Published November 1, 2012
by iris_author
CERLAC & YCISS present
Changing Places: Brazilian Migration to the Rupununi, Guyana.
a talk by
Katherine MacDonald
PhD candidate, Department of Geography, York University
CERLAC Research Associate
Thursday, Nov 8, 2012
1 - 2:30 pm
764 York Research Tower
York University
Recent Brazilian migration through the Amazon region and across the Guyanese border may be part of a larger geopolitical program emerging from Brazil, one that sees the Brazilian Government implementing a program of development and protection of their northern territory. This migration threatens to increase pressures on Makushi and Wapishana territories within Guyana, resulting in the annexation of traditional ancestral lands and potential losses of subsistence and livelihood practices, as well as disturbances to traditional cultures and ways of life. I believe these migration trends may be part of a larger intraregional geopolitics emerging out of Brazil, wherein development of the northern Amazon frontier is being encouraged primarily through regional colonization. I suggest that Guyana is unknowingly enmeshed within the larger geopolitical concerns of the region, and that the migration of Brazilian miners, businesspeople, and rice producers from across the border may in part be traced directly to evolving legislature, political action, and program and project implementation within the Brazilian Amazon.
More info: hender@yorku.ca
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