Indigenous Cooperatives, Corporations, and the State on Brazil's Extractive Frontier: Contemporary and Historical Globalizations

Abstract

The AmazonCoop--a cooperative that mediates trade between Brazilian Amazonian indigenous groups and the transnational cosmetics firm The Body Shop--seeks to use the market opportunities provided by neoliberal economic globalization to achieve sustainable development in indigenous villages, with mixed results. While the cooperative provides significant material benefits, it fails to achieve the social goals of democracy, participation, and self-development embodied in the cooperative principles. In this paper, I examine AmazonCoop in the context of historical globalizations on Brazil's "extractive frontier," demonstrating substantial continuity between contemporary and historical political economies. I use this historical anthropological analysis to discuss the potential contributions of cooperatives to development, the relationships between historical and contemporary globalizations, and the political-economic landscapes on which indigenous people can pursue their interests.