Hydropower development, collective action, and environmental justice in the Brazilian Amazon

Abstract

The Brazilian Amazon has long served as a site of infrastructure development and natural resource extraction. Development projects including dams and mines have largely benefitted distant urban actors at a cost to local communities and the environment. We draw from theories of internal colonialism and environmental justice to examine the ways that dam building undermined the well-being of communities affected by construction of the Belo Monte Dam, and to understand how those communities engaged in collective action to minimize negative impacts on their livelihoods. Drawing from semi-structured interview and ethnographic data, we find that farmers and fishers impacted by Belo Monte used a variety of tactics to resist exploitation and ultimately receive more equitable compensation for their losses. We propose two processes were central to their success in mobilizing for environmental justice: transformative resistance and collaborative claims-making.

Introduction

Large-scale development projects have impacted the Brazilian Amazon since the early 1970s, when the government initiated a process of constructing highways through the rainforest, encouraging farmers to colonize the region, and promoting natural resource extraction and cattle ranching (Fearnside 1984; Ozório de Almeida and Campari 1995). These projects benefitted Brazil on a national scale, yet the benefits rarely extended to populations within the Amazon including smallholder farmers, Indigenous groups, and fishing communities. Despite limited evidence of local-level benefits, development in the region continues at a rapid pace today, and is centered on mining, the expansion of mechanized agriculture, and the construction of dams, roads, ports, and pipelines (Fearnside 2018; Moran 2016; Tófoli et al. 2017).

The Brazilian Amazon is thus an example of internal colonialism, which occurs when politically and economically powerful actors in metropolitan centers of a country control resources in poorer, rural regions while undermining the well-being of populations living within those places (Casanova 1965; Peluso, Humphrey, and Fortmann 1994). Indeed, Cummings (1995, 159) stated that “for as long as Brazil treats Amazônia as its colony for raw materials, land reform relief, or energy, the undermining of the rights of the people and the integrity of the forest will continue.” Amidst this system of internal colonialism, however, exploited populations have used a variety of strategies to demand that they benefit from the development process and participate in meaningful decision-making.

We examine a recent development project in the Amazon—the Belo Monte Dam—which was completed in 2019 on the Xingu River and is currently the fourth largest dam in energy generating capacity globally. On the one hand, dam construction offered tens of thousands of jobs and increased government investment in a region that outsiders have historically exploited. On the other hand, Belo Monte led to substantial social and environmental injustices, including displacing at least 20,000 people, impacting aquatic wildlife in one of the world’s most biodiverse rivers, and threatening the livelihoods of fishers, farmers, and Indigenous groups (Calvi et al. 2019; Castro-Diaz, Lopez, and Moran 2018; Eletrobrás et al. 2009; SBPC 2017). Using data from ethnographic fieldwork and semi-structured interviews carried out during dam construction, we explore collective action among communities affected by the construction of Belo Monte. The goal of this paper is not to study mobilization associated with stopping construction of the dam, which is well documented (Atkins 2020; Fearnside 2017; McCormick 2010), but rather to examine mobilization among those directly affected in the face of dam construction.

We focus on two cases—displaced farmers and local fishers—to highlight the mechanisms through which groups impacted by the dam used collective action to resist internal colonialism and organize for environmental justice. We propose two processes central to the successes that both farmers and fishers achieved in their struggle for justice: transformative resistance and collaborative claims-making.

Theoretical Background

Internal Colonialism

Throughout the past several centuries, powerful economic and political actors have extracted resources from marginalized regions to benefit their own interests. Scholars have documented the ways in which these processes have left local ecosystems and residents to bear the burdens of that resource extraction. The theory of internal colonialism, defined as the “domination and exploitation of natives by natives”, is a useful framework through which to consider how local populations are affected by natural resource extraction (Casanova 1965, 27).

Indeed, Peluso, Humphrey, and Fortmann (1994) used internal colonialism theory to explain poverty in natural resource-dependent areas. They argued that large corporations within a country act in their own self-interest, not in the interest of local populations, and that government policies enable resource extraction in ways that impoverish local communities and damage the environment. This suggests that politically and economically powerful actors in metropolitan areas appropriate natural resources in poorer, remote areas while undermining local ecosystems and failing to invest in any sustained economic development for the populations in those regions.

An internal colonialism framework is a useful, though underutilized, lens through which to consider the effects of hydropower development on the well-being of local communities. Indeed, dam construction by and large negatively impacts those who live in the path of dam-related flooding and/or rely on the river for their livelihoods (Scudder 2005). However, internal colonialism falls short of explaining the processes through which affected communities overcome barriers and organize in an attempt to mitigate these effects.

