James Angus Fraser
Biographic Data
| ID | 95719 |
|---|---|
| NAME | James Angus Fraser |
| GIVEN NAMES | James Angus |
| FAMILY NAME | Fraser |
| SIGNATURE | FRASER J A |
| AFFILIATIONS | Lancaster University |
| ORCID | 0000-0003-0718-6832 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 32 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 294 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 32 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1978 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 10 |
Conservation-by-alienation: Koliwadi forest estrangement in Maharashtra, India
Critical theory insists on a structural-ethical response to capitalism's intensifying socio-ecological crises. In efforts to transcend it, we must illustrate how Capitalism fails not just functionally e.g., by being crises prone, but also show how it morally and ethically corrupts our relationship to other humans and nature producing injustices and poorer forms of life. Towards such an illustration, the concept of alienation serves as a vital ana…
The Amazonian Common Use Territory: Pluriverse or Insurgent Universality
We examine Brazil's first Território de Uso Comum (TUC) in the Amazon as an innovation in territorial rights significant to debates on the commons, pluriverse and insurgent universality. Scholarship emphasises plural ontologies and identity‐based recognition, yet we argue that TUC Rio Manicoré is more productively read as a form of insurgent universality: a grassroots, women‐led struggle articulating concretely universal claims through the defenc…
Exploring food sovereignty among Amazonian peoples: Brazil's national school feeding programme in Oriximiná, Pará state
We present an empirically-grounded exploration of food sovereignty among Brazilian Amazonian forest-proximate peoples, revealing five dimensions bound together by autonomy: family farming, women's work, agrobiodiversity, care for nature and a preference for own produced over industrial food. We examine the compatibility of this conceptualisation of Amazonian food sovereignty with Brazil's National School Feeding Program (PNAE). We find that in su…
Defining the Anthropocene tropical forest: Moving beyond 'disturbance' and 'landscape domestication' with concepts from African worldviews
How natural and cultural forces shaping tropical forested landscapes are conceptualised is of vital importance to Anthropocene debates. We examine two concepts: disturbance and landscape domestication. From the perspective of disturbance, humans - whether ancient or modern - are a priori negative for tropical forests, outside of and alien to nature. From this view, the Anthropocene is a planetary scale aggregation of disturbance. A more just visi…
Countercolonial autonomies against the Capitalocene in Amazonia: The Lower Tapajós Indigenous movement
We understand the lower Tapajós indigenous movement as "countercolonial autonomy" against the Capitalocene, focusing in particular on the Tupinambá people. The Capitalocene in the Amazon began with mercantile capitalism in the colonial period, and intensified during the military dictatorship with the consolidation of the modern capitalist state. We conceive of countercolonial autonomy in terms of manioc cultivation, cosmovision and political self…
Autonomias contracoloniais frente ao Capitaloceno na Amazônia: O movimento indígena no Baixo Tapajós
Entendemos o movimento indígena do Baixo Tapajós como "autonomia contracolonial" frente ao Capitaloceno, com foco no povo Tupinambá. O Capitaloceno na Amazônia começou com o capitalismo mercantil no período colonial e se intensificou durante a ditadura militar com a consolidação do Estado capitalista moderno. Concebemos a autonomia contracolonial em termos de cultivo de mandioca, cosmovisão e auto-organização política. Os conflitos entre indígena…
Shattered glass of Beirut: Collaboration between the Archaeological Museum (American University of Beirut) and international partners following the 2020 port explosion
The Archaeological Museum at the American University of Beirut (AUB) lies approximately 3 km west of the main port of Beirut, the site of the massive explosion that sent a catastrophic shockwave through the city on 4 August 2020. A display case containing Classical and early Islamic period glass vessels was smashed against the museum’s stone floor, shattering 72 vessels into thousands of shards. This paper overviews how the Archaeological Museum …
Capability Failures and Corrosive Disadvantage in a Violent Rainforest Metropolis
