ABSTRACT
The validity of national Brazilian rhetoric in promoting its plans for hydroelectric development has been brought into question by the wide range of opposition to proposed projects. Specific goals of development – raising the standard of living, improving the quality of life or eliminating poverty in a developing region – are clearly denied to a great number of the people who are immediately affected by Brazil's energy-development plans. In fact, after evaluating the impacts of large-scale hydroelectric projects on local peoples, it is apparent that the benefits to industrialists and the central government élites, gained through increased energy production, are dependent upon the impoverishment and marginalization of Amazonia's poorer peoples. The strategies utilized by the Brazilian government to accomplish the transfer of resources from Amazonia to Brazil's power centres reveal their awareness of these effects. An understanding of the ideological roots of existing policy and the means used to realize its goals is important in formulating appropriate and effective strategies of resistance.
