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Social conflict and political activism in the Brazilian Amazon: a case study of Gurupá
Author(s) -
PACE RICHARD
Publication year - 1992
Publication title -
american ethnologist
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.875
H-Index - 78
eISSN - 1548-1425
pISSN - 0094-0496
DOI - 10.1525/ae.1992.19.4.02a00050
Subject(s) - amazon rainforest , politics , frontier , political mobilization , political economy , mobilization , sociology , social conflict , social movement , internal conflict , political science , law , ecology , biology
This article examines the economic and political conditions leading to social conflict and to political activism by small farmers and rubber/timber extractors in the rural Amazonian community of Gurupá, Brazil. Gurupá's case is compared with a general “frontier scenario” in which activism is generated by severe dislocations affecting land tenure and social relations of production, as well as by violence. None of these dislocations, however, is very marked in Gurupá. Instead, conflict and activism are prodded by market‐based tensions and, to a lesser degree, political tensions. This article also describes farmer/extractor mobilization in Gurupá, with particular attention paid to the role of the progressive sector of the Catholic church. [ Amazon, social conflict, small‐farmer mobilization, liberation theology, Christian Base Communities ]