Conjuring Property: Speculation and Environmental Futures in the Brazilian Amazon

7232019 Conjuring Property Speculation and Environmental Futures in the Brazilian Amazon

httpslidepdfcomreaderfullconjuring-property-speculation-and-environmental-futures-in-the-brazilian 139



Studies in Anthropology and Environment

K Sivaramakrishnan Series Editor



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by Mark Baker

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for Sustainable Living by Nancy urner

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ropics and the raveling Gaze India Land-

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Forest Guardians Forest Destroyers

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Maya Lowlanders by Liza Grandia

Puer ea Ancient Caravans and

Urban Chic by Jinghong Zhang

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Highland Peru by Mattias Borg Rasmussen

Conjuring Property Speculation and Envi-

ronmental Futures in the Brazilian Amazon

by Jeremy M Campbell

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mental Rule in Vietnam

by Pamela D Mc Elwee

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Seattle amp London

Jeremy M Campbell

Conjuring

Property



copy by the University of Washington Press

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Composed in Warnock Pro a typeface designed by Robert Slimbach

All rights reserved No part of this publication may be reproduced or

transmitted in any form or by any means electronic or mechanical

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system without permission in writing from the publisher

wwwwashingtoneduuwpress

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Unless otherwise noted all photographs are by the author

Te paper used in this publication is acid-free and meets the minimum

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Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials ndashinfin



A critical knowledge of the evolution of the idea of

property would embody in some respects the most remarkable

portion of the mental history of mankind

Lewis H Morgan Ancient Society ()



Foreword by K Sivaramakrishnan ix

Preface xi

Acknowledgments xv

Abbreviations xix

Real Estate in Wild Country

Frontier Capitalism and Figuring the State

Te Labors of Grilagem

Speculative Accumulation

Living Proleptically in the Environmental Era

Regularization and the Land Question

On Property and Devastation

Notes

Glossary

Bibliography

Index



ix

Te importance of this book is to be found both in its novel theoretical

contributions to the anthropology of futures and in the ethnographic study

of land futures in Brazilian Amazonia Land broadly conceived and the

property in it more specifically is a topic of great contemporary interest

internationally due to land grabs by sovereign wealth funds and powerfultransnational corporations the crisis in agriculture and the world food sys-

tem and the rapid increase in land conversion for nonagricultural uses to

generate energy build infrastructure provide housing and support service

industries

At the risk of being somewhat dramatic it is possible to suggest though

that much of the recently burgeoning scholarship on land grabs around

the world especially in sub-Saharan Africa Asia and Latin America pays

little attention to actual and imagined property rights Scholars have rightlycautioned from a variety of perspectives that the use of and profit from land

may have little to do with the exercise of property rights in any orderly sense

But struggles over land nevertheless are also always struggles over property

Jeremy Campbell is at pains to clarify that property in his usage is not merely

something held by record of ownership or right to use but is crucially an

idea a connection between present struggle and future visions of wellness

success prosperity and identification with communities of aspiration It is

this essential set of points that animates a fine ethnographic examination of

the imagination establishment trade and invention of property rightsmdashand

property futuresmdashprovided in the pages of this book

Campbell argues that as colonists big and small rich or poor juggle

the definition and claiming of property they actually produce the state

and market relations that in turn shape the future of landed property in

the Brazilian Amazon It follows that these practices provide important

windows into land deals but much more as wellmdashnot least the makingof identities communities government programs and commercial activi-

tiesmdashand therefore merit an examination that does not end with dubbing

them odious speculative the nefarious working of frontier societies



x 983223

Most studies conducted in Amazonia in the last twenty-five years have

been preoccupied with indigenous and forest people and for good reasons

In these studies colonists have often come out as unsympathetic stick fig-

ures the interlopers and vanguard of various kinds of forces of predation

and exploitation but they are ultimately seen as agents of the market or the

state Campbell humanizes the predicament of the colonist He discusses

in detail how they come to settle what they dream about and what their

anxieties are Tey struggle to make agriculture and animal keeping viable

vocations in an area unfamiliar to them and in which the land market has

been made highly unstable by rampant speculation and fickle government

policies for development and later conservation and now sustainable gov-

ernance in the AmazonIn this careful account colonists may not become sympathetic figures

but they do emerge as complex human subjects whose role on the leading

edge of projects driven by states or financial institutions is inevitably one of

absorbing risk and outlining opportunities that may lie ahead Tis creates

a space for colonists to lead the imaginative revolution and also to call up

the government to act nimbly in a shifting terrain Campbell is aware that

advance parties can be forsaken or can lose their way but they inevitably

carve out directions on the landscape that cannot be ignored even if theyare difficult to decipher

Along the way Campbell provides a novel account of colonization by

smallholders a land grab if you will that is given shape and meaning on the

ground by the conflicted and changing assumptions of many petty opera-

tors as much as it is a product of the working of grand schemes of govern-

ment and the large forces of corporations and wealth funds Tis allows him

to retheorize enduring topics of interest in the social sciences to do with

state formation the differentiation of social classes during processes of land

settlement and conversion for economic activity and the meaning of labor

in farm pasture and forest

K Sivaramakrishnan

Yale University

January



xi

In the first decades of the twenty-first century the worldrsquos largest remain-

ing tropical biome is under formidable pressure from a range of forces

calling for ldquodevelopmentrdquo Plans for hydroelectric projects roads coloni-

zation schemes and oil and gas pipelines ring the Amazon Basin fromGuyana to Peru In Brazil the nation with the largest share of Amazonia

a brief decline in deforestation rates earlier this century has lately yielded

to increased conversion of forests into pastures and soy fields A familiar

corollary to environmental destruction is the social upheaval that results

from disputes over rural territories since people have been mur-

dered with another three thousand receiving death threats in the Brazilian

Amazon (CP ) Indigenous peoples have organized valiant defenses

of their lands through international campaigns and coordinated marcheson regional cities but the news of clashes between natives and encroaching

miners loggers and colonists shows no sign of stopping

For observers of the region the contemporary emphasis on a muscular

development apparatus in Amazoniamdashstudded with ambitious megaproj-

ects such as the Belo Monte dam in Brazil or the Camisea Gas Project in

Perumdashmarks a return to an earlier era of incursions From the late s

through the s Amazonian states built highways financed massive

mining projects and dislocated thousands of native peoples in the name

of modernizing the forest Tese efforts abated however due to pressures

from an emerging environmental movement in Amazonia and the success-

ful internationalization of the indigenous rights struggle By develop-

ment had shifted toward smaller and more inclusive projects that added a

social and environmental calculus to economic growth An emphasis on

grassroots participation continues even as large-scale investments have

returned to dominate the scene What is different this time around is theascendance of a neoliberal orthodoxy that emphasizes the participation of

local actors in markets and market-driven activities that have regional or

even global reach In Brazil planners use a language of benefits incentives



xii 983223

and rights to create projects they believe will be equally fair and attractive

to native peoples migratory colonists and far-off investors

A key element in the new development orthodoxy in Amazonia is

property specifically its deployment as a means to manage territory and

incentivize rational behavior In the fundamental debate over how natural

resources should be managed or developed Brazilian policy has turned

decisively toward privatization and away from collective (ie state) super-

vision of resources Tis shiftmdashwhich has been repeated on other resource

frontiers globallymdashfigures private property as the intervention that will

stanch disputes over territory and runaway deforestation Te contem-

porary development imaginary proposes an ownership society in which

individuals trust in the integrity of property and are able to realize returnson their investments in environmental goods and services Propertyrsquos use-

fulness lies in part in how it can address the chronic (and utterly local)

problem of tenure ambiguity while also linking Amazonian territories to

broader (global) streams of investment and systems of government

Te problem with the ownership model however is that property already

exists in the Brazilian Amazon a surfeit of it in fact Since the s waves

of colonists to the region have staked out positions on public lands often one

on top of the other resulting in a thicket of overlapping claims and counter-claims Whatrsquos more colonists have devised their property claims largely in

the absence of the state agencies that would definitively recognize them As a

result throughout much of rural Amazonia peasants and large landholders

have improvised a vernacular system for holding claiming and selling lands

that operates largely beyond official sanction Highly volatile and prone

to outbursts of violence this vernacular property system nevertheless fol-

lows a certain logic through forging papers grooming trails squatting on

lands leveraging debts or working with confederates colonists turn land

into a protocommodity awaiting recognition by the state and incorpora-

tion into the market Te statersquos turn toward privatization thus converges

with the positions many colonists have adopted over the past forty years

with their speculative properties-in-wait Not every claim is destined to be

honored however so colonists jockey for best position Tough Amazonia

represents the hope of agrarian reform for landless migrants in the region

crafty speculators and rich land grabbers are busily subdividing lands inanticipation of future regulations

Te culture of colonial settlements in Amazonia has received little atten-

tion in the anthropological literature However there is much value in an



983223 xiii

account of the habits and frames of mind that colonists share as they carve

villages out of the forest Self-described as living on the frontier of civiliza-

tion colonists seem to pursue a ldquomongrel existence clustered around

temporary landing strips and edging newly cut roads [in towns] that each

day put out new tentaclesrdquo (Descola ) Improvised and makeshift

the lives colonists lead nevertheless incline toward permanence Indeed

as property stabilizes in Amazonia the implications for the forests and the

traditional inhabitants of the region are dire In colonistsrsquo hands property

devastates habitats and occludes histories

What follows is an ethnography of political economy in formation In

Amazonia the land market to come is more important than the market as it

exists today and the focus here is on how colonists prepare for the develop-ment intervention that emphasizes property regularization and privatiza-

tion Rather than a study of the land trade as such this book follows how

colonists trade techniques for making the illicit acquisition of land appear

legitimate to one another and to Brazilian authorities Just as important

colonists are participating in a robust trade in agrarian identities shifting

from ldquopeasantrdquo to ldquoproducerrdquo or ldquoenvironmentalistrdquo and back again depend-

ing on the advantage gained Tese improvised and illicit transactions are

shaping the property market to come while also encouraging deforestationand the greater concentration of wealth Tis is not an optimistic story

however describing how local actors anticipate and manipulate official plans

might yet inform the crafting of more nimble socioeconomic policy



xv

Despite the ldquolone wolfrdquo reputation of the discipline no anthropologist works

alone As I researched this book I was the beneficiary of the kind sup-

port of many colleagues and strangers Since on my first visit to the

sleepy riverboat town of Santareacutem I have spent over forty months learning

about territorial dynamics in western Paraacute Te research that forms thecore of this study was conducted from through with support

from the Wenner-Gren Foundation for Anthropological Research and the

Fulbright-Hays Research Abroad Program of the US Department of Educa-

tion Additional support for fieldwork was provided by the Department of

Anthropology and the Center for ropical Research in Ecology Agriculture

and Development (CenREAD) at the University of California Santa Cruz

Continuing research from through was made possible through

the Foundation for the Promotion of Scholarship and eaching at RogerWilliams University and the National Geographic Societyrsquos Committee for

Research and Exploration Fieldwork was conducted entirely in Portuguese

and all translations of quoted conversations and common idioms are my

own

I am grateful to have had many conversations over the years with a bril-

liant set of colleagues and friends at the University of California Roger Wil-

liams University and many other institutions Each of these colleagues has

had a hand in shaping this volume and I appreciate their generous support

Ryan Adams Renato Athias Brenda Baletti Christopher Ball Eve Bratman

Marisol de la Cadena Andrew Canessa Mike Cepek Janet Chernela James

Clifford Rose Cohen Beth Conklin Jonathan Echeverri Juliet Erazo Bill

Fisher Susan Harding Penelope Harvey Adam Henne Jeffrey Hoelle Alf

Hornborg Jason Jacobs Nick Kawa Chris Kortright Doreen Lee Alejandro

Leguizamo Dan Linger Carlos Londontildeo Sulkin Patrick Lundh Kristina

Lyons Marybeth MacPhee David McGrath Cristina Mehrtens FelipeMilanez Brent Millikan Sean Mitchell im Murphy Jessica OrsquoReilly Ben

