Rights statement: This is the author’s version of a work that was accepted for publication in Global Environmental Change. Changes resulting from the publishing process, such as peer review, editing, corrections, structural formatting, and other quality control mechanisms may not be reflected in this document. Changes may have been made to this work since it was submitted for publication. A definitive version was subsequently published in Global Environmental Change, 56, 2019 DOI: 10.1016/j.gloenvcha.2019.04.004
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Final published version
Research output: Contribution to Journal/Magazine › Journal article › peer-review
Research output: Contribution to Journal/Magazine › Journal article › peer-review
}
TY - JOUR
T1 - Counter-conducts and the green grab
T2 - Forest peoples’ resistance to industrial resource extraction in the Saracá-Taquera National Forest, Brazilian Amazonia
AU - Nepomuceno, Itala
AU - Affonso, Hugo
AU - Fraser, James Angus
AU - Torres, Mauricio
N1 - This is the author’s version of a work that was accepted for publication in Global Environmental Change. Changes resulting from the publishing process, such as peer review, editing, corrections, structural formatting, and other quality control mechanisms may not be reflected in this document. Changes may have been made to this work since it was submitted for publication. A definitive version was subsequently published in Global Environmental Change, 56, 2019 DOI: 10.1016/j.gloenvcha.2019.04.004
PY - 2019/5/1
Y1 - 2019/5/1
N2 - This paper contributes to the theory of environmentality – the ‘conduct of conduct’ with regard to the environment - by incorporating Foucault’s notion of counter-conducts to elucidate the subjectivities emergent from the performance of dissent in relation to different forms of power - sovereign, disciplinary and biopower - through which a spatialized rational-technical governmentality of ‘green’ mining and logging is enacted in Saracá-Taquera National Forest (FLONA), Brazilian Amazonia. We analyse the counter-conductive subjectivities emergent from forest peoples’ political articulation through identity categories riberinhos and quilombolas (enshrined in the 1988 Constitution and subsequent laws), claiming of rights to delimit areas of traditional use and ancestral territories, along with direct action, critical discourse and reassertion of agroecological knowledge against industrial resource extraction. To capture the dynamic relation of the conduct of conduct to counter-conducts we draw on a late Foucauldian model of a self, wherein his earlier focus on how the Panopticon shapes self-discipline is complemented by a turn to care for and ethics of the self - practices of freedom through which subjects have the potential to transcend self-discipline. We use this lens to illuminate two case-studies, one focusing on mining, the other on timber, exploring how in this protected area - which permits the ‘sustainable’ industrial extraction of natural resources - the state, companies and an NGO try to shape forest peoples as ‘green’ subjects. Counter-conducts provide the theory of environmentality with a broader perspective on resistance foregrounding the production of political subjectivities in dissent whilst breaking with the resistance-domination binary.
AB - This paper contributes to the theory of environmentality – the ‘conduct of conduct’ with regard to the environment - by incorporating Foucault’s notion of counter-conducts to elucidate the subjectivities emergent from the performance of dissent in relation to different forms of power - sovereign, disciplinary and biopower - through which a spatialized rational-technical governmentality of ‘green’ mining and logging is enacted in Saracá-Taquera National Forest (FLONA), Brazilian Amazonia. We analyse the counter-conductive subjectivities emergent from forest peoples’ political articulation through identity categories riberinhos and quilombolas (enshrined in the 1988 Constitution and subsequent laws), claiming of rights to delimit areas of traditional use and ancestral territories, along with direct action, critical discourse and reassertion of agroecological knowledge against industrial resource extraction. To capture the dynamic relation of the conduct of conduct to counter-conducts we draw on a late Foucauldian model of a self, wherein his earlier focus on how the Panopticon shapes self-discipline is complemented by a turn to care for and ethics of the self - practices of freedom through which subjects have the potential to transcend self-discipline. We use this lens to illuminate two case-studies, one focusing on mining, the other on timber, exploring how in this protected area - which permits the ‘sustainable’ industrial extraction of natural resources - the state, companies and an NGO try to shape forest peoples as ‘green’ subjects. Counter-conducts provide the theory of environmentality with a broader perspective on resistance foregrounding the production of political subjectivities in dissent whilst breaking with the resistance-domination binary.
KW - Foucault
KW - Governmentality
KW - Environmentality
KW - Biopolitics
KW - Rights
U2 - 10.1016/j.gloenvcha.2019.04.004
DO - 10.1016/j.gloenvcha.2019.04.004
M3 - Journal article
VL - 56
SP - 124
EP - 133
JO - Global Environmental Change
JF - Global Environmental Change
SN - 0959-3780
ER -