Environmental Justice

Environmental justice (EJ) offers theoretical grounding to understand how communities mobilize against the environmental threats inherent within many internal colonial relationships. EJ emerged as a movement in the southern United States in the 1980s, originally to resist the disproportionate exposure to toxic pollutants among socioeconomically disadvantaged—often Black and brown—communities. Academic literature accompanied the work to help explain the structural causes and consequences of this injustice and to give voice to those on the front lines of resistance (Bryant and Mohai 1992; Bullard and Wright 1990). Affected communities have engaged in strategic resistance since the case that sparked the EJ movement—the 1982 siting of a hazardous waste landfill near a predominantly low-income Black community in Warren County, North Carolina. Community members partnered with faith-based and civil rights organizations to protest the landfill, utilizing collective action strategies common during the civil rights movement (e.g., marches) as well as innovative tactics (e.g., lying down in the street to block construction trucks) (McGurty 2000).

In the subsequent decades, the EJ movement and scholarship broadened topically and spatially to consider a variety of environmental issues across a wider range of geographic contexts, both within the US and internationally (Agyeman et al. 2016; Schlosberg 2013). One such topic is renewable energy development (Levenda, Behrsin, and Disano 2021). Renewable energy projects, including hydropower, are typically framed as sustainable alternatives to fossil fuel-based energy. However, these projects frequently undermine the well-being of local populations by altering the environmental conditions on which they depend. Indeed, hydropower development has been increasingly framed as an EJ issue (Kaneti 2020; Shah et al. 2019; Thorkildsen 2018).

We draw from EJ theory in order to better understand what the farmers and fishers were able to gain in the struggles for compensation and how they were able to make those gains. Specifically, we build on two areas of the literature. First, our qualitative data highlight how people fight for the three forms of justice that have concerned EJ scholars: distributive, procedural, and recognition-based justice. For decades, much of the EJ scholarship focused on distributive justice, or the ways in which environmental harm and goods are distributed across populations (Schlosberg 2007). More recently, the literature has begun paying attention to procedural forms of justice, which focus on how and by whom decisions are made, as well as recognition-based components of justice, which center on the status, capabilities, and identities of specific groups (Schlosberg 2007). In other words, a distributional lens encourages us to ask where injustices are located, a procedural frame calls us to ask about the fairness of processes, and a recognition perspective urges us to ask who is ignored or misrepresented (Jenkins et al. 2016). People struggling for EJ may strive for one or more of these forms of justice, as they recognize that procedural and recognition-based injustice can lead to maldistribution (Schlosberg 2007). By exploring the stories of the farmers and fishers in the case of Belo Monte, we can see how this happens and other consequences of struggles for these various forms of justice.

Second, our cases speak to the focus within EJ scholarship on the importance of the types of networks and collaborations that residents and activists create and use in their work for justice. Scholars argue that, like the toxic landfill case in Warren County, EJ struggles would not be possible without strong alliances between affected groups and religious, community, sustainability-focused, or other organizations (Agyeman et al. 2016; Taylor 2000). Additionally, the literature on environmental health pays particular attention to the importance of “citizen-science alliances,” or collaborations between laypeople and scientific experts, for effective claims-making (Brown 2007). Lastly, most EJ literature has focused on relationships between non-state actors. We complicate this narrative by showing the ways that both state and non-state actors engage in collaborations with the farmers and fishers. In so doing, we build on Hochstetler’s (2011) work that details the state-society coalitions that form to both block and enable energy projects in Brazil.

Conceptual Framework

Through the two cases described below, we first show specific practices that state and private actors use to advance internal colonialism. We propose that, in response to these practices, dam-affected participants engage in transformative resistance. The term refers to the ways in which marginalized people become active citizens through the process of resisting internal colonialism and environmental injustices. The farmers and fishers affected by Belo Monte were not engaged in civic life prior to dam construction; however, the processes through which they made demands in response to exploitative behaviors transformed them into engaged citizens. This transformation occurred over three stages: (1) the communities recognized threats to their well-being and began to engage in resistance; (2) over the course of resistance they learned to become strategic activists; and (3) through their actions, they were able to alter their own material conditions.

We argue that transformative resistance is facilitated through collaborative claims-making. This collaboration refers to the partnerships that the farmers and fishers formed with non-governmental organizations, social movements, and government agencies and to the leaderlessness approach that proved most effective when making formal demands. Charismatic leaders initiated resistance, but we show how the groups made gains when they negotiated as a collective, rather than as individuals.