Orlove Jason Patch Daniela Peluso Autumn Quezada-Grant Richard Reed

Peter Richards Dan Rosengren eal Rothschild Steven Rubenstein Carlos



xvi 983223

Sautchuk Suzana Sawyer Marianne Schmink James Scott Shaila Seshia-

Galvin Glenn Shepard Jessica Skolnikoff Michelle Stewart erry urner

Leah VanWey Wendy Wolford and Laura Zanotti I must also extend spe-

cial thanks to Heath Cabot Kregg Hetherington and Bregje van Eekelen for

providing patient and valuable feedback on manuscript drafts Paola Prado

provided expert advice on the bookrsquos images Daniele em Pass skillfully

drew the maps and Sherry Smith compiled the index

Tank you to the audiences and students at the College of the Atlan-

tic Northeastern University Vanderbilt University emple University the

University of Maryland the University of Massachusetts at Dartmouth the

University of Wisconsin and Yale Universityrsquos Program in Agrarian Stud-

ies where I have presented my research Portions of chapter appear in anarticle I wrote for the Journal of Latin American and Caribbean Anthropol-

ogy (Campbell ndash) and a version of chapter was published in

PoLAR Political and Legal Anthropology Review (Campbell ndash)

Tis book has also benefited from the invaluable mentorship I received from

Mark Anderson Andrew Mathews Hugh Raffles and Anna sing Tough

the book is my own (and I take full responsibility for its faults and omis-

sions) the influence of these exemplary scholars can be seen throughout

Far more than a mentor Anna sing has modeled for me a humble yet fiercedetermination to pay attention to the world as it is to learn what wonders it

can teach and to find a constantly renewing hope in its surprises

In Brazil I benefited from the kindness and encouragement of many

individuals and institutions In Beleacutem at the Universidade Federal do Paraacute

(UFPA) Edna Ramos de Castro provided access to the Nuacutecleo de Altos

Estudos Amazocircnicos (NAEA) an invaluable resource for Amazonianists

Tanks to Joseacute Benatti in the faculty of law at UFPA who has been a pio-

neer in the social studies of land grabbing in the Amazonia I also received

invaluable support from the researchers at the Amazon Institute of People

and the Environment (Instituto do Homem e Meio Ambiente da Amazocircnia

or IMAZON) in Manaus including the ecologist Philip Fearnside and his

colleagues Brenda Brito and Paulo Baretto In Santareacutem where I affiliated

with the Instituto de Pesquisa Ambiental da Amazocircnia (IPAM) and the

Instituto Cultural Boanerges Sena (ICBS) I wish to thank Rosana Costa

Fernanda Ferreira and Ane Alencar as well as ICBS director CristovamSena who opened his extensive archive to me Tanks also to colleagues

at the Universidade Federal do Oeste do Paraacute (UFOPA) especially Bruna

Rocha Mauricio orres and Florecircncio Vaz who are academic and social



983223 xvii

justice pioneers in the apajoacutes region It is certain that I could not have

explored Amazonia without the love and support of my extended family in

Santareacutem Steven Winn Alexander Dra Aacuteurea Lucia Alexander their sons

Arthur and David and the crew at Amizade and the Fundaccedilatildeo Esperanccedila

especially Nathan Darity and Micah and Lidiane Gregory

Despite not knowing what to make of me at first the people of Castelo

de Sonhos embraced me as I came to know their stories I have interviewed

over three hundred individuals from Castelo over the past decade and have

spent countless hours hiking through fields and forests or sharing coffee

or beer with the resident colonists who hail from all corners of Brazil It

is a privilege to have been given the chance to try to understand Ama-

zoniamdashand the changes underway theremdashthrough their eyes It would beimpractical for me to list the names of all to whom I am grateful here also

imprudent as I have taken pains to use pseudonyms throughout this text to

protect informantsrsquo identities Let me say that were it not for your generos-

ity this work would not have been possible A very special thanks is due to

Douglas Arauacutejo Cristiane Wermuth and their daughter ainaacute who kindly

supported this work from the start

I am grateful to K Sivaramakrishnan and Lorri Hagman at the Uni-

versity of Washington Press for all of their support through the editorialprocess Many thanks also to the two anonymous reviewers who offered

insightful comments on the manuscript My dear friend Adam Brown did

me the great service of being my writing coach keeping me on task through

deadlines and offering brilliant advice on style and tone Deep thanks to my

parents Kathy and Ron and godparents Sharon and Patti who supported

me throughout the years of travel and research Finally I wish to thank my

children Kassandra Louisa and Phillip who have inspired me more than

they can know and my lovely wife Madeline for her endless support and

encouragement I dedicate this book to them



xix

BASA Banco da Amazocircnia SA (Bank of Amazonia)

BNDES Banco Nacional do Desenvolvimento (Brazi lian National Development

Bank)

CAR Cadastro Ambiental Rural (Rural Environmental Registry)

CNJ Conselho Nacional de Justiccedila (National Council of Justice)

CP Comissatildeo Pastoral da erra (Pastoral Land Commission)

EMBRAPA Empresa Brasileira de Pesquisa Agropecuaacuteria (Brazilian Agricultural

Research Corporation)

FLONA Floresta Nacional (National Forest)

GA Grupo de rabalho Amazocircnico (Amazonian Working Group Network)

IBAMA Instituto Brasileiro do Meio Ambiente e dos Recursos Naturais Renovaacuteveis

(Brazilian Institute of Environment and Renewable Natural Resources)ICBS Instituto Cultural Boanerges Sena (Boanerges Sena Cultural Institute)

ICMBio Instituto Chico Mendes de Conservaccedilatildeo da Biodiversidade (Chico Mendes

Institute of Biodiversity Conservation)

IMAZON Instituto do Homem e Meio Ambiente da Amazocircnia (Amazon Institute of

People and the Environment)

INCRA Instituto Nacional de Colonizaccedilatildeo e Reforma Agraacuteria (National Institute

of Colonization and Agrarian Reform)

IPAM Instituto de Pesquisa Ambiental da Amazocircnia (Amazon Environmental

Research Institute)

ISA Instituto Socioambiental (Socioenvironmental Institute)

IERPA Instituto de erras do Paraacute (Paraacute Land Institute)

MDA Ministeacuterio do Desenvolvimento Agraacuterio (Ministry of Agrarian

Development)

MMA Ministeacuterio do Meioambiente (Ministry of the Environment)

MP Medida Provisoacuteria (Provisional Measure)

MPF Ministeacuterio Puacuteblico Federal (Federal Public Ministry)

MS Movimento dos rabalhadores Sem erra (Landless Workersrsquo Movement)



xx 983223

NAEA Nuacutecleo de Altos Estudos Amazocircnicos (Nucleus of Advanced

Amazonian Studies)

PAC Plano da Aceleraccedilatildeo do Crescimento (Accelerated Growth Plan)

PARNA Parque Nacional (National Park)PDS Projeto de Desenvolvimento Sustentaacutevel (Sustainable

Development Project)

PIN Plano de Integraccedilatildeo Nacional (National Integration Plan)

P Partido dos rabalhadores (Workersrsquo Party)

R983076 Reais Brazilrsquos currency

REBIO Reserva Bioloacutegica (Biological Reserve)

RESEX Reserva Extrativista (Extractive Reserve)SPR Sindicato dos Produtores Rurais (Rural Producersrsquo Association)

SR Sindicato dos rabalhadores Rurais (Rural Workersrsquo Union)

SUDAM Superintendecircncia do Desenvolvimento da Amazocircnia

(Superintendency of Amazonian Development)

ZEE Zoneamento Ecoloacutegico-Econocircmico (Ecological-Economic Zoning)



Conjuring Property



Introduction Real Estate in Wild Country

o the best of his knowledge the land that Zeacute currently occupies

along a dusty secondary road in the Brazilian Amazon has been bought

and sold five maybe six times Most of these transactions have been betweenparties who have never seen the parcel using documents with incomplete

or inaccurate coordinates Strictly speaking all of these dealings have been

illegal as definitive title to the lot has never been issued in fact even the

size and shape of the parcel on which Zeacute (a pseudonym) resides are indefi-

nite Furthermore at least two additional property claims overlap portions

of Zeacutersquos land For his part Zeacute did not purchase the lot when he migrated to

Amazonia from northeastern Brazil in the late s From the perspective

of the landrsquos distant ldquoownersrdquomdashthe investors in Satildeo Paulo or Rio de Janeirowho paid for the lot despite its legal uncertaintymdashZeacute is a squatter with no

claim to the property However it is unlikely that these owners are aware of

Zeacute and it is very probable that they plan to sell the lot as soon as a profit can

be turned Zeacutersquos claim to the place where he has built a clapboard farmhouse

and planted manioc and fruit trees is effectively an act of homesteading

protected by the Brazilian constitution

So long as definitive title is elusive these two worlds can coexist a world

of dodgy but lucrative transactions among absentee ldquoownersrdquo and a world

in which a landless migrant stakes and defends a claim on the ground amid

counterclaims and other tenure ambiguities If however the question of

ownership were ever raisedmdashas an increasing chorus of elites peasants and

government officials in Amazonia are demandingmdashthis improvised system of

multiple overlapping and legally vague territorial claims would be replaced

by a singular and definitive tenure regime Te shape that regime would take

and the kinds of claims that would ultimately win out are anyonersquos guessWhat is clear is that as the Brazilian state embraces new development rheto-

rics of environmental sustainability and social empowerment in Amazonia

property has emerged as a premier site for government intervention



983223

Viewed from above there are no discernable boundaries distinguish-

ing Zeacutersquos homestead from those of competing claimants only the classic

image of a green carpet of trees stretching out in every direction What

this vision of untracked wilderness obscures is a tangle of claims lying in

wait property projections crafted by colonists and speculators out of cash

forged documents clandestine redoubts and a variety of legal principles and

development policies Colonists are currently preparing for development

reforms with the aim of owning severable lots carved from Brazilrsquos vast

public domain Te techniques by which they construct and display their

claims are as varied as the development protocols that mark the history of

colonization in Amazonia furthermore colonists have invented their own

methods for making property legible to one another and to the stateldquoTerersquos a real future in land here In property [ propriedade]rdquo Zeacute

explains as if he were encouraging me to invest in real estate Noting the

nearby roadmdashwhich many say is soon to be pavedmdashhe adds ldquoTerersquos no

limit to what is possible on land like this good for planting for ranching for

building wealthrdquo1 As Zeacute speaks a vision for the future of the region crystal-

lizes a future predicated on property not only as the basis of a political econ-

omy but also as a marker of modernity and progress Zeacute shares in the feeling

of many colonists that the Brazilian state while encouraging the settlementand ldquocivilizingrdquo of the forest has nevertheless abandoned migrants to their

own devices in Amazonia For Zeacute who came to the region in search of mate-

rial improvement Amazonia is still wild country where a strange ecology

beguiles and Brazilian law barely applies Indeed the reach of government

services support or general oversight is ineffective in preventing predatory

land grabbing or wildcat logging and mining Te muddle of property claims

is a function of the statersquos absence though it is through making property

claims that migrants like Zeacute hope to encourage the establishment of proper

government in the region ldquoSome of us have been here for decades waiting

and surviving Te state will have to see thatrdquo he adds ldquohow wersquove made

the framework [estrutura] for order and progressrdquo2

Property claims are efforts to give shape and regularity to political econ-

omy in a land with few rules With them colonists like Zeacute attempt to build

alienation into land as a commodity to make singularity and severability

viable in the midst of ecological relationships and multitudes (see sing) Just as important property is used as a technique to bring a deferred

colonial future to bear It simultaneously materializes a culture of territo-

rial occupation and performs a settler historical consciousness in which



983223

wilderness inevitably yields to the ldquoprogressrdquo of the plow and the paper

deed Zeacute a homesteader who had not purchased a deed nevertheless had

one a crumpled forgery that had been artificially yellowed to look authentic

He explained that he had the document ldquojust in case it is what I need to

finally get established hererdquo

Tis study describes how colonists in the Brazilian Amazon bring property

to life both as a circulating cultural category and as a material transforma-

tion of landscapes Colonists in rural Amazonia are preparing for the arrival

of government development and the future itself in the form of propertyreform and recognition Te claims that they stake are speculations about

the shape of a to-be-recognized commodity as well as world-making tech-

nologies for the fabrication of Brazilian civilization on the frontier In rural

Amazonia property is conjuredmdashmade to appear from seemingly nowhere

as if by magic Tese conjurings are made with the belief that they might

be recognized and thereby become the basis of individual wealth a shared

economy and a rural way of life Situated in improvised and fraudulent

practices property is to emerge with enough appearance of propriety tolegalize the illegal and regularize the irregular

