Doctoral Dissertation Research: The Politics of Land and Conservation in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.

Cuny Graduate School University Center, New York NY

Investigators

Abstract

Doctoral Dissertation Research: The politics of land and conservation in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil Abstract Conservation has never been an innocent endeavor. Rather, the decision to preserve and protect flora, fauna, and ecosystems emerges from socially specific systems of valuation. Historically, intervention into the natural world has occurred often as part of colonial and imperial agendas; Brazil in particular has long connoted "the natural" in Western philosophy. Yet this romantic vision does not do justice to Brazilian understandings of nature, its protection, and the modern scientific techniques that make this possible. This investigation is organized around the efforts to save the Golden Lion Tamarin (GLT), which is the focus of one of conservation's rare success stories and is also a potent symbol of both the extraordinary and the everyday. The project aims to understand how conservation professionals, states and NGOs can develop integrated agendas that treat conservation not as a state of emergency but as a continuing condition for the safeguarding of life and the promulgation of social justice. This research project will address the intersection between land rights, visions of social justice, and conservation politics in the Brazilian Atlantic Forest in the State of Rio de Janeiro's lowland coastal region. Methods include in-depth ethnographic work among small agricultural communities that border the GLT reserve, life histories of former members of land-based social justice movements, participant observation among the scientists and educators of the Golden Lion Tamarin Association (AMLD) and archival work on land claims and agricultural history in the region. The researcher has developed a plan to disseminate data and conclusions with people at the field site as well as to a wider scientific community. This plan relies on use of existing educational institutions and community radio stations in Brazil as well as more standard networks of scientific professionals in Brazil and throughout the world. Ii order to be accessible to small farming communities, the researcher will work with a community-run radio station to develop a brief, Portuguese language segment descrbing results of the project, as well as allowing community respone. The project's results are expected to inform social and political processes around the world.