ABSTRACT
Amazonian ecological and cultural landscapes have been cause for debate between environmental and development agencies that have attempted to re-configure them into conservation regions and frontier areas for agricultural expansion. However, it has also been the diverse Amazonian peoples, through their socio-political dynamics, rights struggles, and reactions to state control of space and resources, that have re-defined their identities and landscapes. This article examines the political struggle for the revitalization of indigenous ethnic identities and the recognition of territorial rights of the Indigenous Council of the Lower Tapajós-Arapiuns (CITA) in the state of Pará, Brazil. CITA’s claims became visible in 1998 within disputes between globalizing development and conservation strategies that questioned the legitimacy of indigenous land rights claims and identity. Findings indicate that essentialized notions of indigenous peoples and the Amazonian landscape have been appropriated by non-indigenous actors to strategically argue against CITA’s rights claims. I argue that the changes perceived in both the Amazonian rainforest and indigenous peoples’ socio-cultural formations have become a discursive strategy to legitimize the expansion of agricultural production into the secondary forest, and a way to deny the rights of indigenous peoples.
