, Ken Young, Peter Dana, and Susanna Hecht for their comments on previous drafts, and Editor-in-Chief Alyson Greiner and two anonymous reviewers of the Journal of Cultural Geography for their insights and corrections. Particular thanks to Jackie Vadjunec and Marianne Schmink for their organization and enthusiasm. Also, thanks to our colleagues in both Brazil and Peru who made our fieldwork possible and enriched the analysis within. Finally, above all, we are in debt to the people of Alto Tamaya. We hope this small contribution might help them in their struggle for recognition.
Notes
1. Santos-Granero and Barclay (Citation1998, p. 1) define the selva central as the “central jungle,” “central montaña,” or central portion of the Peruvian selva alta or high jungle along the eastern slopes of the Andes.
2. The patrones are the mixed-blood rural elite who control rural labor with financial backing, personal magnetism, and by limiting alternative options for laborers.
3. We use the simple yet powerful definition provided by Nostrand and Estaville (Citation1993, p. 4), “A land that a group of people love to the degree that they call it a home.” We first use homeland to refer to the selva central the Asháninka have lived in and fought for over centuries (see Figures 3 and 4), but we later use the term for the borderlands the Asháninka documented in this paper have occupied over the last 80 or more years.
4. This line was called the Gibbon Line because it took advantage of the US reconnaissance of Amazonia and US Lieutenant Gibbon's coordinates for the mouth of the Bení River.
5. All translations from the Spanish and Portuguese, unless otherwise noted, are made by Salisbury. This one, however, is adapted from Hecht (Citation2004).
6. Terra Indígena Kampa e isolados do rio Envira (262 Asháninka residents), Terra Indígena Kampa do igarapé Primavera (21 Asháninka), Kampa do rio Amônia (472 Asháninka), and Terra Indígena Kaxinawá/Ashaninka do rio Breu (114 Asháninka) (Pimenta Citation2005). In 2002 there were 52 Asháninka living in the Terra Indígena Jaminawá do rio Envira (dos Santos de Almeida Citation2002).
7. Emory Richey's census of the 4 untitled Asháninka villages in the Tamaya watershed in 2005 showed the following numbers: San Miguel de Chambira (83 residents in 2005), Alto Tamaya (82), Nueva California (55), Nueva Amazonia de Tomajao (57), and Cametsari Quipatsi (126).
8. Exceptions are the titled communities of San Mateo on the Alto Abujao River and San Miguel de Chambira on the Tamaya River. The Instituto del Bien Común has begun mapping the borderland Asháninka of Perú while the Government of Acre has maps of the Brazilian Asháninka's titled territories.
9. The Sendero Luminoso, or Shining Path, was a revolutionary Marxist group fighting in the countryside in the 1980s and 1990s.
10. Pseudonyms are used throughout to protect identities.
11. “Plata,” literally “silver,” is slang for cash.
12. On hearing of their desire for a school, a patron asked, “Why do you want a school? To teach your children how to be thieves?”
13. This sum is based on domestic market prices on www.globalwood.com for November of 2004. Timber is priced as machine-dried at international specifications for length and quality.
14. At 2004 prices and depending on quality, these harvests of mahogany and cedar could be worth over 7 million dollars in Lima.
15. Marina Silva is a native of Acre and the daughter of rubber tappers.
16. Página 20's newspaper article about this landmark event contains a wonderfully illustrative photo of army personnel, Governor Viana and Asháninka leaders talking in the Asháninka village of Apiwtxa. Available online at http://www2.uol.com.br/pagina20/22022005/especial.htm.
17. A fascinating photograph of the President of Peru shaking hands with the President of Apiwtxa while the Governor of Acre, Brazil looks on is available for viewing through La República (La Republica 2005) at http://www.larepublica.com.pe/component/option,com_contentant/task,view/id,70294/Itemid,0/.
