Paper short abstract:

This presentation will discuss the Indigenous movement struggle against large projects in the Amazon, such as the Belo Monte dam and Belo Sun gold mining. Focus will be given for Indigenous performative strategies and online activism actions based on such performances.

Paper long abstract:

This research results of an ethnography of indigenous people in Brazil demanding rights in global arenas. It is populated by actors such as BNDES (Brazilian Federal Bank for Socioeconomic Development), electricity sector bureaucrats and indigenous leaders that travel worldwide to attract international support against Dilma Roussef administration's megaprojects in the Amazon.

The Xingu indigenous people invested a lot of social capital in opposing the dam since the project was launched during the dictatorship. Belo Monte became an important knot in the network that links Amazonian waters with governmental interest in accelerating Brazilian growth, and investors of private sector financed by public money with indigenous and river dwellers' resistance. The indigenous movement was the strongest and the most visible actor in this fight. We will try to show that they got this leading position because of the weight that feathers have, ensuring the right of indigenous people to take the stage and spotlights.

Indigenous peoples put in action some of their symbolic triumphs: a) ancient and special rights protected in national laws and international agreements; b) purity and natural images (in one hand they do help them to communicate with urban or "metropolis" audiences, but in other hand it also strengh an essencialist and culturalist image that locks them up in a cage out of time).

It ressonates with ideas of indigenous people as "nature's guardians". It doesn't help them to win the war but it supports their political position in the hegemonic game as the "natural" and rightful counter-hegemonic actor.