Governments continue to narrowly equate improved well-being with economic growth, contrary to decades of development scholarship. The capabilities approach instead emphasizes freedom and what individuals are able to do and to be within society. However, it underplays structural determinants of social inequities and says little about violence, a dominant problem in metropolitan areas of Latin America. Framing our analysis around capabilities and t…
From ‘prison’ to ‘paradise’? Seeking freedom at the rainforest frontier through urban–rural migration
The lives of the urban poor in the majority world are unfree: blighted by social injustice in its manifold forms, from violence and ill-health to absent economic opportunities. We explore the pursuit of freedom through migration away from the metropole to ramais (colonisation tracks) at the rainforest frontier. Drawing on a case study in Brazilian Amazonia, we reveal urban-rural migration as a frontier dynamic driven by the search for a good life…
Development of a novel minimally invasive sampling and analysis technique using skin sampling tape strips for bioarchaeological proteomics
Those who live like us: Autodemarcations and the co-becoming of Indigenous and beiradeiros on the Upper Tapajós River, Brazilian Amazonia
This paper explores autodemarcations on the Tapajós River, Brazilian Amazonia, wherein a traditional community — the beiradeiros (riverbank inhabitants) — and the Indigenous Munduruku together mark the boundaries of their lands and remove invaders in their struggles for the recognition of territorial rights from the state. We approach autodemarcations on the Tapajós as a form of co-becoming: unseating colonial identities and generating mutual rec…
The Northern Neolithic of the Western Himalayas: New Research in the Kashmir Valley
Deciphering African tropical forest dynamics in the Anthropocene: How social and historical sciences can elucidate forest cover change and inform forest management
Counter-conducts and the green grab: Forest peoples' resistance to industrial resource extraction in the Saracá-Taquera National Forest, Brazilian Amazonia
This paper examines how forest peoples' resistance to industrial resource extraction projects contributes to the production of 'green' spaces. Drawing on a case study of the Saracá-Taquera National Forest in the Brazilian Amazon, we analyze how a coalition of quilombola communities are mobilizing against a bauxite mining project proposed by a transnational corporation. We argue that their resistance, which we conceptualize as counter-conducts, di…
Soil Knowledge
This entry argues for a renewed anthropological engagement with local soil knowledge against a backdrop of industrial agriculture in crisis. It discusses the idea that one example of local soil knowledge, anthropogenic dark earths (ADE), could be a potential solution to this crisis. It argues that, while there is merit in this argument, ADE should be conceived of as a form of “limited good” and so cannot be simply scaled up under our current “unl…
Amazonian struggles for recognition
Since the 1988 Constitution, forest peoples of Brazilian Amazonia have been struggling for territorial recognition. Yet studies of recognition in post colonial contexts, based on cases with clear settler/indigenous distinctions, are highly critical of recognition, seeing it as a form of “neoliberal multiculturalism,” a co‐option of subaltern identities with limited emancipatory potential. I question these critiques by examining struggles for lega…
Amazonian peasant livelihood differentiation as mutuality-market dialectics
Economistic approaches to the study of peasant livelihoods have considerable academic and policy influence, yet, we argue, perpetuate a partial misunderstanding - often reducing peasant livelihood to the management of capital assets by rational actors. In this paper, we propose to revitalize the original heterodox spirit of the sustainable livelihoods framework by drawing on Stephen Gudeman's work on the dialectic between use values and mutuality…
Justice and conservation: The need to incorporate recognition
In light of the Aichi target to manage protected areas equitably by 2020, we ask how the conservation sector should be incorporating concerns for social justice. We focus in particular on 'recognition', because it is the least well understood aspect of environmental justice, and yet highly relevant to conservation because of its concern with respect for local knowledge and cultures. In order to explore the meaning of recognition in the conservati…
Cultural valuation and biodiversity conservation in the Upper Guinea forest, West Africa