Since Brazil first encouraged large-scale Amazonian colonization in

the early s nearly one million people have migrated to the region (de

Lima Amaral ) Te results of the push into the forest have been

mixed Tough standards of living have improved throughout the region

indigenous groups have faced genocidal conditions Amazonian cities have

swelled with migrants whose farms failed and violence and corruption

have come to define rural land dynamics (see Foweraker ) Over the

decades Brazil has promulgated contradictory development and coloniza-

tion policies alternately backing agrarian reform corporate colonization

indigenous land rights environmental protection and private homestead-

ing State and business interests have variously figured the region as a demo-

graphic void a national security risk and a storehouse of lucrative natural

resources Diverging techniques for claiming land including filing papers

burning forest lots building a homestead and chasing off the competitionhave accompanied these exogenous development visions Te result is that

frequently in Amazonia many potentially legitimate but mutually exclusive

claims for the same piece of ground overlap one another



983223

In a region that many perceive to be stateless migrants are adopting

anticipatory stances while they await future government intervention

regarding tenure confusion Zeacute is one of thousands who since came

to Amazonia to homestead pan for gold set up as ranchers or chase dreams

of a better life Hardly a monolithic category Amazonian colonists reflect

the broader socioeconomic and regional diversity of Brazil and range from

landless peasants who seek to set up small farms to wealthy agribusiness

elites Tose who like Zeacute homesteaded on federal lands in western Paraacute

state found none of the institutional trappings of the Brazilian statemdashno

court no police no agricultural extension servicesmdashthrough which their

fledgling parcels could be recognized or sustained In this vacuum a colo-

nial culture of improvisation has taken root in which violence fraud andwily maneuvers are among the tools that colonists use to bolster their terri-

torial positions Finding no preestablished legibility for property Zeacute learned

from other migrants how to make and transport claims always with an eye

toward future recognition from the state It is from within this vernacular

system of property claims that colonists are currently engaging new fed-

eral efforts to sort out territorial relations in rural Amazonia namely an

economic and ecological zoning (zoneamento ecoloacutegico-econocircmico) scheme

and a tenure regularization program (erra Legal )An ethnography of colonistsrsquo territorial practices reveals an underly-

ing characteristic of colonization in the Brazilian Amazon even as colo-

nists speculate about future dispositions of governance and of capital their

everyday actions regarding property have the effect of bringing the state

and market into being For Amazonian colonists property is a dynamic

category that becomes salient in the making it is conjured through papers

appeals to state officials and the manipulation of landscapes and memories

of occupation Te speculative rush to secure viable claims on property

draws in squatters homesteaders and the well-heeled as each seeks future

recognition and legitimacy to be conferred by the Brazilian state Speculat-

ing colonists root their claims in the purported legitimacy of development

policies but they also adapt their property positions to influence emerging

government programs Te implication of these findings is that the state

far from absent in rural Amazonian settlements is emergent in the ersatz

engagements of colonists with their surrounding environment with oneanother and with the figural metaphors of modernity and development that

they bring with them into the region Analyzing the manifold phenomena

that constitute property speculation (especulaccedilatildeo fundiaacuteria) as a practice



983223

pursued by both elites and smallholder peasants in Amazonia casts new

light on colonistsrsquo participation in Brazilrsquos current efforts to install envi-

ronmental governance regimes in the region

Anthropological studies of state power have emphasized discursive

regimes of power and knowledge (Agrawal Ferguson ) or how

states make landscapes and rural societies legible for rule (Scott ) In this

book I posit that to understand state territorialization in a resource frontier

it is also crucial to consider how colonists affect the state and the market

through their own speculations and anticipatory practices Visions of territo-

rial transformation never fully colonize a place nor do colonists act as mere

extensions of state power Here I focus on colonistsrsquo material and discursive

practices of anticipation vis-agrave-vis future regularizations and improvementsby state and market Tese practices congealed in how colonists manipulate

territories documents and histories to produce property claims dispose

rural Amazonian colonists to act as if the state and market had already

ratified their positions Emerging top-down regulatory regimes that aim to

encourage environmental governance and participatory development are

in turn influenced by these vernacular speculations In settler communities

in rural Amazonia colonists are creating the conditions for capitalist accu-

mulation in a region they understand as being before history I argue thatthe category of the futuremdashenacted as a cultural style of frontier occupation

and civilizational anticipationmdashshapes property-making behaviors in the

present while also setting the stage for environmental and sociopolitical

transformations As colonists take up strategic positions they turn property

into a resource for prolepsis of anticipating and forestalling possible objec-

tions by incorporating them into onersquos own stance Concerned that environ-

mental regulations may lead to their territories being expropriated colonists

strive to represent themselves as dutiful environmentally conscious propri-

etors a strategy that may prove effective in legitimizing claims Constructed

prolepticallymdashby meeting parrying and influencing regulations in a manner

advantageous to colonistsmdashproperty becomes a material and conceptual

resource for accumulating power and redirecting state policies on climate

change forest governance and agrarian reform

Over the past decade land prices in Amazocircnia Legalmdashthe official name

for the Amazon region within the Brazilian republicmdashhave risen by percent a rate much higher than the rest of the country3 Tis statistic

refers only to legitimate transactions on which taxes and fees have been paid

to the government a caveat that leaves out the transactions and specula-



983223

tions that take place in rural zones awaiting regularization Still it is clear

that a land boom is currently underway in rural Amazonia along the vast

stretches of public domain (terras devolutas) where homestead claims and

paper deeds constitute a protomarket of privatized properties Announced

or anticipated investments in infrastructure and economic development

are fueling the surge in land prices even in places where tenure confusion

is particularly acute Speculative cash infusions from residents in Brazilrsquos

urban south inflate this Amazonian land bubble but the viability of real

estate in the region is a matter that can be assured only locally through the

sleights of hand and anticipatory stances of conjuring property Te question

of what becomes of property in Amazoniamdashhow it is made and recognized

to whose benefit and with what economic and sociocultural effectsmdashliesat the heart of this study

Approaching this question is itself a study in irony Te earliest form

of Western proprietorship in Amazonia was the colonial sesmaria system

in which the Portuguese crown devolved vast stretches of land as courtly

favors Largely intact at the dawn of the republican era the sesmaria system

assured the concentration of land and wealth in the hands of an agrarian

elite in Amazonia It was not until the s in the guise of a reactionary

dictatorshiprsquos ldquonational integration planrdquo that any democratization of landownership was attempted in the region an irony that was knotted up in the

slogan of the times that Amazonia should become ldquoa land without people

for people without landrdquo Te dictatorsrsquo populist stance fully ignored the

native populations of the region and heralded an era of colonization in lands

that had been declared public domain

In practice Brazilrsquos push into the forest has been characterized by land

grabbing and speculative maneuversmdashtermed grilagem locallymdashrather

than a smooth succession of official plans Agrarian reform turned out to

be more conducive to the consolidation of wealth than to its redistribution

and the ldquoland without peoplerdquo myth yielded to the reality of a formidable

indigenous rights movement resolved to defend the integrity of native lands

Violent struggles over land and social justice claimed the lives of activists

such as Chico Mendes and Sister Dorothy Stang resulting in widespread

condemnation of Brazilrsquos colonization policies Rapid deforestation also

grabbed the worldrsquos attention as nearly one-fifth of the Amazon rainfor-est was converted to farmland between and oday million

hectares4 of public lands in Amazoniamdashlands that were nationalized by

generals and opened to homesteaders international mining outfits large-

scale agribusiness and othersmdashhang in the balance as Brazil attempts to



983223

reform tenure while reducing deforestation and preserving conservation

areas and indigenous territories Approximately claimsmdasha best

guess as records are incomplete and claims-making procedures unevenmdash

overlap each other as their holders anticipate state action (MDA ) Te

history of development planning in Amazonia suggests that unintended

consequences and ironic reversals lie ahead this study is situated from the

perspective of colonists whose attitudes have been shaped by that history

and whose property-making strategies are shaping its future

Tere has been a resurgence of anthropological interest in property Prop-erty was among the first subjects the discipline explored in depth (Mor-

gan ) and more recent inquiries have been inspired by the ascendancy

of novel rapidly globalizing forms of property relations (eg intellectual

property regimes or the patentability of life) Ethnographers have insisted

that property be viewed contextually arguing that the seemingly standard-

ized model of private exclusive ownership so ubiquitous today is not the

ldquonaturalrdquo shape that property takes always and everywhere In renewing the

anthropological tradition of comparative studies of property ethnographershave problematized property in studies of the global emergence of native

land rights discourses (Doolittle ) the normalization of economic mod-

els that stress the rationality of private property (Mansfield ) and the

rapidity with which ownership idioms are shaping debates over heritage

creativity and personhood (Hann Strathern Verdery and Hum-

phrey ) Tree conceptual tendencies cut across this diverse literature

and inform how I operationalize property here First anthropologists view

property as a social construct not as existing latently in nature as John

Lockersquos natural law approach would have it Second the anthropological

perspective situates property as embedded in social relations the apparent

ldquothingrdquo of property is made and becomes meaningful only within a social

field in which norms about economic systems social distinctions and pub-

lic versus private spheres attain Finally ethnography reveals the work that

property does as a lively concept and institution ldquopropertyrdquo becomes the

umbrella label under which certain kinds of relationships are categorizedand through which particular political projects such as liberalization are

made ready for export (see Maurer and Schwab )

