Production of Poverty and the Poverty of Production in the Amazon

Abstract

It is discussed how socio-natural interactions in the Amazon bring the imprint of old and new forms of injustice, which are central driving forces in the reshaping of landscapes according to the balance of political power. Poverty is a condition of unsatisfied material and sociopolitical needs caused by combined mechanisms of exploitation, alienation and exclusion. The prevailing model of development and environmental management systematically reinforces hardship and destitution, at the same time it allows the corrosion of the forest. The chapter focuses on the lived experience of extractivist communities in the eastern Amazon, approaching these from the perspective of groups who only marginally benefit from the process of frontier making. Empirical results show that the politics of development and poverty in the Amazon do not happen about or around the forest, but with and through the forest. The main conclusion is that development is based on anticommons strategies, poverty is the outcome of the exercise of political hegemonies exercised over socio-nature, the systematic failure of poverty alleviation approaches and that forest ecosystems are also central players in the whole process of social differentiation and political resistance.