Fraser, J. A., M. Diabaté, W. Narmah, P. Beavogui, K. Guilavogui, H. De Foresta, and A. B. Junqueira. 2016. Cultural valuation and biodiversity conservation in the Upper Guinea forest, West Africa. Ecology and Society 21(3):36.http://dx.doi.org/10.5751/ES-08738-210336
An intergenerational transmission of sustainability? Ancestral habitus and food production in a traditional agro-ecosystem of the Upper Guinea Forest, West Africa
The need for sustainable alternatives to industrial farming has led to a revival of interest in traditional agro-ecosystems. Whilst it is well recognised that traditional agro-ecosystems are both social and physical–technical – few case studies have examined interactions between both these dimensions in a single system. For a system to be considered sustainable it needs to be shown to have retained key characteristics over several generations. Ca…
“God Made the Soil, but We Made It Fertile”: Gender, Knowledge, and Practice in the Formation and Use of African Dark Earths in Liberia and Sierra Leone
Anthropogenic Dark Earths in the Landscapes of Upper Guinea, West Africa: Intentional or Inevitable
Drawing on the recent identification of anthropogenic dark earths (ADEs) in West Africa's Upper Guinea forest region, this article engages with Amazonian debates concerning whether such enriched soils were produced intentionally or not. We present a case study of a Loma settlement in Northwest Liberia in which ethnography, oral history, and landscape mapping reveal subsistence practices and habitus that lead African dark earths (AfDEs) to form in…
Reframing 'Crisis' in Fair Trade Coffee Production: Trajectories of Agrarian Change in Nicaragua
A focus on crisis provides a methodological window to understand how agrarian change shapes producer engagement in fair trade. This orientation challenges a separation between the market and development, situating fair trade within global processes that incorporate agrarian histories of social change and conflict. Reframing crisis as a condition of agrarian life, rather than emphasizing its cyclical manifestation within the global economy, reveal…
Green grabs and biochar: Revaluing African soils and farming in the new carbon economy
Biochar currently attracts technological and market optimism, promising multiple wins - for climate change, food security, bioenergy and health - not least for African farmers. This paper examines the political-economic and discursive processes constructing biochar as a novel green commodity, creating new alliances amongst scientists, businesses, venture capital firms and non-governmental organisations. Carbon market logics are not only threateni…
Anthropogenic soils in the Central Amazon: From Categories to a Continuum
Amazonian Dark Earths (ADE), one of the best-known examples of anthropogenic (man-made) soils, are the result of Amerindian settlements in the pre-Columbian period. ADE are highly variable in terms of their size, shape, depth and physical and chemical make-up. Scholars tend to divide ADE into two categories: terra preta and terra mulata. The former are dark and highly fertile soils replete with ceramic shards, indicating former areas of habitatio…
Green grabs and biochar: Revaluing African soils and farming in the new carbon economy
Biochar currently attracts technological and market optimism, promising multiple wins - for climate change, food security, bioenergy and health - not least for African farmers. This paper examines the political-economic and discursive processes constructing biochar as a novel green commodity, creating new alliances amongst scientists, businesses, venture capital firms and non-governmental organisations. Carbon market logics are not only threateni…
Dark Earths and manioc cultivation in Central Amazonia: A window on pre-Columbian agricultural systems
Many commentators highlight the fertility of Anthropogenic Dark Earths (ADE), emphasizing their potential for sustainable agriculture. Some scholars believe that terra mulata (the less fertile, more extensive form of ADE) was created by means of agricultural practices used by large settled populations of pre-Columbian farmers. But what was it that these Amerindian farmers were growing? Until recently, scholarly consensus held that manioc does not…
Counter-conducts and the green grab: Forest peoples' resistance to industrial resource extraction in the Saracá-Taquera National Forest, Brazilian Amazonia