Te work of Karl Marx casts a long shadow over the anthropology of

property Te theory of history that Marx developed with Friedrich Engels



983223

focused on transformations in property relations especially the ownership

of land as a means of production Tough ethnographers have traced the

expansion of property logics into virtual and immaterial spaces the social

functions of landed property remain of special interest Countering the

liberal economists he critiqued Marx stressed that when it came to land

material relations (ie between owners and vassals lords and serfs) were

not ldquomere factsrdquo but expressions of political and social relations that could

be changed Marxrsquos attention to landmdashto the process of enclosure eviction

and the transformation of tenants into ldquofree laborersrdquomdashleads to a critical

rejection of the ideologies that would hold these processes as the inevi-

table functions of economic progress Tis critical discernment between

the material effects of property and the conceptual armature developed to justify those effects is today just as crucial in the analysis of landed property

as it was for Marx

A global land rush is under way in the first decades of the twenty-first

century in which capital and discourses of privatization are framing up

lands for the taking (Borras Jr et al ) Speculation is most acute on

agricultural lands and in zones (such as Amazonia) where legal regimes

are murky and the resident population is politically weak Te global

hegemony of neoliberal political economic thinking has resurrected andis attempting to naturalize the view that private property rights are req-

uisite for ldquorationalrdquo economic calculation on the part of individuals and

states5 Even environmental conservation in this view can be best achieved

through the establishment of private property Garrett Hardinrsquos ldquotragedy of

the commonsrdquo and Harold Demsetzrsquos () managerial economics made

mainstream the idea that communally held resources were retrograde and

ultimately destructive of environmental resources Te modern thing to

do these thinkers posited was to allow market forces and entrepreneurial

labor to transform the commons into valuable resources Private property

regimes would lead simultaneously to economic expansion and environ-

mental conservation since owners would work in their own self-interest to

steward resources efficiently Te field of resource economicsmdashfounded on

the purported virtues of privatizationmdashis currently remaking the political

economic and social landscapes of the developing world Ethnography can

attest to how its practice departs from its orthodoxy6

In this book I pay special attention to an often overlooked quality of prop-

erty its association with temporality as in the role property systems play in

the elaboration of ideas about history the future progress and social devel-

opment Te idea of exclusive private ownershipmdashenforced by a legal and



983223

juridical apparatus that includes a bundle of rights police courts cadastres

and tax regimesmdashis a premier marker of Western modernity Confidence in

property and in the pressing need to universalize it emerged as by-products

of colonial encounters with land regimes that could be parsed and labeled

as nonmodern according to the degree to which they matched up with the

Westrsquos own imagined past (see Chakrabarty ) Early ethnology was

complicit in the sorting of foraging horticultural and pastoral peoples as

living fossils based in part on the presence or absence of private property in

these communities Te colonial prerogative not only assumed that its own

property system was the most advanced it also employed property making

as a strategy of conquest and dispossession (Weaver ) reaties debts

and patents were the technologies through which colonial modernity couldtake root and overwrite preexisting territorialities But beyond propertyrsquos

obvious role in parceling space into ownable lots it also helped frame set-

tlersrsquo sense of time Once established private property outlined a novel

historicity in colonial spaces now lands had histories a lineage of owners

who could set about improving territories and accumulating the fruits of

their labors With property the eternal return of the past could be overrid-

den by a succession of events culminating in the dynamism or messianism7

of industrial capitalismAlong colonial frontiers surveyors and homesteaders effect a creative

destruction marginalizing indigenous peoples while also emplacing modern

ideas of histories and futures Tose ideas of the futuremdashexpectations antic-

ipations and notions of progressmdashare themselves cultural facts that shape

social life in the present and are enmeshed in power relations (Appadurai

) For Amazonian colonists the fluidity of property is both a reminder

that the region is not yet modern and an invitation to stake their own claim

in the future of the place Expectations of modernity (Ferguson ) or

nostalgia for a future that was promised but never materialized (Piot )

become social dramas with material and emotional effects for communities

whose situated understanding of historicity does not comport with material

markers of progress (Lomnitz ) I am interested in how propertymdash

as a condensation of material and ideological effectsmdashbecomes useful for

both creating wealth and elaborating a normative shape for history

A central concern of recent work in political ecology has been to understand

the social and environmental effects of official projects that conjoin develop-



983223

ment with conservation enure regularization in Amazonia is elaborated

as just such a project by bringing the institution of property to order the

theory goes economic and environmental goals will be more easily attain-

able Paige West has shown how official development-cum-conservation

projects can amount to a delicate barter in which governments and nongov-

ernmental organizations (NGOs) give local communities ldquothe things they

see as development in exchange for participation in conservationrdquo (

xiii) Conservation is here revealed as a project in regulating persons more

than an effort to control natural resources Tis point resonates in similar

work by ania Li () and Celia Lowe () who show how projectsrsquo

tendency to distinguish between local and expert knowledge ramifies a host

of political and economic inequalities and reinforces the preeminence ofofficial conservation and development goals over the concerns of ldquoclientsrdquo

Te concept of ldquoenvironmentalityrdquo developed by Arun Agrawal ()

illuminates the subtler power dynamics at play in regulating nature as for-

est communities take up environmental discourses by articulating new

self-asserted identities Te struggle between official and local knowledges

within regulatory encounters is an open and dynamic one Agrawal suggests

in becoming subject to environmental rules local peoples influence these

rules just as their own territorial behaviors are disciplined As governmentsand international organizations have become increasingly concerned with

creating environmental codes a rich literature reveals a staggering diver-

sity of outcomes from top-down managerial schemes to community-based

resource management projects that have empowered locals to secure land

rights (see Brosius sing and Zerner Escobar Mathews )

In the Brazilian Amazon conservation programs began in the s

largely as projects spearheaded and funded by the nongovernmental sec-

tor In recent years state backing and a desire to have programs gener-

ate revenues has brought development and conservation planning into the

picture a scene that often still lacks community representation Studying

the gap between official plans and their practical effects is an important

undertaking in Brazil which boasts some of the most progressive envi-

ronmental legislation in the world but where the reach of regulation and

enforcement is often lacking Colonists in rural Amazonia are generally

skeptical of rules that would limit their ability to farm ranch or pursuelogging But colonistsrsquo responses to environmental governance projects have

been surprisingly diverse rather than simply rejecting regulations colo-

nists have engaged appropriated or even adopted the environmental brief



983223

In a parallel context racey Heatherington () shows how rural Sicilian

villagers invoked the label of indigeneity to oppose conservation efforts that

they viewed as enclosing common lands In Amazonia private property

becomes the basis for an ldquoownerrdquo identity category that colonists adopt to

rally for or against conservation initiatives Colonists stress how they were

originally encouraged to settle and improve the land and that they are not

the enemies of nature so often caricatured by conservationists Many even

describe themselves as environmentalists and offer detailed explanations

of the environmental benefits of the property regularization they seek

A study of how environmental regulations come into being necessarily

entails a conceptualization of the state what it is and how it can be appre-

hended I agree with Michel-Rolph rouillot () and others who arguethat the state is not a fixed institutional form and that state effects come

to life in a social context that the state neither fully controls nor can come

to know entirely Te effects of state actionsmdashthe enforcement of laws the

promulgation of policy and ideologymdashare no doubt important but the mate-

rial and social spaces in which those effects take shape are contested terrain

(see P Harvey ) Tese contests are not limited to traditional election-

eering Rather the meaning and shape of state regulations are contested in

quotidian acts of resistance appropriation performance and refusal Whenthey appropriate documents or maneuver amid bureaucratic procedures

unofficial actors inhabit the form of the state even as they critique officials

in power (see K Hetherington Watts ) In addition regulatory

encountersmdashwhere property may be recognized or territorial activities pun-

ishedmdashhappen in social fields wherein there is a large ldquopossibility for variable

and conflicting appropriations of concepts and practicesrdquo (Roitman

) As interventions regulations begin with a set of presuppositions about

the nature of politics economics and economic objects and the work that

they do to render spaces and subjects governable is never assured but always

subject to contingencies In Amazonia colonistsrsquo desire for state recognition

does not equate to an eagerness to submit to official rules Instead property

conjurers hope to bend emerging environmental regulations by instantiat-

ing their own political economic norms

ldquo rdquo

Relative to the number and quality of ethnographic studies focused on

indigenous Amazonians there are few accounts of the daily lives of Ama-



983223

zonian colonists8 Te reasons for this are many In North America Europe

and Brazil most students trained in Amazonian ethnography are directed

toward indigenous studies either by theoretical concerns or as the result of

the imprint of a leading paradigm (eg structuralism) Only recently have

anthropologists joined geographers and economists in the systematic study

of nonindigenous Amazonians contributing ethnographic analyses to the

growing literatures on river-dwelling (ribeirinho) communities extractiv-

ists and descendants of escaped slaves (quilombolas) (see Adams et al

Hutchins and Wilson ) Still the social science of colonist communities

is dominated by political scientists and economists whose treatment of data

runs to the econometric and comparative

A thorough ethnographic analysis of the values and practices takingshape among colonists would enrich and inform debates about development

and conservation policy in Brazil o that end I define colonist commu-

nities as communities consisting of those families and individuals whose

history in Amazonia begins after who continue to maintain mean-

ingful connections with their region of origin and who aspire to improve

their personal situations andor transform the region Defined in this way

Amazonian colonists emerge as an understudied constituency in the lit-

erature and as a community apart within the region Colonist villages andneighborhoods while growing in size and influence are nevertheless visu-

ally and geographically distinct from native or caboclo (mixed white and

Indian ancestry) communities (Nugent Wagley )

Tis book explores how colonist communities attempt to transform

Amazonian territories through the elaboration of property logics Tough

this is not a story of native Amazonia it has clear implications for indig-

enous peoples and politics especially regarding land Settlersrsquo speculative

and often violent strategies for alienating property are currently dovetail-

ing with the Brazilian statersquos neoliberal land management policies creating

greater territorial pressures on traditional peoples Activists and analysts

interested in justice for indigenous peoples and continued vitality for Ama-

zonian forests will benefit from contemplating the motives cultural styles

and territorial strategies of Amazonian colonists In the ldquoshifting middle

groundrdquo of ecopolitics where national and international interest in indig-

enous issues often correlates with globalized concerns about our planetrsquosfuture (Conklin and Graham ) paying some attention to the colonists

who are at the doorstep of indigenous territories is warranted

Early twenty-first-century pundits often describe Brazil as a developing

or emerging nation and colonists arriving in Paraacute Acre and Amazonas



983223

states are partisans of the idea that the nation has untapped political and

economic potential Tey are perhaps predisposed to see board feet of lum-

ber where others would find a fragile ecosystem or acreage for cattle where

others envision an extractive reserve But these migrants originate from all

corners of Brazil and pursue a wide range of visions for the Amazonian

frontier It would be a mistake to assume that their attitudes are uniform

Exactly how notions of Brazilrsquos emergence as a protosuperpower become

enmeshed with colonistsrsquo understanding of their activities is an open ques-

tion and one addressed in this study I hope to bring critical social analysis

to the fine workmdashdone mostly by ecologists like Philip Fearnsidemdashon the

social drivers of deforestation in Amazonia Fearnside ( ) con-

vincingly describes a vicious cycle in which peasants open up lands only tohave them confiscated or bought out by loggers and ultimately ranchers

when peasants move on it is cheaper and easier for ranchers to expand

pastures into the new lots rather than intensifying their production Fire

debt and poverty are the key levers in a machine that is eating up the forest

but a thorough understanding of the practices visions and social relations

of peasants and elites is absent from the analysis Te latter can enrich

ongoing policy discussions in which ecologists and political scientists are

formulating strategies to mitigate the impacts of colonization (see Lauranceet al ) A flexible cultural category in its own right ldquopropertyrdquo should

