New Amazonian geographies: emerging identities and landscapes

Abstract

Common stereotypes of a homogeneous Amazonia belie the complexity and diversity of peoples and landscapes across the region. Although often invisible to the outside world, diverse peoples—indigenous, traditional, migrant, urban dwellers and others—actively construct their identities and shape cultural and political landscapes in diverse ways throughout the region. This volume combines political ecology, with its emphasis on identity, politics, and social movements, with insights from cultural geography's focus on landscapes, identities and livelihoods, to explore the changing nature of Amazonian development. These papers focus on indigenous identity and cosmology; changing livelihoods and identities; and transboundary landscapes. They highlight the diversity of proactive, place-based social and political actors who increasingly raise their voices to contest and engage with Amazon development policies. Based on their history, social values, and livelihood practices, such groups propose alternative ways of understanding and managing Amazonian landscapes.

Keywords:

• Amazonia
• cultural geography
• political ecology
• landscape
• identity

Acknowledgements

The papers in this volume grew out of a session organized by Jacqueline Vadjunec and Alyson Greiner on Amazonian Geographies held at the Annual Meeting of the Association of American Geographers (AAG) in Washington, D.C. in April 2010, and a three-panel symposium organized by Marianne Schmink and Jacqueline Vadjunec on Changing Identities, Landscapes, Livelihoods and Discourses in Brazilian Amazonia, held at the Conference of the Society for Amazonian and Andean Studies, University of Florida, Gainesville, Florida November 2010. We would like to thank both the presenters and the audiences for their participation and insights, as well as the Cultural and Political Ecology Specialty Group and Cultural Geography Specialty Group for session sponsorship at the AAG. We are grateful to the many anonymous reviewers, whose comments much improved the contents in this volume. The editors also thank Alyson Greiner, the Editor of the Journal of Cultural Geography, for her patience, persistence, and many helpful comments and assistance throughout the entire editing process. Lastly, we thank Michael P. Larson for his cartographic expertise and willingness to help out in the eleventh hour, and Jay H. Jump for his keen eyes and helpful editorial assistance.

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Notes on contributors

Jacqueline M. Vadjunec

Jacqueline M. Vadjunec, Ph.D. is Assistant Professor at the Department of Geography, Oklahoma State University, 324 Murray Hall, Stillwater, OK 74074, USA