This paper examines how forest peoples' resistance to industrial resource extraction projects contributes to the production of 'green' spaces. Drawing on a case study of the Saracá-Taquera National Forest in the Brazilian Amazon, we analyze how a coalition of quilombola communities are mobilizing against a bauxite mining project proposed by a transnational corporation. We argue that their resistance, which we conceptualize as counter-conducts, di…
Anthropogenic soils in the Central Amazon: From Categories to a Continuum
Amazonian Dark Earths (ADE), one of the best-known examples of anthropogenic (man-made) soils, are the result of Amerindian settlements in the pre-Columbian period. ADE are highly variable in terms of their size, shape, depth and physical and chemical make-up. Scholars tend to divide ADE into two categories: terra preta and terra mulata. The former are dark and highly fertile soils replete with ceramic shards, indicating former areas of habitatio…
Caboclo Horticulture and Amazonian Dark Earths along the Middle Madeira River, Brazil
Crop Diversity on Anthropogenic Dark Earths in Central Amazonia
Amazonian struggles for recognition
Since the 1988 Constitution, forest peoples of Brazilian Amazonia have been struggling for territorial recognition. Yet studies of recognition in post colonial contexts, based on cases with clear settler/indigenous distinctions, are highly critical of recognition, seeing it as a form of “neoliberal multiculturalism,” a co‐option of subaltern identities with limited emancipatory potential. I question these critiques by examining struggles for lega…
Anthropogenic Dark Earths in the Landscapes of Upper Guinea, West Africa: Intentional or Inevitable
Drawing on the recent identification of anthropogenic dark earths (ADEs) in West Africa's Upper Guinea forest region, this article engages with Amazonian debates concerning whether such enriched soils were produced intentionally or not. We present a case study of a Loma settlement in Northwest Liberia in which ethnography, oral history, and landscape mapping reveal subsistence practices and habitus that lead African dark earths (AfDEs) to form in…
Amazonian peasant livelihood differentiation as mutuality-market dialectics
Economistic approaches to the study of peasant livelihoods have considerable academic and policy influence, yet, we argue, perpetuate a partial misunderstanding - often reducing peasant livelihood to the management of capital assets by rational actors. In this paper, we propose to revitalize the original heterodox spirit of the sustainable livelihoods framework by drawing on Stephen Gudeman's work on the dialectic between use values and mutuality…
Homegardens on Amazonian Dark Earths, Non-anthropogenic Upland, and Floodplain Soils along the Brazilian Middle Madeira River Exhibit Diverging Agrobiodiversity1
Those who live like us: Autodemarcations and the co-becoming of Indigenous and beiradeiros on the Upper Tapajós River, Brazilian Amazonia
This paper explores autodemarcations on the Tapajós River, Brazilian Amazonia, wherein a traditional community — the beiradeiros (riverbank inhabitants) — and the Indigenous Munduruku together mark the boundaries of their lands and remove invaders in their struggles for the recognition of territorial rights from the state. We approach autodemarcations on the Tapajós as a form of co-becoming: unseating colonial identities and generating mutual rec…
Responsibility in Government
Exploring food sovereignty among Amazonian peoples: Brazil's national school feeding programme in Oriximiná, Pará state
We present an empirically-grounded exploration of food sovereignty among Brazilian Amazonian forest-proximate peoples, revealing five dimensions bound together by autonomy: family farming, women's work, agrobiodiversity, care for nature and a preference for own produced over industrial food. We examine the compatibility of this conceptualisation of Amazonian food sovereignty with Brazil's National School Feeding Program (PNAE). We find that in su…
The Northern Neolithic of the Western Himalayas: New Research in the Kashmir Valley
An intergenerational transmission of sustainability? Ancestral habitus and food production in a traditional agro-ecosystem of the Upper Guinea Forest, West Africa
The need for sustainable alternatives to industrial farming has led to a revival of interest in traditional agro-ecosystems. Whilst it is well recognised that traditional agro-ecosystems are both social and physical–technical – few case studies have examined interactions between both these dimensions in a single system. For a system to be considered sustainable it needs to be shown to have retained key characteristics over several generations. Ca…
