Rethinking IR from the Amazon

Abstract

This article proposes Amazonia as a site to think world politics. The Amazon is invisible in the study International Relations (IR), yet its experiences are deeply global. I present the international dynamics at play in Amazonia at different historical moments to posit that this periphery has contributed to forging the political-economy of what is refer to as the core. The Amazon's absence from the study of IR speaks about the larger inequality in processes of knowledge production. Serious engagements with Amazonia are one way to invite a plurality of worlds in the production of theories, disrupting global divisions of labor in knowledge production ally.Keywords: International relations; Amazonia; core-periphery relations; Global South; knowledge production. Received: November 5, 2015Accepted: April 19, 2016Introduction I n popular discourse, as well as in the discipline of International Relations (IR), the Amazon is not exactly the first place one looks for global politics. It exists, in popular imagination, as a land without history, wild and remote. In this depiction of the Amazon, there are pristine rainforests inhabited by isolated tribes in need of preservation from global forces. Many accounts lead readers to imagine adventurers navigating legendary uncharted waters in search of uncontacted peoples, failing to realize that the Amazon rivers were subject to systematic human manipulation, and that it is Brazil's most rapidly urbanizing region. It is portrayed as a pure source of nature capable of containing global warming, rarely recalling that the Amazon rubber enabled the automobile revolution, which fueled today's climate crisis in the first place. There is a profound gap between what is (un)told about the Amazon and the international interactions at play on the ground. Copyright:• This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of a Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided that the original author and source are credited.• Este é um artigo publicado em acesso aberto e distribuído sob os termos da Licença de Atribuição Creative Commons, que permite uso irrestrito, distribuição e reprodução em qualquer meio, desde que o autor e a fonte originais sejam creditados.

Perspectivas desde el ecofeminismo frente al cambio climático y la Amazonía

“…Volviendo a la Amazonía como: "Otro histórico, marginalizado y oprimido" (Mignolo 2009, 183), donde todas estas variantes convergen, se puede observar la forma en que se ha equiparado a las mujeres con la naturaleza como cuerpos-territorios racializados, subordinados e inferiores. Empezando por su nombre, proveniente de la palabra "amazonas", este se refiere a un pueblo mitológico conformado por mujeres guerreras que vivían fuera del mando de las ciudades-estado griegas (Picq 2016). Claramente, esta visión patriarcal continúa siendo parte del imaginario de Occidente, donde la naturaleza es sinónimo de tierras vacías, suelo de una raza inferior.…”

“…II. la han invisibilizado (Picq 2016). A pesar de que la Amazonía es uno de esos espacios donde la crisis climática se ha materializado con mayor fuerza, continúa siendo excluida por nociones duales y binarias como el centro/periferia, desarrollado/subdesarrollado, primitivo/civilizado, entre otros.…”

“…II.). Si es que la Amazonía existe en el imaginario de Occidente, ha sido como tierra de nadie, remota y virgen (Picq 2016).…”