Study Context and the Belo Monte Dam

This study focuses on the Belo Monte Hydroelectric Complex, which was constructed from 2011 to 2019 on the Xingu River by Norte Energia S.A. (NESA), a consortium of public and private entities. The dam complex is located just downstream from the city of Altamira, Pará in Brazil’s eastern Amazon, however most electricity generated from the dam is destined for southeastern Brazil where energy demand is greatest (BMTE 2014).

Large-scale development in the region began in the early 1970s, when Brazil’s government began constructing highways, encouraging colonization of the region by farmers, and promoting resource extraction and cattle ranching. During this period, the government demarcated plots for new settlers and provided the colonists with basic services (Perz et al. 2007). The Transamazon Highway, along with its associated colonization program, caused much of the in-migration to the Altamira region. However, the program led to minimal economic growth and high levels of farm abandonment, as agricultural productivity was hindered by tropical diseases, inadequate planning by the government, and poorly functioning credit systems (Smith 1982; Moran 1981). These colonization projects were discontinued in the mid-1970s.

The government’s abandonment of the Transamazon project left many settlers struggling to survive. The difficult living conditions triggered an increase in mobilization, and people formed neighborhood groups, social movements, and other formal organizations (Bratman 2011; Coutinho da Silva 2008). The first of many regional protests occurred in 1978, when farmers organized through the rural workers union to show their frustration with the prices of agricultural products by blocking the highway (FVPP 2006; Lacerda 2015). Other groups organized to demand increased government support for education, healthcare, and transportation needs. In part due to these efforts, clinics and schools were opened, including a campus of the Universidade Federal do Pará in 1987 (FVPP 2006; Coutinho da Silva 2008).

Plans for damming the Xingu River began in the 1970s with a six-dam complex that would have flooded 1,225 km² of land, including Indigenous reserves (Fearnside 2006). The proposed dams’ massive environmental and social impacts inspired numerous protests over the past several decades, including the First Gathering of the Indigenous Nations of the Xingu, in Altamira in 1989, which brought together over six hundred indigenous people from about forty regional tribes to show their disapproval for the project (Filho 2005; McCully 2001). This protest, the strengthening anti-dam movement in the country, and a slew of national and global factors made borrowing money from international lenders for dams economically and politically increasingly difficult (Hochstetler 2011). Without funding, the project was halted for more than a decade, during which time it was redesigned to reduce the area flooded and lessen effects on Indigenous land (Hall and Branford 2012). Newly renamed Belo Monte, then president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva pushed the dam forward again in the early 2000s as part of a program for national economic growth (Fearnside 2006).

The final design includes an upstream dam that diverts water into a reservoir, which feeds a downstream dam that produces the majority of electricity. As a result, water flow in the area between the dams—the Volta Grande (Big Bend of the river)—has been greatly reduced. Approximately 500 km² (193 mi²) of land was flooded and official estimates indicated that 20,000 people would be displaced, including urban residents of Altamira, rural farmers, and subsistence fishers (Eletrobrás et al. 2009). However, experts predicted that the number displaced could reach 40,000 (Painel de Especialistas 2009). In addition, the livelihoods and well-being of thousands of others were affected, including fishers impacted by declining fish populations and Indigenous groups whose food security and ability to navigate the river were threatened by reduced water flow in the Volta Grande.

Methods

Data Collection

The first case study uses data from 67 semi-structured interviews conducted with 39 rural farming households who were displaced when the main reservoir area was flooded. These households were a subset of a project that collected survey data from 165 households in the area (Randell 2016). In August 2012, Randell and a local research assistant conducted pre-displacement interviews with 28 households. The households were purposively selected to achieve maximum variation in the amount of land owned, household income, and length of time in the study area. We also interviewed 11 households that had already been displaced to understand the extent to which migration timing was related to displacement outcomes. These 11 households were selected using snowball sampling by asking households we had interviewed to identify other households that had already been displaced. The interviews lasted approximately 30–60 minutes and followed a guide that directed the conversation while enabling respondents to elaborate on related topics. In 2014, Randell tracked and re-interviewed the 28 households who had not yet been displaced at the time of baseline data collection. Interviewing households before and after displacement provides insights into how communities used collective action at different points in the dam building process. We recorded interviews with informed verbal consent of the respondents. The interviews were transcribed by a native Portuguese speaker.