not be taken for granted in policy prescriptions

Perhaps another reason for the relative lack of in-depth studies of Ama-

zonian colonization is scholarsrsquo reluctance to associate with groups engaged

in questionable or even odious pursuits such as fraud theft deforestation

and even slavery Analysts have chronicled the response of grassroots social

movements to the development juggernaut (Baletti Hall Saw-

yer ) with encouraging accounts of how marginalized communities

articulate an ldquoinsurgent citizenshiprdquo that ldquocritiques conventional modernist

authoritative development planningrdquo (Hecht ) Tis is important

work that increases the moral imagination of what kind of place Amazonia

can be However few have attempted to study those communities which

through deed or word propose the wholesale transformation of Amazonia

into a market of saleable commodities Te diverse backers and beneficiaries

of Brazil rsquos ldquoemergencerdquo are influential and persistent in their drive to trans-form the nation Analytically we ignore them at our own peril Te social

and environmental changes currently underway in Amazonia are complex

and multiform access to power and the types of uses to which power is put

must continue to be the focus of fine-grained cultural analysis



983223

Tis ethnography is situated in the western half of the vast state of Paraacute

home to dozens of traditional Amazonian populations and the site of

repeated colonization efforts and development projects (see map ) Te

principal city in this region is Santareacutem located at the confluence of the

Amazon and apajoacutes Rivers and a longtime hub of the provincial riverboat

economy (Nugent ) Te majority of western Paraacutersquos population lives in or

near Santareacutem (current pop ) the size of which has doubled over the

past forty years due to development successes and failures that encouraged

urban migration In the rural zones of the region the twenty-first centuryfinds a mix of traditional extractive economies with the capital-intensive soy

planting and cattle ranching that is pursued by thousands of recent arrivals

from southern Brazil ( gauacutechos or sulistas) South of Santareacutem ranching

gauacutechos and smallholder migrants mostly from Brazilrsquos northeast (nordes-

tinos) have built communities hugging the BR- highway a road punched

through upland forests in the early s In the s the southern reaches

of this highway corridor in the state of Mato Grosso became the center of

Brazilrsquos booming soybean crop but after its initial construction the thou-sand-kilometer stretch in Paraacute remained abandoned by the authorities for

decades It is in this regionmdashthe southwestern corner of the state of Paraacute

defined by the unpaved BR- highwaymdashthat property speculation and

anticipating development can be best examined

Since the highway proved an unreliable colonization corridor relatively

few migrants settled in western Paraacute compared with the south of the state

(near the city of Marabaacute) and the AcreRondocircnia colonization corridor

(Hoelle ) Kayapoacute and Munduruku are among the most prominent

indigenous groups in the area and elders still recall the arrival of the bull-

dozers and first migrants in the s Discovery of gold in the apajoacutes valley

set off the first rush of settlement especially near the auriferous deposits

along the Jamanxim and Curuaacute Rivers far to the south of Santareacutem Clan-

destine airstrips and hastily constructed settlements soon pockmarked the

forests along with open-air alluvial mines and tailings deposits Te most

successful gold minesmdashincluding Castelo de Sonhos the key colonist villagechronicled in this studymdashsurvived the malarial infestations and entrenched

violence associated with the gold boom and eventually became villages

with sustained populations (roughly seven thousand people currently live



MATO GROSSO

A M

A Z O N A S

PARAacute

J a m a n x i m R

i v e r

C u r u aacute

R i v e

r

X i n

g u R i v

e r

A m a z o

n R i v e r

T a p a j oacute s R

i v e r

B R

- 2 3 0

B R - 1

6 3 H w y

B R - 1 6 3

T r a n s a m

a z o n i a n H w y ( B

R - 2 3 0 )

river

non-paved road

paved road

state border

Amazon Region

200 km1000

SANTAREacuteM

ALTAMIRA

ITAITUBA

RUROacutePOLIS

NOVO PROGRESSO

CASTELO DE SONHOS

Amazon Region and Study Area



983223

in Castelo de Sonhos) In these small settlements the mood is overwhelm-

ingly colonial no one has been in the region for long (forty years at most)

many are soon to be on their way to someplace else (like a major city)

and a migrantrsquos region of origin correlates strongly with the community

she or he keeps when first encountering Amazonia

A succession of minor economic booms and busts came in the s

and s but the population density in western Paraacute remained low and

the reach of government modest Te Brazilian state nationalized lands

alongside Amazonian federal highways in the mid-s to encourage settle-

ment but in the absence of local land courts or surveyors distinguishing

legitimate property claims proved impossible enure ambiguity became

widespread and increasingly violent throughout the Brazilian Amazon inthe late twentieth century (see Schmink and Wood ) In western Paraacute

however tenure ambiguity continued to compound with each new devel-

opment protocol issued by the distant state Tough not immune to land-

related violence the region remained relatively quietmdashprotected in part by

the seasonal impassibility of the BR- highwaymdashwhile land battles raged

to the west (eg in Acre where Chico Mendes was killed in ) and to the

east (eg the massacre at Eldorado dos Carajaacutes south of Beleacutem in ) Tis

study picks up the story of this underdeveloped region at the point whenthe Brazilian state was signaling its intention to pave the BR- highway

build a series of hydroelectric plants on the regionrsquos rivers and regularize

land tenure9 Te colonists who settled in the rural zones of western Paraacute

took the statersquos intentions seriously and prepared to use the onset of new

development programs to maximize their territorial positions

In studying how colonists construct property claims in anticipation of

state recognition I have used methods and asked questions that are rarely

pursued in the study of Amazonian colonization Te status of property

in rural Amazonia is so dodgy so replete with advantageous trickery that

many analysts assume the basic shape of land jobbing and real estate specu-

lation without investigating it in detail While understandable an approach

that too readily writes off all behaviors concerning property as corrupt or

avaricious might actually serve the status quo In any event we stand to

learn little of the sociocultural practices and modes of thought associ-

ated with property makingmdashsome of which are key to the ldquonormalrdquo andldquomodernrdquo functioning of political economymdashif we see it only as a swindle

When I began the fieldwork for this study in I committed to a long-

term grappling with the world-making qualities of property and how



983223

it comes into existence as an institution to order territorial social and

even historical relations between the colonists who are active agents in

its creation An initial two-year stint of fieldwork proved insufficient to

track the labors and meanings associated with making property in western

Paraacute I returned to conduct follow-up research on an annual basis between

and tallying a total of forty months of participant observation

and interviews

Research took me into the backrooms of land registry offices

where I perused forged deeds and gained entry into a world fueled by specu-

lative cash transfers from southern Brazil On winding forest trails far from

colonial villages I hiked with the hired hands that did the demanding work

of maintaining parcelsrsquo boundaries I participated in meetings with landlessworkersrsquo associations struggling to make their own claims more visible and

with outsider NGOs who came to the region to educate colonists about

sustainable development In all I found that the story of what might happen

in western Paraacutemdashwhat kind of government and economic growth colonists

could expect or demandmdashwas always a story about the fate of the land itself

and the rights to dispose of it as property By participating in the spaces

where property was being made I could pay attention to the techniques

that colonists used to make it appear By listening intently in open-endedinterviews10 I noticed how concerns about property also announced a host

of ideas about the proper relationship of people to land the role of govern-

ment and the nature of history itself I collected information regarding

colonistsrsquo region of origin the length of time they had been in Amazonia

the range of their economic activities the extent of their relations with other

colonists their tenure status and their hopes for the future What emerges

from this data is a thorough ethnographic examination of a region that is

understood by its inhabitants to be in the midst of a monumental change

Fieldwork is marked by difficulties and misapprehensions for both the

researcher and the community being examined My motives in pursuing this

study were a constant source of curiosity for colonists and early on I became

familiar with a wary suspicion that many had of outsidersmdashespecially edu-

cated North Americans whom many assumed traveled to Amazonia to

preach the gospel of environmental preservation It took me nine months

to convince some of the residents of Castelo de Sonhos that I was in their village to research local history and development politics and that I believed

that their local perspectives were the ones most often left out in debates

on environmental policies If the owner of the local pirate radio station had



983223

not shown an interest in my work I might still be knocking on doors with

little to show for it But with this support social networks within the village

became intelligible and I could begin to work with confidence and cred-

ibility Still many remained suspicious and I occasionally heard rumors of

my secret work with the US government or my affiliation with Greenpeace

(none of which were true)

Localsrsquo defensiveness about their presence in Amazonia is understand-

able given the all-or-nothing tone of many discussions about the environ-

mental future of the region Regardless of their personal opinions on forest

conservation colonists unanimously cited their rights to develop Amazo-

nia by relating that the Brazilian government had long ago invited them

to the region Besides many addedmdashwhile embracing the idiom of prop-ertymdashAmazonia is ours Interviewees often followed this line of thought

with a reminder that North Americans and Europeans had already destroyed

most of their forests while getting rich I heard many times that ldquothis is the

future that we want toordquo with a dangling ambiguity concerning whether

it was the riches or the destruction or both that colonists were after I sus-

pect that the tensions examined in this bookmdashbetween rich and poor

economic growth and environmental protection and local national and

global perspectivesmdashwill remain unresolved for decades to come in Ama-zonia Indeed it is perhaps better if we refrain from attempting to resolve

these tensionsmdasha strategy often undertaken in policy prescriptionsmdashand

instead attend more carefully to how these debates produce a framework for

understanding and interacting with the world Colonists count themselves

as modern rational actors whose efforts to civilize the Amazon have been

stymied by a weak indecisive government and an international cast of moral

crusaders It is worthwhile to attempt to understand their worldview if for

no other reason than to show its limitations and convenient elisions

Gradually the colonists with whom I spoke and hiked and lived came

to tolerate my presence among them and soon I became privy to the small

and large ways that people relate to land and curate potential claims to it

Informants proved to be surprisingly frank about the improvised fraudu-

lent and sometimes dangerous nature of their activities which ranged from

forgery and dissimulation to blustery threats and land invasions planned

in secret Over the months I came to discern fragile alliances and com-peting factions engaging one another in protracted contests in which de

facto control of land was only one aspect of what was at stake Perhaps the

greater prizemdashmore important than using a parcel of land or defending it

from encroachmentmdashwas the ability to speak for the future of a particular



983223

territory effectively projecting a claim to ownership in an idiom and man-

ner that might someday be sanctioned by the authorities In this space of

subjunctive suspense colonists crafted novel techniques to frame land into

property both materially and discursively My own position in this gamemdash

both in terms of the ethics of research and as a practical matter of methodmdash

was a source of ceaseless anxiety Tough I eventually gained the trust of

both regional elites and poor migrants (groups known locally as grandes

and pequenos ldquothe big guysrdquo and ldquothe little guysrdquo) I worried that I might be

perceived as partial to one faction or the other Interviews with nearly three

hundred individuals form the foundation of this study but I would rarely

reach a mutual level of trust with anyone until I had conversed with that

person a half dozen times Renato Rosaldorsquos description of ethnography asldquodeep hanging outrdquo was never far from mind