Reframing 'Crisis' in Fair Trade Coffee Production: Trajectories of Agrarian Change in Nicaragua
A focus on crisis provides a methodological window to understand how agrarian change shapes producer engagement in fair trade. This orientation challenges a separation between the market and development, situating fair trade within global processes that incorporate agrarian histories of social change and conflict. Reframing crisis as a condition of agrarian life, rather than emphasizing its cyclical manifestation within the global economy, reveal…
Development of a novel minimally invasive sampling and analysis technique using skin sampling tape strips for bioarchaeological proteomics
Cultural valuation and biodiversity conservation in the Upper Guinea forest, West Africa
Fraser, J. A., M. Diabaté, W. Narmah, P. Beavogui, K. Guilavogui, H. De Foresta, and A. B. Junqueira. 2016. Cultural valuation and biodiversity conservation in the Upper Guinea forest, West Africa. Ecology and Society 21(3):36.http://dx.doi.org/10.5751/ES-08738-210336
Defining the Anthropocene tropical forest: Moving beyond 'disturbance' and 'landscape domestication' with concepts from African worldviews
How natural and cultural forces shaping tropical forested landscapes are conceptualised is of vital importance to Anthropocene debates. We examine two concepts: disturbance and landscape domestication. From the perspective of disturbance, humans - whether ancient or modern - are a priori negative for tropical forests, outside of and alien to nature. From this view, the Anthropocene is a planetary scale aggregation of disturbance. A more just visi…
Countercolonial autonomies against the Capitalocene in Amazonia: The Lower Tapajós Indigenous movement
We understand the lower Tapajós indigenous movement as "countercolonial autonomy" against the Capitalocene, focusing in particular on the Tupinambá people. The Capitalocene in the Amazon began with mercantile capitalism in the colonial period, and intensified during the military dictatorship with the consolidation of the modern capitalist state. We conceive of countercolonial autonomy in terms of manioc cultivation, cosmovision and political self…
Capability Failures and Corrosive Disadvantage in a Violent Rainforest Metropolis
Governments continue to narrowly equate improved well-being with economic growth, contrary to decades of development scholarship. The capabilities approach instead emphasizes freedom and what individuals are able to do and to be within society. However, it underplays structural determinants of social inequities and says little about violence, a dominant problem in metropolitan areas of Latin America. Framing our analysis around capabilities and t…
From ‘prison’ to ‘paradise’? Seeking freedom at the rainforest frontier through urban–rural migration
The lives of the urban poor in the majority world are unfree: blighted by social injustice in its manifold forms, from violence and ill-health to absent economic opportunities. We explore the pursuit of freedom through migration away from the metropole to ramais (colonisation tracks) at the rainforest frontier. Drawing on a case study in Brazilian Amazonia, we reveal urban-rural migration as a frontier dynamic driven by the search for a good life…
Deciphering African tropical forest dynamics in the Anthropocene: How social and historical sciences can elucidate forest cover change and inform forest management
Autonomias contracoloniais frente ao Capitaloceno na Amazônia: O movimento indígena no Baixo Tapajós
Entendemos o movimento indígena do Baixo Tapajós como "autonomia contracolonial" frente ao Capitaloceno, com foco no povo Tupinambá. O Capitaloceno na Amazônia começou com o capitalismo mercantil no período colonial e se intensificou durante a ditadura militar com a consolidação do Estado capitalista moderno. Concebemos a autonomia contracolonial em termos de cultivo de mandioca, cosmovisão e auto-organização política. Os conflitos entre indígena…
Responsibility in Government
Historical Ecology and Dark Earths in Whitewater and Blackwater Landscapes: Comparing the Middle Madeira and Lower Negro Rivers
An Alternate View of Complexity at Tall-E Bakun A
This paper reviews the evidence for complexity at the small mound site of Tall-e Bakun A. Alizadeh has identified the village as a manufacturing centre controlled by an élite group. This argument was based on the sealings, prestige goods, distinctive architecture and segregation of areas found at the site. It is suggested here, however, that these data are also consistent with a largely undifferentiated society. An alternate model is offered, in …