The second case study primarily draws on ethnographic research carried out in and around Altamira. Klein lived in Altamira for more than a year between July 2011 and June 2013, which were the first two years of Belo Monte’s construction, and returned at the end of 2017, when the majority of building had been completed. During that time, he attended public and private meetings, participated in rallies and other activities, and interviewed activists, fishers, riverine people, public defenders, public prosecutors, NESA employees, and government officials. This ethnographic work with a range of actors allowed Klein to better understand the challenges that dam-affected communities faced and the ways they responded to those difficulties. He also conducted interviews with policymakers, government employees, NESA representatives, researchers, and activists in the state capital of Belém, the country capital of Brasília, São Paulo, and Rio de Janeiro. In total, Klein accumulated more than a thousand pages of fieldnotes from daily life in Altamira, over 150 events and interviews, and dozens of analytic memos he wrote while conducting research.

Data Analysis

Interviews were coded for themes using NVivo qualitative data analysis software. Illustrative quotes were translated into English after the coding process in order to protect the integrity of the data. An iterative approach was used, combining deductive methods (creating a priori codes before analysis based on the research questions and literature) and inductive methods (creating in vivo codes during analysis) to identify trends across respondents and in turn generate theoretically generalizable insights (Fereday and Muir-Cochrane 2006). During the coding process, we continually refined the list of thematic codes as new themes emerged and then revisited previously coded transcripts to apply new codes. A total of 18 codes were created, 13 before analysis (e.g., community meetings, protests, payment timeline) and five during analysis (e.g., community association, knowledge and power). The coding process helped organize the data and identify themes that were common across respondents.

The analysis of the ethnographic research about the fishers draws on Burawoy’s (1998) “extended case method,” which encourages the researcher to continually reexamine findings in relation to existing theory. Analysis, therefore, occurred while Klein was in the field, as well as after fieldwork was completed. Klein wrote analytical field memos that reflected on theoretical implications of what he was observing. These memos, along with additional deductive and inductive coding of fieldnotes after research was completed, were used to generate themes.

Participant observation showed the day-to-day discourses and practices that people used, while interviews provided details of people’s understandings of situations. The use of different methods, along with the independent collection and coding of data, allowed the authors to identify, compare, and confirm the patterns that emerged within and between cases.

Findings and Discussion

Case 1. Displaced farmers: Mobilizing for fair compensation

Background and identifying injustices

Between early 2012 and mid-2014, hundreds of rural farming households were displaced to make way for Belo Monte’s reservoir, canals, and associated roads and infrastructure. Many of the households had lived in the area for decades, migrating to the region during the 1970s and 1980s to take advantage of the government’s opportunity to acquire plots of agricultural land. In the early years of settlement, migrants relied upon one another to improve community well-being and cope with harsh conditions and a lack of social services (Randell 2018). Community members worked together to construct a school to educate their children locally up through the eighth grade, and the community association purchased rice and flour mills so that households could prepare their harvests for sale. Through actions like these, households compensated for a lack of government investment in their newly settled rural community. In turn, these experiences proved valuable when faced with displacement, as community members were accustomed to working together towards common goals.

At the time of displacement, the community was composed of smallholder cacao farmers, cattle ranchers, and landless sharecroppers. Landowners facing displacement were provided with monetary compensation that they could use to purchase new property. Compensation was based on the location of the property, units of perennial crops (e.g. number of fruit trees), area of annual crops, area of pasture, as well as homes and infrastructure (Norte Energia 2010). Individuals who did not own land (sharecroppers or those that lived on relatives’ land) were provided with a credit payment that could be used to purchase land with a definitive title or public deed.

In mid-2011, employees from companies contracted by NESA began visiting the homes of households to register them, appraise their assets, and calculate compensation amounts. Farmers were told they would receive an appraisal within 90 days, though this first step was frequently delayed, with some households waiting a year or more. The households then had limited time to evaluate the proposal before signing the contract. Upon signing, the households were expected to receive half of their compensation within 30 days. Once the payment was deposited, Norte Energia gave households an additional 30 days to purchase a new home and relinquish their property, at which time the second half of their compensation was deposited.

The compensation program as it was originally designed was viewed unfavorably by many community members. Cacao—the most lucrative crop in the region—was heavily under-appraised and the timeline for receiving appraisals and payments was drawn out over a multiyear period, with some households compensated in early 2012 and others not receiving payments until mid-2014. Further, households were not accurately informed as to when payments would arrive and thus did not know when they would be forced to migrate. For example, one farmer waiting for compensation stated, “we signed the contract and were told we would receive our compensation in 20 days, and it has already been eight months.” Additionally, the policy of remitting payments in two installments made it difficult for displaced households to afford new property, as they were expected to pay the property owner before the second half of their compensation arrived.