Beyond the private life of property the signs of which I could only dis-

cern under the tutelage of colonists in western Paraacute I was also interested in

tracking the more public lives of land claims Participating in meetings about

state-backed development projectsmdashespecially Brazilrsquos ecological zoning

and tenure regularization effortsmdashproved an important complementary

methodology by which I could ascertain how colonists transformed their

provisional and often secret land claims into solid precepts with whichto engage the state I attended dozens of meetings and observed long-time

colonists and petty speculators wrestle with Brazilian officials about the

moral exigencies of colonization land reform and sustainable development

Great venues for performance from the colonistsrsquo perspective these official

forums were just one more means of publicizing and documenting a claim

Straddling the line between private and public information on land sales

over the past several decades was also an important stream of data col-

lected by supplementing government figures with intervieweesrsquo accumu-

lated accounts of informal cash trade and debt-swap transactions

Studying property conjuring amounts to immersing oneself in a mas-

sive confidence game and on a daily basis I negotiated the limits of field-

workrsquos aspirations to objectiveness and impartiality Individualsrsquo stories and

positions on property remained constantly in flux leaving little hope of

recording the objective history of territories On some level fraud itself

became the constant and truest characteristic of colonistsrsquo engagementswith property giving rise to the widely held belief among colonists that

the distinction between a fraudulent and a legitimate claim was largely

meaningless Te pervasiveness of this attitude enabled an ethnographic

engagement with activities and perspectives that informants might other-



983223

wise have wished to leave concealed As one claimant explained to me ldquoTe

frauds [as fraudes] are how the lawmdashor how right and wrongmdashbegins to

existrdquo What was the harm in letting a researcher see the particularities of

the fraud when the illicit and the improvised were prerequisite to regular-

ization and legality Since all was fraudmdashand since every player in the land

game could accuse every other of shady dealingmdashthere was little to conceal

Even among rivals a casual familiarity attained as when peasants and the

wealthy attended the same celebrations or when hired thugs mingled peace-

ably with the associates of those they were rumored to have killed

Even so throughout fieldwork I struggled to understand why people

talked to me so openly about a topic as sensitive as land tenure In the

end I concluded that some colonists told me such candid stories as part ofone of their many strategies for creating paperwork (in this case a distant

book) that might validate their land claims Many claimants viewed my

notebook as a corroborating document a place where stories and facts could

potentially be built up in defense of a property position While interviewing

colonists I explained that I would not be comfortable advocating for one

personrsquos property position over another and that I was able to do little more

than observe I believe that many informants enjoyed having an opportunity

to converse with me about their relationship to Amazonian lands whileothers continued to hold out hope that connecting with a foreign researcher

might ultimately yield powerful results for their property plays Te ethical

implications of this imbalance continue to weigh heavily on me and have

led me to use pseudonyms and nonspecific physical coordinates in this vol-

umersquos ethnographic stories In doing so I want to eliminate the possibility

that my words may be used in any future legal disputes over specific parcels

But I am also troubled by how in so sanitizing this text it becomes primar-

ily a vehicle for more distant reflection on academically interesting matters

As it happens the property conjuring game in Amazoniamdashreplete as it is

with fraud deception and reversals of fortunemdashis not conducted on a level

playing field Tis book relates how a structurally marginalized group of

landless peasants decided to enter the land speculation business only to be

further exploited and eventually disappropriated by elites My political sym-

pathies are with these peasants many of whom saw hope for a better future

in the confabulations of forged deeds As a practical matter however I amafraid that this book offers little by way of exculpatory proof or corrobora-

tion for those smallholders who joined in the property conjuring perfected

by Brazil rsquos moneyed classes and landed elites other than the synoptic point

that the game was rigged against them from the start



983223

My overall aim is to richly describe the phenomenon of property specu-

lation in Amazonia and to show how speculation is embedded in a colonial

social system oriented toward emplacing political economic and historical

norms in country that colonists and officials alike regard as wild undevel-

oped and thoroughly nonmodern While I attempt to understand property

making on its own termsmdashand how for colonists property instantiates

the shape of history the prospect of governance and the promise of long-

sought modernitymdashthis book is not intended as an apology for colonization

Rather my goal is to show the range of material and discursive labors that

define colonialism as a sociocultural system and how one of that systemrsquos

key institutionsmdashpropertymdashemerges haltingly from makeshift inventions

luck fraud collusion and creative destruction of the environment Officialhistories of colonization often present the story of property (where it is

considered at all) as a fait accompli Here my focus is on the contingency of

property on colonistsrsquo labors to make it viable enough to usher in a ldquomodernrdquo

future and their concomitant efforts to present it as obvious and inevi-

table raining the ethnographic lens on Amazonian colonists requires

attention to some rather unsavory dimensions of colonial culture includ-

ing widespread racist attitudes toward indigenous peoples colonistsrsquo often

pugnacious suspicion of environmental conservation and their faith in thedoctrine of improvement Tese are points on which I strongly disagree with

Amazonian colonists but these differences do not negate the importance of

trying to understand their perspectives and analyze the political economic

realities that are currently taking shape for them Consequently I avoided

casting my analysis in terms of victims and villainsmdasha common trope in

much writing on Amazoniamdashas I have found that there are events too

important and dynamics too subtle for that framework to capture



Studies in Anthropology and Environment

K Sivaramakrishnan Series Editor





by Mark Baker








by Janet C Sturgeon










by David Arnold


by Tomas F Tornton




and Andrew Walker










by Stephanie Rupp





















Seattle amp London

Jeremy M Campbell

Conjuring

Property











--

[[to come]]














Preface xi

Acknowledgments xv

Abbreviations xix








Notes

Glossary

Bibliography

Index



ix








industries























x 983223





























K Sivaramakrishnan

Yale University

January



xi






























xii 983223






































983223 xiii
























xv















own
















xvi 983223






































983223 xvii






























xix



Bank)

















Research Institute)




Development)







xx 983223


Amazonian Studies)















Conjuring Property
































983223






































983223



































983223






































983223






































983223







































983223




































983223













as it was for Marx



























983223





































983223






































983223
































ldquo rdquo





983223







































983223







































983223



































MATO GROSSO

A M

A Z O N A S

PARAacute

J a m a n x i m R

i v e r

C u r u aacute

R i v e

r

X i n

g u R i v

e r

A m a z o

n R i v e r


i v e r

B R

- 2 3 0

B R - 1

6 3 H w y

B R - 1 6 3

T r a n s a m


R - 2 3 0 )

river

non-paved road

paved road

state border

Amazon Region

200 km1000

SANTAREacuteM

ALTAMIRA

ITAITUBA

RUROacutePOLIS

NOVO PROGRESSO

CASTELO DE SONHOS




983223






































983223







and interviews































983223







































983223







































983223







































983223






























by Mark Baker








by Janet C Sturgeon










by David Arnold


by Tomas F Tornton




and Andrew Walker










by Stephanie Rupp





















Seattle amp London

Jeremy M Campbell

Conjuring

Property











--

[[to come]]














Preface xi

Acknowledgments xv

Abbreviations xix








Notes

Glossary

Bibliography

Index



ix








industries























x 983223





























K Sivaramakrishnan

Yale University

January



xi






























xii 983223






































983223 xiii
























xv















own
















xvi 983223






































983223 xvii






























xix



Bank)

















Research Institute)




Development)







xx 983223


Amazonian Studies)















Conjuring Property
































983223






































983223



































983223






































983223






































983223







































983223




































983223













as it was for Marx



























983223





































983223






































983223
































ldquo rdquo





983223







































983223







































983223



































MATO GROSSO

A M

A Z O N A S

PARAacute

J a m a n x i m R

i v e r

C u r u aacute

R i v e

r

X i n

g u R i v

e r

A m a z o

n R i v e r


i v e r

B R

- 2 3 0

B R - 1

6 3 H w y

B R - 1 6 3

T r a n s a m


R - 2 3 0 )

river

non-paved road

paved road

state border

Amazon Region

200 km1000

SANTAREacuteM

ALTAMIRA

ITAITUBA

RUROacutePOLIS

NOVO PROGRESSO

CASTELO DE SONHOS




983223






































983223







and interviews































983223







































983223







































983223







































983223




























Seattle amp London

Jeremy M Campbell

Conjuring

Property











--

[[to come]]














Preface xi

Acknowledgments xv

Abbreviations xix








Notes

Glossary

Bibliography

Index



ix








industries























x 983223





























K Sivaramakrishnan

Yale University

January



xi






























xii 983223






































983223 xiii
























xv















own
















xvi 983223






































983223 xvii






























xix



Bank)

















Research Institute)




Development)







xx 983223


Amazonian Studies)















Conjuring Property
































983223






































983223



































983223






































983223






































983223







































983223




































983223













as it was for Marx



























983223





































983223






































983223
































ldquo rdquo





983223







































983223







































983223



































MATO GROSSO

A M

A Z O N A S

PARAacute

J a m a n x i m R

i v e r

C u r u aacute

R i v e

r

X i n

g u R i v

e r

A m a z o

n R i v e r


i v e r

B R

- 2 3 0

B R - 1

6 3 H w y

B R - 1 6 3

T r a n s a m


R - 2 3 0 )

river

non-paved road

paved road

state border

Amazon Region

200 km1000

SANTAREacuteM

ALTAMIRA

ITAITUBA

RUROacutePOLIS

NOVO PROGRESSO

CASTELO DE SONHOS




983223






































983223







and interviews































983223







































983223







































983223







































983223




































--

[[to come]]














Preface xi

Acknowledgments xv

Abbreviations xix








Notes

Glossary

Bibliography

Index



ix








industries























x 983223





























K Sivaramakrishnan

Yale University

January



xi






























xii 983223






































983223 xiii
























xv















own
















xvi 983223






































983223 xvii






























xix



Bank)

















Research Institute)




Development)







xx 983223


Amazonian Studies)















Conjuring Property
































983223






































983223



































983223






































983223






































983223







































983223




































983223













as it was for Marx



























983223





































983223






































983223
































ldquo rdquo





983223







































983223







































983223



































MATO GROSSO

A M

A Z O N A S

PARAacute

J a m a n x i m R

i v e r

C u r u aacute

R i v e

r

X i n

g u R i v

e r

A m a z o

n R i v e r


i v e r

B R

- 2 3 0

B R - 1

6 3 H w y

B R - 1 6 3

T r a n s a m


R - 2 3 0 )

river

non-paved road

paved road

state border

Amazon Region

200 km1000

SANTAREacuteM

ALTAMIRA

ITAITUBA

RUROacutePOLIS

NOVO PROGRESSO

CASTELO DE SONHOS




983223






































983223







and interviews































983223







































983223







































983223







































983223



































Preface xi

Acknowledgments xv

Abbreviations xix








Notes

Glossary

Bibliography

Index



ix








industries























x 983223





























K Sivaramakrishnan

Yale University

January



xi






























xii 983223






































983223 xiii
























xv















own
















xvi 983223






































983223 xvii






























xix



Bank)

















Research Institute)




Development)







xx 983223


Amazonian Studies)















Conjuring Property
































983223






































983223



































983223






































983223






































983223







































983223




































983223













as it was for Marx



























983223





































983223






































983223
































ldquo rdquo





983223







































983223







































983223



































MATO GROSSO

A M

A Z O N A S

PARAacute

J a m a n x i m R

i v e r

C u r u aacute

R i v e

r

X i n

g u R i v

e r

A m a z o

n R i v e r


i v e r

B R

- 2 3 0

B R - 1

6 3 H w y

B R - 1 6 3

T r a n s a m


R - 2 3 0 )

river

non-paved road

paved road

state border

Amazon Region

200 km1000

SANTAREacuteM

ALTAMIRA

ITAITUBA

RUROacutePOLIS

NOVO PROGRESSO

CASTELO DE SONHOS




983223






































983223







and interviews































983223







































983223







































983223







































983223





























Preface xi

Acknowledgments xv

Abbreviations xix








Notes

Glossary

Bibliography

Index



ix








industries























x 983223





























K Sivaramakrishnan

Yale University

January



xi






























xii 983223






































983223 xiii
























xv















own
















xvi 983223






































983223 xvii






























xix



Bank)

