Dark Earths and manioc cultivation in Central Amazonia: A window on pre-Columbian agricultural systems
Many commentators highlight the fertility of Anthropogenic Dark Earths (ADE), emphasizing their potential for sustainable agriculture. Some scholars believe that terra mulata (the less fertile, more extensive form of ADE) was created by means of agricultural practices used by large settled populations of pre-Columbian farmers. But what was it that these Amerindian farmers were growing? Until recently, scholarly consensus held that manioc does not…
Homegardens on Amazonian Dark Earths, Non-anthropogenic Upland, and Floodplain Soils along the Brazilian Middle Madeira River Exhibit Diverging Agrobiodiversity1
Caboclo Horticulture and Amazonian Dark Earths along the Middle Madeira River, Brazil
Anthropogenic soils in the Central Amazon: From Categories to a Continuum
Amazonian Dark Earths (ADE), one of the best-known examples of anthropogenic (man-made) soils, are the result of Amerindian settlements in the pre-Columbian period. ADE are highly variable in terms of their size, shape, depth and physical and chemical make-up. Scholars tend to divide ADE into two categories: terra preta and terra mulata. The former are dark and highly fertile soils replete with ceramic shards, indicating former areas of habitatio…
Crop Diversity on Anthropogenic Dark Earths in Central Amazonia
Green grabs and biochar: Revaluing African soils and farming in the new carbon economy
Biochar currently attracts technological and market optimism, promising multiple wins - for climate change, food security, bioenergy and health - not least for African farmers. This paper examines the political-economic and discursive processes constructing biochar as a novel green commodity, creating new alliances amongst scientists, businesses, venture capital firms and non-governmental organisations. Carbon market logics are not only threateni…
“God Made the Soil, but We Made It Fertile”: Gender, Knowledge, and Practice in the Formation and Use of African Dark Earths in Liberia and Sierra Leone
Anthropogenic Dark Earths in the Landscapes of Upper Guinea, West Africa: Intentional or Inevitable
Drawing on the recent identification of anthropogenic dark earths (ADEs) in West Africa's Upper Guinea forest region, this article engages with Amazonian debates concerning whether such enriched soils were produced intentionally or not. We present a case study of a Loma settlement in Northwest Liberia in which ethnography, oral history, and landscape mapping reveal subsistence practices and habitus that lead African dark earths (AfDEs) to form in…
Reframing 'Crisis' in Fair Trade Coffee Production: Trajectories of Agrarian Change in Nicaragua
A focus on crisis provides a methodological window to understand how agrarian change shapes producer engagement in fair trade. This orientation challenges a separation between the market and development, situating fair trade within global processes that incorporate agrarian histories of social change and conflict. Reframing crisis as a condition of agrarian life, rather than emphasizing its cyclical manifestation within the global economy, reveal…
An intergenerational transmission of sustainability? Ancestral habitus and food production in a traditional agro-ecosystem of the Upper Guinea Forest, West Africa
The need for sustainable alternatives to industrial farming has led to a revival of interest in traditional agro-ecosystems. Whilst it is well recognised that traditional agro-ecosystems are both social and physical–technical – few case studies have examined interactions between both these dimensions in a single system. For a system to be considered sustainable it needs to be shown to have retained key characteristics over several generations. Ca…
Justice and conservation: The need to incorporate recognition
In light of the Aichi target to manage protected areas equitably by 2020, we ask how the conservation sector should be incorporating concerns for social justice. We focus in particular on 'recognition', because it is the least well understood aspect of environmental justice, and yet highly relevant to conservation because of its concern with respect for local knowledge and cultures. In order to explore the meaning of recognition in the conservati…
Cultural valuation and biodiversity conservation in the Upper Guinea forest, West Africa
Fraser, J. A., M. Diabaté, W. Narmah, P. Beavogui, K. Guilavogui, H. De Foresta, and A. B. Junqueira. 2016. Cultural valuation and biodiversity conservation in the Upper Guinea forest, West Africa. Ecology and Society 21(3):36.http://dx.doi.org/10.5751/ES-08738-210336