Moreover, NESA also took advantage of the fact that many farmers did not have high levels of formal education and thus lacked the knowledge and skills to ensure that they were being treated fairly.¹ For example, a farmer discussed the situation of a fellow community member, stating:

[NESA] is smart. After they visited, they changed some things in the appraisal to trick people. One man lost a lot of cacao trees as well as an orchard…He doesn’t know how to read, so when he saw his compensation value in the appraisal, he thought it was a lot of money and so he signed it…When he realized [the trees and orchard had been removed] it was too late.

Through these experiences, many households recognized the fundamentally unjust nature of the compensation process. NESA prioritized profit as well as the provision of energy to wealthier regions of Brazil over the well-being of local individuals whose homes, communities, and livelihoods were facing imminent destruction. A recognition of these injustices inspired community members to take action.

Initial action: partnerships and charismatic leaders

With the assistance of Xingu Vivo, the regional anti-dam social movement organization, and MAB, the national social movement organization that supports people impacted by dams, the community formed an association to mobilize for a more just compensation process. Xingu Vivo and MAB served a critical role, helping the association strategize and facilitating meetings between community members and decision-makers. Further, the farmers received help from the public defenders’ office of the state of Pará, a government-funded institution whose mandate is to support people in vulnerable situations and those who cannot afford legal services. The public defender provided various forms of assistance to the association including arranging meetings between the association and NESA to discuss the price of cacao. Further, when some community members reported that their drinking water was polluted as a result of dam construction, the public defender photographed the water sources to use as evidence.

At this time, the association, which was composed of about 50 families, relied on charismatic local leaders to represent it in meetings with NESA and strategize on mobilization tactics. Early on in the process, the founders of the association organized community meetings as well as a trip to Brasília to negotiate the price of cacao as well as argue for receiving compensation payments in one, versus two, installments. Originally, cacao was appraised for R$45 per tree for mature, productive trees, which households believed was far lower than the market value. After traveling to Brasília with monetary support from the association and social movement organizations, a small group of community members met with high-level representatives from NESA and with Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, Brazil’s then president. As a result of the meetings, the appraised price of cacao was more than doubled, to R$96 per tree, and an agreement was made to pay the full compensation in one installment.

Despite these successes, many households noted that NESA strategically compensated the association’s leaders very early in the process in order to weaken resistance. A founder of the association, who was one of the first to be compensated in January 2012, stated, “the strategy of removing us wasn’t because they needed our land at that moment, but because we went to meetings and organized protests…we knew which doors to knock on.” Another farmer, also compensated in January 2012, stated, “they compensated the strong people first, the ones that resisted, in order to weaken the association, and they succeeded. They compensated me [and a few others] who were the leaders, who explained the truth to everyone.”

The first stage in the process of transformative resistance highlights the critical role that collaborative claims-making played in fostering early collective action efforts. At the outset, the farmers were not experienced negotiators, nor did they have high levels of education or financial capital. Partnerships with social movement organizations and the public defender were essential in facilitating initial accomplishments. The partner organizations provided strategies, social capital, and financial resources, which enabled community leaders to build an association and have their voices heard at the highest levels of Brazilian government. In turn, NESA responded with attempts to weaken resistance by removing those who became the most vocal advocates for displaced farmers rights—the association’s leaders.

Learning from losses: new strategies over time

As time passed and leaders migrated away, the remaining community members began to formulate new strategies to make demands on NESA, directly countering the consortium’s tactic of compensating leaders. By mid-2012, after multiple community leaders had received compensation and migrated away, the association adopted a new tactic, as one farmer discussed:

The last time we had a meeting and NESA came here, [representatives from NESA] called for the leaders of the community association to come outside to talk. People intervened saying that here we don’t have leaders, that the leaders are all of us because we all want one thing, a single goal.

By ceasing to name a leader, the remaining members of the community association effectively dismantled NESA’s main strategy for weakening the association—paying off leaders—which offered the community greater bargaining power.

Though formal channels of negotiation led to some successes, including raising the price of cacao, many community demands were ignored by NESA. For example, community members attempted formal negotiations with NESA to address long delays in payments, however these negotiations were unsuccessful. In response, the community engaged in protests to pressure NESA to address their demands. In June 2012, community members, assisted by the Agricultural Workers Federation, blocked the Transamazon Highway to object to what they viewed as an unjust compensation process. Approximately 70 people from the affected rural areas were involved in the protest, which prevented 5,000 construction workers and their equipment from accessing the dam site (Xingu Vivo 2012).

The protestors threatened to remain there until NESA agreed to compensate participating households in a timely and transparent manner. After three days of protest, NESA agreed to compensate those in attendance within a few months. In August 2012, a farmer who had participated in the protest stated, “they already paid some of us and others have signed contracts…and the representative of our association said that if [NESA] has not paid everyone by the end of the month, we will block the highway again…until they pay the last person.” The June 2012 protest proved effective given that each day that construction was delayed cost NESA time and money. Within a few months of the protest, the majority of those involved had received their compensation, enabling them to purchase new property and migrate.

