Who Owns Guaraná? Legal Strategies, Development Policies and Agricultural Practices in Brazilian Amazonia

Datos Bibliográficos

ID2285451
AutoresGeoffroy Filoche (Institut de Recherche pour le Développement (IRD, UMR GRED, France), autor de correspondencia), Florence Pinton (0000-0002-7383-6971, AgroParisTech UFR Sociologies and UMR Sadapt (INRA/AgroParisTech) 16 rue Claude Bernard 75231 Paris Cedex 05 France, autor de correspondencia)
Año2014
Volumen14
Número3
Páginas380-399
Fecha de publicación2014-07-01
Peer ReviewedSí
Open AccessSí
TipoARTICLE
RevistaJournal of Agrarian Change (JOURNAL)
Identificadores de la revistaISSN: 1471-0358 • E-ISSN: 1471-0366
EditorialWiley (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1111/joac.12035
OpenAlexW1931983981
IdiomaEN
Citas recibidas11
Referencias citadas39

This paper offers a historical perspective on the interactions between legal standards and agricultural practices relating to guaraná, an energy-inducing Amazonian plant that is in increasing demand. Guaraná is managed in a number of socio-technical contexts, ranging from the fizzy drink industry to alternative agro-ecological farming systems, and is subject to a great many legal rules that determine the conditions for its use and appropriation. The paper shows how, in guaraná's native region of Maués, Brazilian Amazonia, various stakeholders including the indigenous population, associations of smallholdings and multinationals use legal standards in order to gain prerogatives over the plant and/or win a share of a growing market. In spite of the fact that the plant has been domesticated by the Sateré-Mawé and that traditional knowledge has been recognized in Brazil, to a certain extent history has dispossessed them of their rights to guaraná. New political and economic circumstances have favoured those actors committed to strategies of agricultural modernization and industrial processing. On the other hand, the ecologization of agriculture and the increasing numbers of instruments for differentiating production (such as fair trade, organic farming and geographical indications) seem to be favouring diversification in the methods of managing guaraná, as well as a certain re-appropriation of the plant by local communities

Agriculture · Amazon rainforest · Appropriation · Business · Diversification (marketing strategy · Economic growth · Economics · Economy · Geography · Indigenous · Modernization theory · Natural resource economics · Political science · Politics · Population · Sociology · Agriculture, Land Use, Rural Development · Global trade, sustainability, and social impact · Law · Organic Food and Agriculture · Ecology · Marketing