ABSTRACT
In 1998, the then Brazilian president Fernando Henrique Cardoso launched a controversial new program called ‘Forward Brazil’, promising to create a ‘new economic and social geography’ for the country by investing hundreds of millions of dollars into a nationwide infrastructure network for the development of extractive resources (Cardoso 1998).1 The environmentalist outcry over Forward Brazil’s potential effects on Amazonian deforestation sparked heated debates in national newspapers and the pages of Science and Nature over the future of the region. These debates coalesced around one particularly controversial project – the paving of the Santare´m-Cuiaba highway (better known by its federal designation, BR-163), which
I would like to thank Alvaro Reyes for extensive conversations, comments, and support in developing many of the ideas presented here. I also thank Wendy Wolford, Holly Worthen, Katie Wells, and three anonymous reviewers for their feedback, which greatly improved this paper. Generous research support came from the Social Science Research Council, the Fulbright Foundation, the National Science Foundation, Andrew W. Mellon/American Council of Learned Societies, and the Institute for the Study of the Americas at the University of North Carolina. Thanks also to Linda Quiquivix for making the location map. Finally, thank you to the people of the Arapiuns and Gleba Nova Olinda for allowing me to accompany their struggle. 1Forward Brazil, as well as the Accelerated Development Programs (PAC) of subsequent administrations, also fit into the plans for the Initiative for the Integration of South American Regional Infrastructure (IIRSA) released a few years later in a meeting sponsored by Cardoso and the American Development Bank (Cecen˜a et al. 2007, Zhouri 2010).