Over the course of the compensation process, farmers passed through the second stage of transformative resistance as they learned how to become strategic activists. Initially facilitated by partnerships with established organizations, the farmers became experienced negotiators with NESA and the federal government. When negotiations failed, the farmers staged direct actions that put financial pressure on NESA until demands were met. Lastly, when NESA compensated the association’s leaders in an attempt to weaken resistance, remaining members adopted a leaderless approach through which they negotiated collectively.

Despite the many ways that NESA disregarded the well-being of displaced households, in the first few years after displacement most households reported improvements in housing conditions, land ownership, assets, and subjective well-being (H. F. Randell 2016). This suggests that the farmers transitioned to the third stage of transformative resistance. Through effective mobilization the farmers altered the compensation process, and in turn their material conditions, which enabled many of them to avoid further marginalization after displacement.

Case 2. Fishers and riverine people: Mobilizing for recognition

Rodrigo’s story

In 2011, the year construction began, Rodrigo was typical of many fishers who lived and worked in the Volta Grande. He worked out of a narrow 15-foot wooden boat, had a small rural piece of land along the river, and his palafita (stilt) home in the city was on the water’s edge. In a typical week, he spent five days on the river and two days in the city, where he sold his catch, spent time with family, and restocked supplies. Like many of the fishers in the region, he had lived along the river since his birth in the 1960s. He had not learned to read or write and had never participated in activism or other forms of civic engagement.

At the end of 2017, Rodrigo was living in an Urban Resettlement Community (RUC) in Altamira about five kilometers from the river. NESA had relocated him to the RUC two years earlier with thousands of other families that were forced from the shoreline. His boat, coolers, and fishing nets were in his home. He rarely spent time on the water; it cost too much money to transport his fishing gear to the river. Dam construction forced Rodrigo to stop fishing.

Despite these challenges, Rodrigo and other fishers spoke optimistically of the future. They received guarantees that NESA would start paying monthly stipends to fishers who were unable to work, some riverine people² received new land along the river, both fishers and riverine people gained access to participatory decision-making opportunities, and they were in ongoing negotiations for further compensation.

The mechanisms through which the fishers made these material gains highlight another example of how transformative resistance occurs in the face of internal colonlialism. Through protest, fishers first created the conditions through which transformation could occur, which included establishing new partnerships and opening pathways for participation. Next, the fishers deepened their collaborations with others through participatory opportunities, in order to become engaged citizens and activists. Lastly, they used their knowledge and relationships to alter their material conditions and make livelihood gains.

Setting the stage for transformation

Unlike the farmers, NESA did not officially consider the fishers to be a dam-affected population. The fishers’ livelihoods depended on the unique ecosystem of the Volta Grande that the dam would alter, yet the specific ways in which they would feel those impacts were unknown. It was difficult for fishers to prove where exactly they fished, and their anecdotal accounts of their challenges often conflicted with NESA’s researchers, who argued that fish populations were declining prior to construction. The burden was on the fishers to show how the dam impacted their lives. Furthermore, just over a year after work on Belo Monte began, NESA began prohibiting fishing near the “Pimental” construction site and was about to close the river. These changes and the failure of NESA and the government to recognize the fishers as a dam-affected group highlight how internal colonialism works in practice. Powerful actors were limiting access to resources and therefore threatened to destroy the fishers’ livelihoods.

In response, the fishers took their first significant action in September 2012. They were noticing changes to the river and declines in fish populations. They were also concerned that the impending closure of the river would change the ecosystem and river transportation. A dozen fishers staged a protest in which they fished in the prohibited area. Supported by Xingu Vivo, the fishers’ union based in Altamira, and a number of other regional groups, the fishers began their protest with little idea of what would happen and what they might accomplish.

Over the subsequent weeks, their protest grew. They set up camps on islands near the prohibited zone, continued to fish, and welcomed new fishers. After nearly a month, Indigenous groups joined the fishers in a ten-day occupation of the dam site, temporarily halting construction. Their act of defiance concluded with a two-day conciliatory hearing, which allowed the protestors to air their concerns, make demands, and negotiate with NESA and government officials. In one emblematic exchange, a fisher stood to explain how the river conditions had rapidly changed since construction began and argued that NESA should compensate the fishers for lost income. A high-ranking NESA representative responded with a common refrain, “We don’t have data that says river conditions have changed …We have no indication of what you are saying, no evidence of changes to the fish population in the region.”

