Academic discourse on land use in the AmazonLocal perspectives largely ignored

24 June 2024, by Franziska Neigenfind

Photo: Carlos Tello

In Brazil’s Amazon region, social, economic and political changes have put increasing pressure on the land and exacerbated inequalities. Accordingly, there is a growing academic interest in vulnerable communities’ struggles for social and ecological justice. Yet the voices of Brazilian researchers, local and regional actors are seldom heard in the international academic discourse. Instead, the majority of the literature focuses on authors from the Global North, as an analysis of 36 academic articles, conducted by Carlos Tello and Prof. Martina Neuburger from the Cluster of Excellence for climate research CLICCS shows.

The authors determined that the citations used reflect established power relations. In addition, they confirmed that certain interest groups and communities – often, the dominant players in the Amazon region – are underrepresented. This reflects a hierarchy in knowledge production that reinforces dominant forms of knowledge. As a result, the perspectives and experiences of groups that are often affected by social, economic and ecological injustices are suppressed further: indigenous peoples, local communities, farmers and rural producers, who have been historically and socially marginalized. These groups often lack political power, making them vulnerable to exploitation. “In order to avoid there being a monopoly on the truth, it’s important to shift our focus to those whose perspectives have been ignored,” says Carlos Tello. “Only then can we achieve a comprehensive grasp – for example, of the challenges and impacts of climate change in the region. Consequently, if our goal is to answer the question of which futures are possible and plausible, these perspectives have to be suitably included in the debates.”

The article was published in the CLICCS Quarterly magazine, the research news from the Cluster of Excellence "Climate, Climatic Change, and Society".