Awareness, advocacy and social and environmental justice towards Indigenous territories worldwide are more necessary than ever, particularly those territories below the Ecuador line that have been exploited and stolen for several centuries. In the Amazon Rainforest, Indigenous communities such as the Yanomami have been subjected to illegal mining, deforestation, and other cultural and environmental destruction for hundreds of years. Through an ecofeminist lens, analyzing the intersectionality of gender and environmental issues in these communities, this essay aims to explain the correlation between the ecological destruction of global capitalism and the illegal mining on the Yanomami territory in the Amazon.
My starting point of analysis is the breakdown of the term nature and the relationship of patriarchy with nature. According to European scientific narrative, "nature within this tradition refers to the physical world of living organisms and exists separate from and prior to humans" (Sawyer and Arun 74). The separation between humans and nature has its roots in the history of natural and social sciences. According to Suzana Sawyer and Arun Agrawal on their Environmental Orientalisms article, the "classification - the delineation of identities and differences - has been an essential element in the establishment of colonial authority and power to assert truths and rights" (Sawyer and Arun 74). Western science, written for men and by men, through classifying nature as an inferior element to the human race, also contributed to the distinction of gender - separating men and women into different categories, associating women with nature and, therefore, legitimizing its settler, patriarchal and colonial discourse.
When it comes to the connection between women and nature, Sawyer and Arun explain that "the female body, both literally and metaphorically, was a primary terrain on which European colonialism asserted its power" (Sawyer and Arun 74). The authors contribute to the discussion by mentioning that conquering new land and exploiting yet 'unexplored' soil during the beginning of the Colonial Era was proof of mastery of a man's power. "With her virginity "yet" intact, America's deflowering was naturalized (if not made virtually obligatory) through the European ideology of masculine mastery of the female" (Sawyer and Arun 74). The initial European expansion and the early colonial perception of Nature as sensual and savage were crucial to legitimizing the patriarchal and racist exploitation of foreign lands and bodies.
While Western settlers cross soil and oceans in search of new bodies of land and women to conquer, master and exploit for power, earth-based communities such as indigenous people have a belief system that they are not above the land but part of. "The concept of interdependence includes a sense of identity associated with the environment and a sense of responsibility to care for the environment" (Whyte 124). Kyle White in her work Settler Colonialism, Ecology, and Environmental Injustice explains that "settler colonialism is a form of domination that violently disrupts human relationships with the environment" (Whyte 125). In the indigenous understanding, there is not a specific privilege that humans have above other beings, and it's humans responsibility to acknowledge the interdependence by paying respect to all the life forms.
Settler colonialism is deeply connected to environmental injustice, mainly when observed from an ecological point of view, settler colonialism supports undermining Indigenous peoples’ social resilience as self-determining collectives. Kyle Whyte invites us to comprehend "relationships connecting settler colonialism, environmental injustice, and violence" (125). To elucidate this relationship, I would like to bring to the discussion the case of the Yanomami Territory.
The Yanomami are a group of indigenous people from the North part of the Amazon Rainforest, their territory could be indicated where currently the border between Brazil and Venezuela. They have been isolated from contact with settlers or other indigenous people for most of their existence, and since 1980 have been exposed to violent land destruction on behalf of illegal mining. The Yanomami people, from children to the elderly, were gradually exposed to mercury contamination (used in mining), malaria, different types of cancer, malnutrition and hunger due to the impact of this activity on the region's fauna and flora. In the “Our lives are over”: The Yanomami villages devastated by mining article published by the journalist Talita Benidelli, indigenous of three main regions invaded by criminal gold prospectors share details on the contamination, violence and prostitution that devastates their communities. In interview with the journalist, a Papiú village leader says:
[He points to a woman who is listening to the conversation] Where she lives, in Kayanaú, they harass the women a lot. [he points to a woman who is listening to the conversation]. They [the miners] are contaminated. They have already contaminated the river. But now the women’s bodies are also contaminated. The miners sleep with a lot of women there. They rape them. (Benidelli)
As Whyte raises awareness, "anti-Indigenous settler colonialism and environmental injustice are connected" (Whyte 125). The naturalization of rape by Western discouruse started happening during the process of colonial expansion hundred years ago. "The rape of colonized land and the rape of colonized people went hand in hand in the "manly rivalry" among incipient European states over the dominion and proprietorship of feminized, racialized, virgin terrain" (Sawyer and Arun 81). Supported by the patriarchal and racist exploitation discourse of superiority, manipulating, abusing and harassing indigenous communities with violence, environmental injustice is officially established.