NESA refused the primary demands that the fishers made during the hearing, including monetary payments for lost wages. Instead, NESA agreed to conduct more research with the fishers and create a commission to work on fishers’ needs. Fishers also gained access to participatory decision-making forums. Activists that supported the fishers were disappointed with these procedural outcomes, remarking that the protest had only led to more meetings. Indeed, NESA repeatedly offered opportunities to participate and engage in meetings and research, but would not commit to providing actual compensation. Despite the activists’ sentiments and apparent lack of progress, the fishers celebrated. Few tangible material benefits resulted directly from the protest, yet they had taken many unseen steps that would eventually have positive consequences for the fishers.

Building partnerships and political engagement

As Klein (2015) argued, the protest activated and mobilized state actors to work on behalf of the fishers. Their action gained attention from local and national media, as well as the federal government, such as the Ministry of Fish and Aquaculture. The public defenders’ office, which had already been engaging in outreach efforts with dam-affected populations, served as institutional support during the negotiating process and would become an important ally of the fishers and riverine communities.

The protest itself and the collaborations with both state and non-state actors began the process of transforming the fishers into activists and engaged citizens. Like most of the farmers, the majority of fishers had never participated in civic activities beyond voting, so the fishers’ experience opened the door to activism and political engagement. Over subsequent years, the fishers learned to be engaged in participatory processes through which they could—or were forced to—negotiate for their well-being. Five years after the first protest, Rodrigo and other fishers spoke like professional activists and were proud of their accomplishments. Jose, a fisher who was active during the first protest, recalled the pride he felt in the original protest and the continued participation since that time. “It was us who protested for 32 days and occupied the dam site…I’m proud of what we have done since 2012. The story is around the world.” He continued by lamenting all of the meetings he and the others had to attend, but noted that he would continue to fight for their rights. “We are suffering but we will recover…The government gives things to people to shut up but riverine people won’t quit…They want us to abandon this fight, but as long as they don’t listen to us, we will keep fighting.”

In addition to learning how to become activists and engaged citizens, the fishers continued to strengthen their social and political networks that had developed before and during the protest. The public defenders, and eventually the public prosecutors—a state-created and state-supported legal agency that enforces government regulations and that can bring lawsuits against individuals, companies, or the government—accompanied the fishers to meetings with government officials and representatives of NESA, helping to mediate claims-making processes and advocate on behalf of the fishers. Public lawyers recognized the importance of the use of the institution of the law to make demands. As one public defender explained, “Some have guns, some have an image, and others have institutions. As an activist, you use what you have.”

Additionally, the fishers found support from NGOs like ISA (Socioenviromental Institute), particularly as the fishers worked to change the understanding of how the dam impacted their livelihoods. In 2015, ISA created a publication detailing the impacts of dam construction from the perspective of the fishers. The document, which included pictures and descriptions of the river and stories from the people who fish and live along the river, framed the fishers as experts of the river and provided a foundation for claims-making efforts. Its introduction states, “The traditional fishers from the area affected by the Belo Monte dam are unanimous in their observations of the negative changes caused by the construction of the dam, but they have never been seriously heard as the leading experts of their own territory.” Over the subsequent year, the fishers, along with ISA and the public prosecutors’ office, organized events and meetings to discuss the experiences of the people who lived along and fished the river.

The three years after the protest represent the second stage of transformative resistance, in which the fishers became engaged citizens and deepened their collaborations. They created and accessed participatory decision-making opportunities, and they mobilized state and non-state actors to work on their behalf. This work prepared them to make material gains.

Transforming material conditions

Four years after construction began, fishers continued to suffer the effects of dam construction. Most urban and rural resettlement processes were completed, and many fishers found themselves living in resettlement neighborhoods far from the water’s edge. Additionally, negotiations with NESA had slowed and many fishers were unable to work.

As the core group realized that making demands based on what they did—fish—was proving difficult, many of them became involved in making claims based on where they lived—along the river. The process was long and arduous and required the support of NGOs, researchers, and legal officials. The group needed to gain recognition as riverine people who were treated in an unjust manner and to counter NESA’s narratives that minimized the dam’s impacts. In order to do so, the public prosecutor garnered the assistance of the Brazilian Society for the Progress of Science (SBPC). The SBPC attracted over thirty researchers from around the country to carry out studies in the region, with the goals of identifying the affected riverine people, specifying how livelihoods were disrupted, and clarifying whether preexisting compensation programs met the needs of impacted people. The team of researchers, ISA, the public prosecutor, and the core group of people involved in the struggle worked at a frantic pace to conclude the research in less than four months.