Soil Knowledge
This entry argues for a renewed anthropological engagement with local soil knowledge against a backdrop of industrial agriculture in crisis. It discusses the idea that one example of local soil knowledge, anthropogenic dark earths (ADE), could be a potential solution to this crisis. It argues that, while there is merit in this argument, ADE should be conceived of as a form of “limited good” and so cannot be simply scaled up under our current “unl…
Amazonian struggles for recognition
Since the 1988 Constitution, forest peoples of Brazilian Amazonia have been struggling for territorial recognition. Yet studies of recognition in post colonial contexts, based on cases with clear settler/indigenous distinctions, are highly critical of recognition, seeing it as a form of “neoliberal multiculturalism,” a co‐option of subaltern identities with limited emancipatory potential. I question these critiques by examining struggles for lega…
Amazonian peasant livelihood differentiation as mutuality-market dialectics
Economistic approaches to the study of peasant livelihoods have considerable academic and policy influence, yet, we argue, perpetuate a partial misunderstanding - often reducing peasant livelihood to the management of capital assets by rational actors. In this paper, we propose to revitalize the original heterodox spirit of the sustainable livelihoods framework by drawing on Stephen Gudeman's work on the dialectic between use values and mutuality…
The Northern Neolithic of the Western Himalayas: New Research in the Kashmir Valley
Deciphering African tropical forest dynamics in the Anthropocene: How social and historical sciences can elucidate forest cover change and inform forest management
Counter-conducts and the green grab: Forest peoples' resistance to industrial resource extraction in the Saracá-Taquera National Forest, Brazilian Amazonia
This paper examines how forest peoples' resistance to industrial resource extraction projects contributes to the production of 'green' spaces. Drawing on a case study of the Saracá-Taquera National Forest in the Brazilian Amazon, we analyze how a coalition of quilombola communities are mobilizing against a bauxite mining project proposed by a transnational corporation. We argue that their resistance, which we conceptualize as counter-conducts, di…
From ‘prison’ to ‘paradise’? Seeking freedom at the rainforest frontier through urban–rural migration
The lives of the urban poor in the majority world are unfree: blighted by social injustice in its manifold forms, from violence and ill-health to absent economic opportunities. We explore the pursuit of freedom through migration away from the metropole to ramais (colonisation tracks) at the rainforest frontier. Drawing on a case study in Brazilian Amazonia, we reveal urban-rural migration as a frontier dynamic driven by the search for a good life…
Development of a novel minimally invasive sampling and analysis technique using skin sampling tape strips for bioarchaeological proteomics
Those who live like us: Autodemarcations and the co-becoming of Indigenous and beiradeiros on the Upper Tapajós River, Brazilian Amazonia
This paper explores autodemarcations on the Tapajós River, Brazilian Amazonia, wherein a traditional community — the beiradeiros (riverbank inhabitants) — and the Indigenous Munduruku together mark the boundaries of their lands and remove invaders in their struggles for the recognition of territorial rights from the state. We approach autodemarcations on the Tapajós as a form of co-becoming: unseating colonial identities and generating mutual rec…
Shattered glass of Beirut: Collaboration between the Archaeological Museum (American University of Beirut) and international partners following the 2020 port explosion
The Archaeological Museum at the American University of Beirut (AUB) lies approximately 3 km west of the main port of Beirut, the site of the massive explosion that sent a catastrophic shockwave through the city on 4 August 2020. A display case containing Classical and early Islamic period glass vessels was smashed against the museum’s stone floor, shattering 72 vessels into thousands of shards. This paper overviews how the Archaeological Museum …
Geography (22 works) · Ecology (16 works) · Agriculture, Land Use, Rural Development (14 works) · Conservation, Biodiversity, and Resource Management (14 works) · Biology (12 works) · Political science (12 works) · Amazonian Archaeology and Ethnohistory (10 works) · Amazon rainforest (9 works) · Archaeology (9 works) · Politics (9 works)