Megadevelopment, Environmentalism, and Resistance: The Institutional Context of Kayapó Indigenous Politics in Central Brazil

The role of the indigenous Kayapo in environmentalist movements that oppose large-scale development projects in the Amazon is described. The analytic focus is on the construction of environmentalism within the context of opposition to hydroelectric dams along the Xingu River. The changing pressures on the Kayapo and the effectiveness of their responses are shown to be related to successive changes in dominant political-economic relations within the Kayapo region comprised by the extractive period, the bureaucratic period, and the multinational period. Based on historical experiences, I contend that Kayapo successes have been tied to their ability to cause or threaten political disruptions. Their current adeptness in producing media images as natural ecologists is a rhetorical stance related to a specific moment in the history of development in which the ability of the Brazilian government to marshal international financing is central to economic prospects within the Amazon. How a relatively marginalized p...