Researchers presented reports at a meeting in November 2016 to over 800 riverine people (SBPC 2017). Before the end of the year, the group formed the Riverine People’s Council, which was made up of twenty-four official members that represented the riverine communities of Belo Monte. In early 2017, NESA granted the council four seats on the Working Group of Fishing, which was dedicated to addressing the pressing needs of fishers and riverine communities. By providing this opportunity, NESA officially recognized the Riverine People’s Council as an organized group.

This recognition led to the first communally-achieved material gains for the fishers and riverine people. By the end of 2017, some riverine people began receiving land along the river and the council received guarantees that NESA would begin making monthly payments to riverine families. Two years later, the fishers were also granted a new resettlement community located along the river just outside Altamira’s urban center.

In this third phase of transformative resistance, the fishers used their relationships and participatory know-how they had developed in previous stages in order to make consequential changes to their livelihoods. Their approach to making demands and seeking compensation was collaborative in every sense. They partnered with individuals, organizations, and agenices both within and outside of the government, and they approached negotiations as a collective, rather than under the representation of individual leaders.

Conclusion

Belo Monte represents a case of contemporary internal colonialism (Peluso, Humphrey, and Fortmann 1994; Casanova 1965), with profits and the provision of energy to other regions of Brazil valued at the expense of the well-being of humans and nature within the Xingu River region. In response, we argue that farmers and fishers whose homes, communities, and livelihoods were undermined by the dam resisted this structure of exploitation and fought for environmental justice through two key processes: transformative resistance and collaborative claims-making.

At the outset, most farmers and fishers were neither experienced activists nor highly educated. The threat of the dam sparked the process of transformative resistance, as the groups learned to engage in a variety of collective action tactics to pressure NESA for more equitable compensation. The participatory processes of resistance were, in and of themselves, an education. Farmers and fishers transformed into activists, which in turn enabled them to transform their material circumstances. Farmers succeeded in doubling the monetary compensation they received for cacao trees; they convinced NESA to compensate them in one, versus two, payments; and, through a three-day-long protest, participating farmers succeeded in expediting the timeframe for receiving compensation payments. Fishers received new land along the river, providing easy access to the water for their boats and fishing equipment, and also received guarantees that NESA would begin making monthly payments to compensate for years of lost income.

Transformative resistance would not have been possible without collaborative claims-making. From the outset, farmers and fishers partnered with NGOs, social movement organizations, scientists, and government actors to organize for better compensation. These partnerships provided farmers and fishers with critical social, financial, and human capital resources, which helped to counter NESA’s unjust system of compensation. Indeed, alliances between residents, social justice and religious organizations, and scientists have been central to EJ struggles for decades (Agyeman et al. 2016; Brown 2007; McGurty 2000), including in anti-dam movements (Shah et al. 2019). Additionally, unlike many cases of EJ, partnerships between the farmers and fishers and government actors offered further avenues through which to pursue claims. This dynamic suggests that EJ scholarship would benefit from drawing on literature about the politics of dam building to more closely examine the collaborations—rather than focus only on the antagonist relationships—between state and non-state actors (Hochstetler 2011). Another facet of collaborative claims-making was leaderlessness, a tactic in which the groups learned to negotiate collectively with NESA instead of through individual spokespersons. This collective approach proved critical in countering NESA’s tactics to weaken community resistance.

The cases of the farmers and fishers also exemplify how fighting for fairer processes and for recognition can lead to better material outcomes (Schlosberg 2007). The farmers recognized that the processes for receiving compensation were unjust and fought to improve those processes. The fishers likewise accessed, and created new, participatory decision-making spaces. They also repeatedly fought for recognition, first as dam-affected fishers and then as riverine people impacted by the dam. These stories highlight how distributional, procedural, and recognition-based justice are interlinked, yet separate struggles (Schlosberg 2007). They also deepen our understandings by showing how these fights for different forms of justice lead to transformation of the people who engage in them.

In sum, farmers and fishers impacted by construction of the Belo Monte Dam suffered losses of land, homes, and livelihoods. Through transformative resistance and collaborative claims-making, they also achieved a set of material gains. Climate change, the rapidly expanding demand for renewable energy, and economic development have contributed to a surge in dam buildling globally, with 3,700 large dams currently planned or under construction (Zarfl et al. 2015). These dams are likely to threaten the livelihoods of local communities, as state and corporate actors seek to expand domestic energy provision. As marginalized communities have done for generations, these communities can—through creative strategies and alliances—transform themselves and, in so doing, resist systems of internal colonialism.