Research Institute)




Development)







xx 983223


Amazonian Studies)















Conjuring Property
































983223






































983223



































983223






































983223






































983223







































983223




































983223













as it was for Marx



























983223





































983223






































983223
































ldquo rdquo





983223







































983223







































983223



































MATO GROSSO

A M

A Z O N A S

PARAacute

J a m a n x i m R

i v e r

C u r u aacute

R i v e

r

X i n

g u R i v

e r

A m a z o

n R i v e r


i v e r

B R

- 2 3 0

B R - 1

6 3 H w y

B R - 1 6 3

T r a n s a m


R - 2 3 0 )

river

non-paved road

paved road

state border

Amazon Region

200 km1000

SANTAREacuteM

ALTAMIRA

ITAITUBA

RUROacutePOLIS

NOVO PROGRESSO

CASTELO DE SONHOS




983223






































983223







and interviews































983223







































983223







































983223







































983223




























ix








industries























x 983223





























K Sivaramakrishnan

Yale University

January



xi






























xii 983223






































983223 xiii
























xv















own
















xvi 983223






































983223 xvii






























xix



Bank)

















Research Institute)




Development)







xx 983223


Amazonian Studies)















Conjuring Property
































983223






































983223



































983223






































983223






































983223







































983223




































983223













as it was for Marx



























983223





































983223






































983223
































ldquo rdquo





983223







































983223







































983223



































MATO GROSSO

A M

A Z O N A S

PARAacute

J a m a n x i m R

i v e r

C u r u aacute

R i v e

r

X i n

g u R i v

e r

A m a z o

n R i v e r


i v e r

B R

- 2 3 0

B R - 1

6 3 H w y

B R - 1 6 3

T r a n s a m


R - 2 3 0 )

river

non-paved road

paved road

state border

Amazon Region

200 km1000

SANTAREacuteM

ALTAMIRA

ITAITUBA

RUROacutePOLIS

NOVO PROGRESSO

CASTELO DE SONHOS




983223






































983223







and interviews































983223







































983223







































983223







































983223




























x 983223





























K Sivaramakrishnan

Yale University

January



xi






























xii 983223






































983223 xiii
























xv















own
















xvi 983223






































983223 xvii






























xix



Bank)

















Research Institute)




Development)







xx 983223


Amazonian Studies)















Conjuring Property
































983223






































983223



































983223






































983223






































983223







































983223




































983223













as it was for Marx



























983223





































983223






































983223
































ldquo rdquo





983223







































983223







































983223



































MATO GROSSO

A M

A Z O N A S

PARAacute

J a m a n x i m R

i v e r

C u r u aacute

R i v e

r

X i n

g u R i v

e r

A m a z o

n R i v e r


i v e r

B R

- 2 3 0

B R - 1

6 3 H w y

B R - 1 6 3

T r a n s a m


R - 2 3 0 )

river

non-paved road

paved road

state border

Amazon Region

200 km1000

SANTAREacuteM

ALTAMIRA

ITAITUBA

RUROacutePOLIS

NOVO PROGRESSO

CASTELO DE SONHOS




983223






































983223







and interviews































983223







































983223







































983223







































983223




























xi






























xii 983223






































983223 xiii
























xv















own
















xvi 983223






































983223 xvii






























xix



Bank)

















Research Institute)




Development)







xx 983223


Amazonian Studies)















Conjuring Property
































983223






































983223



































983223






































983223






































983223







































983223




































983223













as it was for Marx



























983223





































983223






































983223
































ldquo rdquo





983223







































983223







































983223



































MATO GROSSO

A M

A Z O N A S

PARAacute

J a m a n x i m R

i v e r

C u r u aacute

R i v e

r

X i n

g u R i v

e r

A m a z o

n R i v e r


i v e r

B R

- 2 3 0

B R - 1

6 3 H w y

B R - 1 6 3

T r a n s a m


R - 2 3 0 )

river

non-paved road

paved road

state border

Amazon Region

200 km1000

SANTAREacuteM

ALTAMIRA

ITAITUBA

RUROacutePOLIS

NOVO PROGRESSO

CASTELO DE SONHOS




983223






































983223







and interviews































983223







































983223







































983223







































983223




























xii 983223






































983223 xiii
























xv















own
















xvi 983223






































983223 xvii






























xix



Bank)

















Research Institute)




Development)







xx 983223


Amazonian Studies)















Conjuring Property
































983223






































983223



































983223






































983223






































983223







































983223




































983223













as it was for Marx



























983223





































983223






































983223
































ldquo rdquo





983223







































983223







































983223



































MATO GROSSO

A M

A Z O N A S

PARAacute

J a m a n x i m R

i v e r

C u r u aacute

R i v e

r

X i n

g u R i v

e r

A m a z o

n R i v e r


i v e r

B R

- 2 3 0

B R - 1

6 3 H w y

B R - 1 6 3

T r a n s a m


R - 2 3 0 )

river

non-paved road

paved road

state border

Amazon Region

200 km1000

SANTAREacuteM

ALTAMIRA

ITAITUBA

RUROacutePOLIS

NOVO PROGRESSO

CASTELO DE SONHOS




983223






































983223







and interviews































983223







































983223







































983223







































983223




























983223 xiii
























xv















own
















xvi 983223






































983223 xvii






























xix



Bank)

















Research Institute)




Development)







xx 983223


Amazonian Studies)















Conjuring Property
































983223






































983223



































983223






































983223






































983223







































983223




































983223













as it was for Marx



























983223





































983223






































983223
































ldquo rdquo





983223







































983223







































983223



































MATO GROSSO

A M

A Z O N A S

PARAacute

J a m a n x i m R

i v e r

C u r u aacute

R i v e

r

X i n

g u R i v

e r

A m a z o

n R i v e r


i v e r

B R

- 2 3 0

B R - 1

6 3 H w y

B R - 1 6 3

T r a n s a m


R - 2 3 0 )

river

non-paved road

paved road

state border

Amazon Region

200 km1000

SANTAREacuteM

ALTAMIRA

ITAITUBA

RUROacutePOLIS

NOVO PROGRESSO

CASTELO DE SONHOS




983223






































983223







and interviews































983223







































983223







































983223







































983223




























xv















own
















xvi 983223






































983223 xvii






























xix



Bank)

















Research Institute)




Development)







xx 983223


Amazonian Studies)















Conjuring Property
































983223






































983223



































983223






































983223






































983223







































983223




































983223













as it was for Marx



























983223





































983223






































983223
































ldquo rdquo





983223







































983223







































983223



































MATO GROSSO

A M

A Z O N A S

PARAacute

J a m a n x i m R

i v e r

C u r u aacute

R i v e

r

X i n

g u R i v

e r

A m a z o

n R i v e r


i v e r

B R

- 2 3 0

B R - 1

6 3 H w y

B R - 1 6 3

T r a n s a m


R - 2 3 0 )

river

non-paved road

paved road

state border

Amazon Region

200 km1000

SANTAREacuteM

ALTAMIRA

ITAITUBA

RUROacutePOLIS

NOVO PROGRESSO

CASTELO DE SONHOS




983223






































983223







and interviews































983223







































983223







































983223







































983223




























xvi 983223






































983223 xvii






























xix



Bank)

















Research Institute)




Development)







xx 983223


Amazonian Studies)















Conjuring Property
































983223






































983223



































983223






































983223






































983223







































983223




































983223













as it was for Marx



























983223





































983223






































983223
































ldquo rdquo





983223







































983223







































983223



































MATO GROSSO

A M

A Z O N A S

PARAacute

J a m a n x i m R

i v e r

C u r u aacute

R i v e

r

X i n

g u R i v

e r

A m a z o

n R i v e r


i v e r

B R

- 2 3 0

B R - 1

6 3 H w y

B R - 1 6 3

T r a n s a m


R - 2 3 0 )

river

non-paved road

paved road

state border

Amazon Region

200 km1000

SANTAREacuteM

ALTAMIRA

ITAITUBA

RUROacutePOLIS

NOVO PROGRESSO

CASTELO DE SONHOS




983223






































983223







and interviews































983223







































983223







































983223







































983223




























983223 xvii






























xix



Bank)

















Research Institute)




Development)







xx 983223


Amazonian Studies)















Conjuring Property
































983223






































983223



































983223






































983223






































983223







































983223




































983223













as it was for Marx



























983223





































983223






































983223
































ldquo rdquo





983223







































983223







































983223



































MATO GROSSO

A M

A Z O N A S

PARAacute

J a m a n x i m R

i v e r

C u r u aacute

R i v e

r

X i n

g u R i v

e r

A m a z o

n R i v e r


i v e r

B R

- 2 3 0

B R - 1

6 3 H w y

B R - 1 6 3

T r a n s a m


R - 2 3 0 )

river

non-paved road

paved road

state border

Amazon Region

200 km1000

SANTAREacuteM

ALTAMIRA

ITAITUBA

RUROacutePOLIS

NOVO PROGRESSO

CASTELO DE SONHOS




983223






































983223







and interviews































983223







































983223







































983223







































983223




























xix



Bank)

















Research Institute)




Development)







xx 983223


Amazonian Studies)















Conjuring Property
































983223






































983223



































983223






































983223






































983223







































983223




































983223













as it was for Marx



























983223





































983223






































983223
































ldquo rdquo





983223







































983223







































983223



































MATO GROSSO

A M

A Z O N A S

PARAacute

J a m a n x i m R

i v e r

C u r u aacute

R i v e

r

X i n

g u R i v

e r

A m a z o

n R i v e r


i v e r

B R

- 2 3 0

B R - 1

6 3 H w y

B R - 1 6 3

T r a n s a m


R - 2 3 0 )

river

non-paved road

paved road

state border

Amazon Region

200 km1000

SANTAREacuteM

ALTAMIRA

ITAITUBA

RUROacutePOLIS

NOVO PROGRESSO

CASTELO DE SONHOS




983223






































983223







and interviews































983223







































983223







































983223







































983223




























xx 983223


Amazonian Studies)















