Can urban migration contribute to rural resistance? Indigenous mobilization in the Middle Rio Negro, Amazonas, Brazil

Abstract

Given the importance of land for indigenous peoples, rural out-migration is usually associated with a disruption of indigenous culture. This paper suggests that instead of being a disruptive process, migration can serve as the means for a ‘scale shift’ that transports mobilization capacity from one location to another. This contribution presents the case of Barcelos, in the Brazilian Amazon, where an indigenous movement first arose in an urban area, due to the migration of indigenous activists from other locations, and later spread to rural communities as a result of local migratory circulation. Through alliances with the regional indigenous movement, these rural communities became part of a broader mobilization network that supported the indigenous resurgence in Barcelos.

Keywords:

• indigenous movements
• migration
• scale shift
• Amazon

Acknowledgements

The author thanks S. Perz, A. Pahnke, R. Tarlau and S. Schramski for comments and revisions. Thanks to Barcelos rural and urban communities, ASIBA, FOIRN and ISA for collaboration with the research. I also thank the International Foundation for Science, School of Natural Resources and Environment at the University of Florida, the Tropical Conservation and Development Program and the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation for their support.

Notes

¹For more information about indigenous land in Brazil, see FUNAI (2014).

²More information about Barés can be found in Vidal (2000), Figueiredo (2009) and Melo (2009).

³Brazilian census methods have probably underestimated the indigenous population in 1991 (Santos and Teixeira 2011; IBGE 2013b).

⁴As an academic concept, caboclo comprises groups from multiple origins, initially mixed descendants of indigenous and Europeans, and later mixed with Northeast Brazil migrants (Lima 1999). They are treated as the historical Amazon rural peasants, with ecological knowledge and customary practices influenced by indigenous cultures (Nugent 1993).

Additional information

Thaissa Sobreiro is a doctoral candidate in the School of Natural Resources and Environment and the Tropical Conservation and Development Program at the University of Florida. Her dissertation investigates how households and rural communities (re)negotiate their identities and livelihood options by engaging indigenous movements and migration to identify key resources for local development in Rio Negro, Amazonas State, Brazil. Her work is based on long-term fieldwork she has been conducting in the region since 2006. Sobreiro's research is supported by the International Foundation for Science (IFS).