The Racial Dimensions Of “Nature”: Environmental Justice and

CO2lonialism in Brazil

Racial thinking shapes the spaces in which we live and the way we perceive the
environment. The concept of “race” is inseparable from contemporary environmental
issues and linked to colonial legacies. In Brazil, racial discrimination is deeply intertwined
with development and the protection of the Amazon. Guest blogger, Arzucan Askin tells us
more. 

Asháninka men in their hut. For over a century, there has been encroachment onto Asháninka land
from rubber tappers, loggers, colonisers, and oil companies. Image credit: Ministério da Cultura

The linkages between climate change, colonialism, and capitalism that have led to the emergence
of the concept of ‘CO2lonialism’ in recent debates.   While mostly these refer to the historical
linkage of three issues – namely, colonialism constituting the roots of capitalism, and capitalist
industrialization and production causing climate change – there is another perspective to be taken
on ‘CO2lonialism’, particularly in Brazil.

The country prides itself as being a ‘racial democracy’. The term, coined by Brazilian sociologist
Gilberto Freyre, suggests that Brazil has averted the emergence of strict racial categories, due to
the “gentle” nature of Portuguese imperialism, and as such has evaded racism and racial
discrimination. Furthermore, the theory foresees the emergence of a ‘post-racial meta-race’ due to
the miscegenation of racial and ethnic groups. However, this theory stands in stark contrast to the
country’s deeply racialized reality. Brazils current racial diversity is a product of its colonial past,
with most of its population descending from three main groups: European settlers, sub-Saharan
Africans and indigenous peoples.
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 The majority of mixed-race  people, often referred to as ‘mulattos’ (a highly contestable term in
itself), descend  from  freed African slaves.  Brazil not only imported more enslaved Africans than
any other American nation, but it was also the last country in the Southern hemisphere to abolish
the practice, in 1888. As is the case with any nation whose official history started with settler
colonialism and the institution of slavery, the country’s federal economic policy, directed at
alleviating poverty and reducing inequality, is inherently racialized: Afro-Brasileiros, black and
mixed-race Brazilians make up 51 percent of the nation’s population and are significantly more
exposed to poverty and targeted by discrimination, social exclusion and exploitation than lighter-
skinned parts of the population. 80 percent of Brazil’s richest one percent are white, and only 13
percent of non-white black and mixed-race Brazilians between the age 18 and 24 are currently
enrolled in college. With 54.8 million (26.5 percent of the population) people below the poverty line
and 15.2 million people living in extreme poverty, calculated at less than $1.90 per day),
vulnerability to forced labour and exploitation is high according to the World Bank.

As such, forms of slavery still exist in Brazil today and are not only a legacy of the country’s
colonial past, but also explicitly linked to exploitation of natural resources in the Amazon. Most of
Brazil’s ‘escravos’, modern-day slaves, are found in the agricultural sector, tied to primarily white
land owners through debt bondage or human trafficking. This is particularly the case in ‘quilombos’,
territories where escaped slaves hid during in colonial Brazil. Between 2003 and 2015 the official
number of workers rescued from “conditions analogous to slavery” is said to be 44,483. Most of
these forced labourers were recruited for soya plantations, farms, mines and mills in the Amazon.
The exploitation of these majority non-white Brazilians in the Amazon contributes directly to
deforestation and thus climate change. It is impossible to separate racism from environmental
destruction, particularly in the context of Brazil.

“Slavery, […], represents the thin edge of a larger principle: the right of Brazil’s
[white]elites to exploit humans and nature as ruthlessly as they will.” (Grandin,
2016)

Just recently Beto Mansur, congressman for the Movimento Democrático Brasileiro (MDB), aiming
to impeach former President Dilma Roussef, was discovered to be keeping “46 workers at his
soybean farms in Goiás State in conditions so deplorable that investigators say the laborers were
treated like modern-day slaves”. Issues of race and racism in Brazil, are currently also explicitly
fueled by the newly-elected far-right nationalist President, Jair Bolsonaro, who has publicly
expressed his contempt for Afro-descendant Brazilians and indigenous people. During his election
campaign he proclaimed that “not a centimeter will be demarcated either as an indigenous reserve
or as a ‘quilombola’.

“The Indians do not speak our language […], they do not have culture. […] How
did they manage to get 13% of the national territory?” Jair Bolsonaro

“Indigenous people have resisted for 518 years to overcome the colonial structure
and we will continue to be resolute in our struggle for our right to exist as original
peoples.” Sônia Guajajara, Brazil’s Association of Indigenous Peoples

While officially 436 territories have been formally designated as autonomous lands of indigenous
peoples, the presence of rich mineral reserves in these indigenous territories rendered them highly
vulnerable to social and resource exploitation. The current white-dominated Brazilian government
under Bolsonaro has undermined indigenous rights and regards native communities in the Amazon
as impediments to economic development and profit, subjecting them to (illegal) logging, cattle
farming, mining and forced displacement. The exploitation of the Amazon paired with embedded
institutionalized racism is detrimental to planetary health: recent scholarship agrees on the
indispensable role and importance of indigenous peoples and biodiversity conservation.
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 The protection of territorial and resource rights of indigenous peoples is this directly linked to
effective environmental governance and achieving the goals of climate change conventions. It is
impossible to separate current environmental issues and environmental justice movements from
questions of race and racial thinking. Racial thinking has shaped and continues to shape our
experiences of nature and the environment directly and indirectly. Most importantly, the concept of
race is historically and politically intertwined with nature; contemporary environmental issues and
issues of social justice are both rooted in and also the effects of colonialism. The social
environmental ramifications of this connection define our everyday realities and struggles.
Consequentially, it is our responsibility to not only contextualize our understanding of nature
critically but also to challenge and confront institutionalized racism that continues to harm people
and the environment, standing in the way of effective development.

Arzucan Askin (@arzucan_askin) is a BA Geography student in the department of Geography

and Environment at the LSE. She has previously worked on several conservation projects for the
WWF and conducted research on indigenous communities in Malaysia (Orang Asli), China (Yao)
and Hawai’i (Hawaiʻi Maoli). She serves as ambassador for the Royal Geographical Society,
currently preparing for a research project on women and disaster resilience in Cuba, and is Editor-
in-Chief of the jfa, a student-run human rights journal. Her research interests include political
ecology, sustainable development, conservation and gender geography.

The views expressed in this post are those of the author and in no way reflect those of the
International Development LSE blog or the London School of Economics and Political
Science. 

April 9th, 2019 | Featured, Guest blogger, Topical and Comment | 0 Comments

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