Guardians of an enormous carbon stock - the Amazon rainforest and its traditional populations bound by the sustainability dispositif

Abstract

In recent decades, attempts to promote the articulation between the Amazon rainforest and its so-called traditional populations have greatly intensified, both in academic debates and environmental activism. The concept of sustainability, understood as a strategic apparatus, operates by strengthening this coupling, giving rise to new analyses of the relationships between traditional peoples and nature in the Amazon region. The aim of this paper is to discuss and analyze this articulation, taking as a starting point several text analyses on the Brazilian Amazon published in newspapers with wide circulation. Emphasis was given to the discourse on global climate change which often describes the Amazon rainforest as a carbon depot and portrays traditional populations as guardians of this store. This paper seeks to highlight the ability of discourses on climate change to bring the stock market into nature preservation.