ABSTRACT
This chapter explores how the intermediary role of Catholic missionaries for the state in frontier regions such as Amazonia became less important and was ultimately replaced by an indigenist bureaucracy that formed part of the frontier state apparatus. Since the 1950s, this indigenist bureaucracy started to use the notion of “social integration” to design developmental policies aimed at simultaneously “protecting Indigenous culture” and promoting development projects among Indigenous communities. The notion of “developmental indigenism” entailed a new relationship between the state and Indigenous communities in which the former adapted its policies to “Indigenous customs” and the latter demanded access to development and material improvement. The second part looks at how, since the 1990s, small-scale gold mining has become a source of revenue for Indigenous communities and settlers who came with their families to the region from inland areas. More specifically, it analyzes recent transformations in how the state represents, names and controls informal mining in the region, as well as the social and environmental conflicts derived from gold mining. Finally, the chapter explores how gold mining and state policies designed to control gold extraction have reshaped the relationships and subjectivities of the miners and indígenas who partake in these activities.
