eCommons

 

Climate Politics After Nature And The Management Of Global Environmental Crises In Brazilian Amazonia

Other Titles

Abstract

This dissertation is an ethnographic examination of an environmental policy known as REDD+ (Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation-the "+" signifies improved carbon stocks). REDD+ was designed to lessen climate change by reducing deforestation in Amazonia-a goal that would be achieved by paying landholders to keep their forests standing. This proposal has been highly influential at United Nations (UN) environmental forums. I study REDD+ as a scheme that, in the region of Amazonia in which I worked, reflects peasant and scientific understandings of tropical forests. REDD+ proposals engage forests as humanized spaces long transformed by global capitalist dynamics and that will be further transformed by purportedly unavoidable socio-environmental crises. I claim that this policy marks a profound shift in the ecological imagination. Environmental debates at the UN have often portrayed Amazonia as "pristine Nature"-a non-human realm that experts believed could be made into an inside in which they could further contemporary modes of human living. In contrast, I argue that REDD+ schemes engage Amazonia as a human-shaped space of intensifying environmental crises that experts cannot bring under control. In chapter one I explore the links between REDD+ proposals and midtwentieth-century development projects in Brazil, focusing on how developmental planners and REDD+ proponents both assumed that Amazonia's transformations by the forces of industrial capitalism were unavoidable. In chapter two I examine descriptions of REDD+ offered by Amazonian peasants. They saw this policy as yet another instance of economic forces that challenges poor peasants to establish particularly hostile relations with humans and non-humans alike. I examine the scientific practice of pro-REDD+ scientists in chapter three. I show that Amazonbased environmental scientists investigate Amazonia as a shifting socio-natural situation that will continue unraveling in the foreseeable future. Chapter four studies REDD+ contributions to UN negotiations that climate diplomats themselves see as insufficient to avoid potentially catastrophic climate change. My multi-sited approach advances the understanding of contemporary environmental politics by examining REDD+ as radical philosophical-anthropological proposition: that humans should learn to endure the worlds they have made into precarious spaces.

Journal / Series

Volume & Issue

Description

Sponsorship

Date Issued

2015-01-26

Publisher

Keywords

Amazonia; Climate Change; Environmental Politics

Location

Effective Date

Expiration Date

Sector

Employer

Union

Union Local

NAICS

Number of Workers

Committee Chair

Welker, Marina Andrea

Committee Co-Chair

Committee Member

McMichael, Philip David
Campbell, Timothy C.
Wolford, Wendy W.

Degree Discipline

Anthropology

Degree Name

Ph. D., Anthropology

Degree Level

Doctor of Philosophy

Related Version

Related DOI

Related To

Related Part

Based on Related Item

Has Other Format(s)

Part of Related Item

Related To

Related Publication(s)

Link(s) to Related Publication(s)

References

Link(s) to Reference(s)

Previously Published As

Government Document

ISBN

ISMN

ISSN

Other Identifiers

Rights

Rights URI

Types

dissertation or thesis

Accessibility Feature

Accessibility Hazard

Accessibility Summary

Link(s) to Catalog Record