ABSTRACT
Global environmental concerns have provided greater visibility to Amazonian traditional communities that have adopted new political identities to struggle for their livelihoods and territories. Through a case study of the quebradeiras de coco babaçu, babassu breaker women, this article offers a critical analysis of the challenges and opportunities involved in these processes. Through analyzing empirical evidence of their strategies of political representation, economic initiatives, a combination of productive and conservation concerns, and forms of accessing land and forest resources, this study addresses the risks of reproduction of relations of domination within their organizations, imposition of agendas by their allies and donors, and dilution of political capital due to the multiplication of social organizations. By confronting these risks, quebradeiras’ organizations have managed to maintain a dynamic process of social learning. Embracing their internal diversity and sustaining a continuous dialogue between external actors and communities, they have been able to manage the tensions which emerged in their socio-political struggle. Quebradeiras have continuously reinvented their traditions, to strengthen new political identities and to bring concrete changes in the cultural geographies of their communities.
