Damming the Amazon: Local Movements and Transnational Struggles Over Water

Growing contestation has arisen in the Brazilian Amazon regarding two proposed large hydroelectric dam complexes: Belo Monte and Rio Madeira. I explore the intersections between transnational and local contestation of these projects over time. I specifically focus on how scientific research and technical assessments are the field upon which these two different levels of activism operate, reflecting the importance of democracy in science and public involvement therein. I argue that the types of knowledge-based claims activists make and the political constrictions in which they work differentiate transnational and local claims. These cases address questions about the interaction of local and transnational organizers and how highly charged symbolic environmental resources are protected or developed as an outcome of movement struggles. This study also emphasizes the need to recognize hydrological resource development as an aspect of Amazonian development, especially as national and transnational demands for energy and agricultural exports increase.