Conjuring Property
































983223






































983223



































983223






































983223






































983223







































983223




































983223













as it was for Marx



























983223





































983223






































983223
































ldquo rdquo





983223







































983223







































983223



































MATO GROSSO

A M

A Z O N A S

PARAacute

J a m a n x i m R

i v e r

C u r u aacute

R i v e

r

X i n

g u R i v

e r

A m a z o

n R i v e r


i v e r

B R

- 2 3 0

B R - 1

6 3 H w y

B R - 1 6 3

T r a n s a m


R - 2 3 0 )

river

non-paved road

paved road

state border

Amazon Region

200 km1000

SANTAREacuteM

ALTAMIRA

ITAITUBA

RUROacutePOLIS

NOVO PROGRESSO

CASTELO DE SONHOS




983223






































983223







and interviews































983223







































983223







































983223







































983223




























Conjuring Property
































983223






































983223



































983223






































983223






































983223







































983223




































983223













as it was for Marx



























983223





































983223






































983223
































ldquo rdquo





983223







































983223







































983223



































MATO GROSSO

A M

A Z O N A S

PARAacute

J a m a n x i m R

i v e r

C u r u aacute

R i v e

r

X i n

g u R i v

e r

A m a z o

n R i v e r


i v e r

B R

- 2 3 0

B R - 1

6 3 H w y

B R - 1 6 3

T r a n s a m


R - 2 3 0 )

river

non-paved road

paved road

state border

Amazon Region

200 km1000

SANTAREacuteM

ALTAMIRA

ITAITUBA

RUROacutePOLIS

NOVO PROGRESSO

CASTELO DE SONHOS




983223






































983223







and interviews































983223







































983223







































983223







































983223

























































983223






































983223



































983223






































983223






































983223







































983223




































983223













as it was for Marx



























983223





































983223






































983223
































ldquo rdquo





983223







































983223







































983223



































MATO GROSSO

A M

A Z O N A S

PARAacute

J a m a n x i m R

i v e r

C u r u aacute

R i v e

r

X i n

g u R i v

e r

A m a z o

n R i v e r


i v e r

B R

- 2 3 0

B R - 1

6 3 H w y

B R - 1 6 3

T r a n s a m


R - 2 3 0 )

river

non-paved road

paved road

state border

Amazon Region

200 km1000

SANTAREacuteM

ALTAMIRA

ITAITUBA

RUROacutePOLIS

NOVO PROGRESSO

CASTELO DE SONHOS




983223






































983223







and interviews































983223







































983223







































983223







































983223




























983223






































983223



































983223






































983223






































983223







































983223




































983223













as it was for Marx



























983223





































983223






































983223
































ldquo rdquo





983223







































983223







































983223



































MATO GROSSO

A M

A Z O N A S

PARAacute

J a m a n x i m R

i v e r

C u r u aacute

R i v e

r

X i n

g u R i v

e r

A m a z o

n R i v e r


i v e r

B R

- 2 3 0

B R - 1

6 3 H w y

B R - 1 6 3

T r a n s a m


R - 2 3 0 )

river

non-paved road

paved road

state border

Amazon Region

200 km1000

SANTAREacuteM

ALTAMIRA

ITAITUBA

RUROacutePOLIS

NOVO PROGRESSO

CASTELO DE SONHOS




983223






































983223







and interviews































983223







































983223







































983223







































983223




























983223



































983223






































983223






































983223







































983223




































983223













as it was for Marx



























983223





































983223






































983223
































ldquo rdquo





983223







































983223







































983223



































MATO GROSSO

A M

A Z O N A S

PARAacute

J a m a n x i m R

i v e r

C u r u aacute

R i v e

r

X i n

g u R i v

e r

A m a z o

n R i v e r


i v e r

B R

- 2 3 0

B R - 1

6 3 H w y

B R - 1 6 3

T r a n s a m


R - 2 3 0 )

river

non-paved road

paved road

state border

Amazon Region

200 km1000

SANTAREacuteM

ALTAMIRA

ITAITUBA

RUROacutePOLIS

NOVO PROGRESSO

CASTELO DE SONHOS




983223






































983223







and interviews































983223







































983223







































983223







































983223




























983223






































983223






































983223







































983223




































983223













as it was for Marx



























983223





































983223






































983223
































ldquo rdquo





983223







































983223







































983223



































MATO GROSSO

A M

A Z O N A S

PARAacute

J a m a n x i m R

i v e r

C u r u aacute

R i v e

r

X i n

g u R i v

e r

A m a z o

n R i v e r


i v e r

B R

- 2 3 0

B R - 1

6 3 H w y

B R - 1 6 3

T r a n s a m


R - 2 3 0 )

river

non-paved road

paved road

state border

Amazon Region

200 km1000

SANTAREacuteM

ALTAMIRA

ITAITUBA

RUROacutePOLIS

NOVO PROGRESSO

CASTELO DE SONHOS




983223






































983223







and interviews































983223







































983223







































983223







































983223




























983223






































983223







































983223




































983223













as it was for Marx



























983223





































983223






































983223
































ldquo rdquo





983223







































983223







































983223



































MATO GROSSO

A M

A Z O N A S

PARAacute

J a m a n x i m R

i v e r

C u r u aacute

R i v e

r

X i n

g u R i v

e r

A m a z o

n R i v e r


i v e r

B R

- 2 3 0

B R - 1

6 3 H w y

B R - 1 6 3

T r a n s a m


R - 2 3 0 )

river

non-paved road

paved road

state border

Amazon Region

200 km1000

SANTAREacuteM

ALTAMIRA

ITAITUBA

RUROacutePOLIS

NOVO PROGRESSO

CASTELO DE SONHOS




983223






































983223







and interviews































983223







































983223







































983223







































983223




























983223







































983223




































983223













as it was for Marx



























983223





































983223






































983223
































ldquo rdquo





983223







































983223







































983223



































MATO GROSSO

A M

A Z O N A S

PARAacute

J a m a n x i m R

i v e r

C u r u aacute

R i v e

r

X i n

g u R i v

e r

A m a z o

n R i v e r


i v e r

B R

- 2 3 0

B R - 1

6 3 H w y

B R - 1 6 3

T r a n s a m


R - 2 3 0 )

river

non-paved road

paved road

state border

Amazon Region

200 km1000

SANTAREacuteM

ALTAMIRA

ITAITUBA

RUROacutePOLIS

NOVO PROGRESSO

CASTELO DE SONHOS




983223






































983223







and interviews































983223







































983223







































983223







































983223




























983223




































983223













as it was for Marx



























983223





































983223






































983223
































ldquo rdquo





983223







































983223







































983223



































MATO GROSSO

A M

A Z O N A S

PARAacute

J a m a n x i m R

i v e r

C u r u aacute

R i v e

r

X i n

g u R i v

e r

A m a z o

n R i v e r


i v e r

B R

- 2 3 0

B R - 1

6 3 H w y

B R - 1 6 3

T r a n s a m


R - 2 3 0 )

river

non-paved road

paved road

state border

Amazon Region

200 km1000

SANTAREacuteM

ALTAMIRA

ITAITUBA

RUROacutePOLIS

NOVO PROGRESSO

CASTELO DE SONHOS




983223






































983223







and interviews































983223







































983223







































983223







































983223




























983223













as it was for Marx



























983223





































983223






































983223
































ldquo rdquo





983223







































983223







































983223



































MATO GROSSO

A M

A Z O N A S

PARAacute

J a m a n x i m R

i v e r

C u r u aacute

R i v e

r

X i n

g u R i v

e r

A m a z o

n R i v e r


i v e r

B R

- 2 3 0

B R - 1

6 3 H w y

B R - 1 6 3

T r a n s a m


R - 2 3 0 )

river

non-paved road

paved road

state border

Amazon Region

200 km1000

SANTAREacuteM

ALTAMIRA

ITAITUBA

RUROacutePOLIS

NOVO PROGRESSO

CASTELO DE SONHOS




983223






































983223







and interviews































983223







































983223







































983223







































983223




























983223





































983223






































983223
































ldquo rdquo





983223







































983223







































983223



































MATO GROSSO

A M

A Z O N A S

PARAacute

J a m a n x i m R

i v e r

C u r u aacute

R i v e

r

X i n

g u R i v

e r

A m a z o

n R i v e r


i v e r

B R

- 2 3 0

B R - 1

6 3 H w y

B R - 1 6 3

T r a n s a m


R - 2 3 0 )

river

non-paved road

paved road

state border

Amazon Region

200 km1000

SANTAREacuteM

ALTAMIRA

ITAITUBA

RUROacutePOLIS

NOVO PROGRESSO

CASTELO DE SONHOS




983223






































983223







and interviews































983223







































983223







































983223







































983223




























983223






































983223
































ldquo rdquo





983223







































983223







































983223



































MATO GROSSO

A M

A Z O N A S

PARAacute

J a m a n x i m R

i v e r

C u r u aacute

R i v e

r

X i n

g u R i v

e r

A m a z o

n R i v e r


i v e r

B R

- 2 3 0

B R - 1

6 3 H w y

B R - 1 6 3

T r a n s a m


R - 2 3 0 )

river

non-paved road

paved road

state border

Amazon Region

200 km1000

SANTAREacuteM

ALTAMIRA

ITAITUBA

RUROacutePOLIS

NOVO PROGRESSO

CASTELO DE SONHOS




983223






































983223







and interviews































983223







































983223







































983223







































983223




























983223
































ldquo rdquo





983223







































983223







































983223



































MATO GROSSO

A M

A Z O N A S

PARAacute

J a m a n x i m R

i v e r

C u r u aacute

R i v e

r

X i n

g u R i v

e r

A m a z o

n R i v e r


i v e r

B R

- 2 3 0

B R - 1

6 3 H w y

B R - 1 6 3

T r a n s a m


R - 2 3 0 )

river

non-paved road

paved road

state border

Amazon Region

200 km1000

SANTAREacuteM

ALTAMIRA

ITAITUBA

RUROacutePOLIS

NOVO PROGRESSO

CASTELO DE SONHOS




983223






































983223







and interviews































983223







































983223







































983223







































983223




























983223







































983223







































983223



































MATO GROSSO

A M

A Z O N A S

PARAacute

J a m a n x i m R

i v e r

C u r u aacute

R i v e

r

X i n

g u R i v

e r

A m a z o

n R i v e r


i v e r

B R

- 2 3 0

B R - 1

6 3 H w y

B R - 1 6 3

T r a n s a m


R - 2 3 0 )

river

non-paved road

paved road

state border

Amazon Region

200 km1000

SANTAREacuteM

ALTAMIRA

ITAITUBA

RUROacutePOLIS

NOVO PROGRESSO

CASTELO DE SONHOS




983223






































983223







and interviews































983223







































983223







































983223







































983223




























983223







































983223



































MATO GROSSO

A M

A Z O N A S

PARAacute

J a m a n x i m R

i v e r

C u r u aacute

R i v e

r

X i n

g u R i v

e r

A m a z o

n R i v e r


i v e r

B R

- 2 3 0

B R - 1

6 3 H w y

B R - 1 6 3

T r a n s a m


R - 2 3 0 )

river

non-paved road

paved road

state border

Amazon Region

200 km1000

SANTAREacuteM

ALTAMIRA

ITAITUBA

RUROacutePOLIS

NOVO PROGRESSO

CASTELO DE SONHOS




983223






































983223







and interviews































983223







































983223







































983223







































983223




























983223



































MATO GROSSO

A M

A Z O N A S

PARAacute

J a m a n x i m R

i v e r

C u r u aacute

R i v e

r

X i n

g u R i v

e r

A m a z o

n R i v e r


i v e r

B R

- 2 3 0

B R - 1

6 3 H w y

B R - 1 6 3

T r a n s a m


R - 2 3 0 )

river

non-paved road

paved road

state border

Amazon Region

200 km1000

SANTAREacuteM

ALTAMIRA

ITAITUBA

RUROacutePOLIS

NOVO PROGRESSO

CASTELO DE SONHOS




983223






































983223







and interviews































983223







































983223







































983223







































983223




























MATO GROSSO

A M

A Z O N A S

PARAacute

J a m a n x i m R

i v e r

C u r u aacute

R i v e

r

X i n

g u R i v

e r

A m a z o

n R i v e r


i v e r

B R

- 2 3 0

B R - 1

6 3 H w y

B R - 1 6 3

T r a n s a m


R - 2 3 0 )

river

non-paved road

paved road

state border

Amazon Region

200 km1000

SANTAREacuteM

ALTAMIRA

ITAITUBA

RUROacutePOLIS

NOVO PROGRESSO

CASTELO DE SONHOS




983223






































983223







and interviews































983223







































983223







































983223







































983223




























983223






































983223







and interviews































983223







































983223







































983223







































983223




























983223







and interviews































983223







































983223







































983223







































983223




























983223







































983223







































983223







































983223




























983223







































983223







































983223




























983223







































983223




























983223


























Documents

Conjuring Property: Speculation and Environmental Futures in the Brazilian Amazon