Inside chapter The Canibal Gold of the book The Falling Sky: Words of a Yanomami Shaman, Davi Kopenawa explains part of the Yanomami worldview and the negative impacts of land exploitation (legally or illegally). David explains that "the things that white people extract from the depths of the earth so avidly, minerals and oil, are not food. They are evil and dangerous things impregnated with coughs and fevers" (Kopenawa 6178). According to the shaman, there are evil spirits that were previously hidden in the ground so as not to make communities sick. Through soil exploration, these spirits are released and sicken all beings in that territory. By exploring the land without Yanomami consensus, the miners disrespect not only the soil, but all the beings that belong to that space.
The disrespectful attitude of the mining industry is supported by the colonial patriarchal belief system. The injustice and social imbalance that the Yanomami have been facing for the last 50 years is resulting into the disintegration of its culture and a forced blending into the settler's worldview. Progressively, through violence and bribery with grams of gold, the Papiú village leader says that Yanomami indigenous people are forced to adapt to the colonial lifestyle:
Today, the new generation, they have learned very little of [our] culture. Today I am very worried. Hair, the women cut their hair like we men do. Do you understand? They have lost our culture. I have had lots of battles with them [the young people]: ‘you can’t, you have lost our culture. You can’t give up speaking our language. I told them. The culture has been lost. They wear skirts, they wear lipstick, [they do] their eyebrows. The women are using makeup. No, that’s not our culture. (Benidelli)
As Kyle White explains, "settler colonialism is ecological domination, committing environmental injustice against Indigenous peoples and other groups" (Whyte 125). Through the use and abuse of the territory, indigenous people have less opportunity to develop their own collective continuance. According to the author, "collective continuance refers to a society’s capacity to self-determine how to adapt to change in ways that avoid reasonably preventable harms" (Whyte 131). The author proposes the concept of collective continuance has a similar meaning to the concepts of social resilience and ecology.
However, in order to achieve collective continuance, the Yanomami people and decolonial pro-indigenous rights activists need to fight against an interconnected oppression system that, although "embedded in a gendered discourse of discovery" (Sawyer and Arun 94) has been destroying the habitat of the most important rainforest of planet Earth. "When examined ecologically, settler colonialism works strategically to undermine Indigenous peoples’ social resilience as self-determining collectives" (Whyte 125), and through environmental justice reinforce the rape of nature and its resources in order to build patriarchal power.
Through this paper, I contribute to the conceptual discussion of the relationship with the term Nature, focused on illegal mining by engaging Yanomami indigenous leaders' voices, I offer in this paper an insight into the connection how settler colonialism is deeply connected to environmental injustice inside Amazon Rainforest. Using this understanding of environmental racism, this paper aims to explain that this type of land exploitation activity is rooted within settler patriarchal capitalism.
Works Cited
Bedinelli, Talita. “Our lives are over”: The Yanomami villages devastated by mining. Samauma, 13 Feb. 2023, https://sumauma.com/en/nossas-vidas-acabaram-sexo-por-ouro-alcoolismo-e-doencas-as-aldeias-yanomami-destruidas-pelo-garimpo/, Accessed 14 April 2023.
Kopenawa, Davi, et al. The Falling Sky: Words of a Yanomami Shaman. The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2023. Kindle Version.
Sawyer, Suzana, and Arun Agrawal. Environmental Orientalisms. Cultural Critique, no 45, 2000, pp 71-108 https://anthropology.ucdavis.edu/people/smsawyer/Sawyer2000CultCritique.pdf Accessed 14 April 2023.
Whyte, Kyle. "Settler Colonialism, Ecology, and Environmental Injustice". Environment and Society 9.1 (2018): 125-144. < https://doi.org/10.3167/ares.2018.090109>. Accessed 14 April 2023.
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