Audacity and struggle: The thinking of forest defenders in the Amazon

Abstract

This article discusses the resistance of environmental defenders in the Amazon from a political ecology perspective, namely the thinking of José Cláudio Ribeiro and Maria do Espírito Santo, who were murdered on May 24, 2011. This investigation focuses on ‘audacity’ in the environmental struggle typified by this couple, through active research, participative observation of legal proceedings, documentary research, and interviews in the Praialta Piranheira PAE in Nova Ipixuna, Pará to contribute to a deeper comprehension of grassroots environmentalism and expand the understanding of the struggle undertaken by environmental defenders. We argue that the courage to act in the face of terror, this ‘audacity’ of ‘living together with the forest,’ drives subjectification in the collective fight to defend the forest and life. This struggle, in a dialectical relationship between subjectivity and objectivity as proposed by Paulo Freire, is interlinked with collective movements for liberation from colonialist power, in which the power matrix is expressed in different forms of oppression and dimensions of violence that affect both nature and those who live together with the forest.