2014/12/01 by Jeffrey Hoelle · 18 citations
Agricultural and Biological Sciences · Environmental Science · #Agriculture, Land Use, Rural Development #Amazon rainforest #Biology #Conservation, Biodiversity, and Resource Management #Ecology #Geography #Rangeland Management and Livestock Ecology #Socioeconomics #Sociology
paper · doi:10.17730/humo.73.4.u61u675428341165
published in Human Organization 73(4), 363-374 (Society for Applied Anthropology)
openalex publication_date 2014/12/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/23
The majority of research on the expansion of raising in Amazonia focuses on political economic drivers and resultant deforestation. The cultural constructions surrounding raising, which are central to understanding the appeal of this livelihood in other parts of the world, have yet to be described in the Brazilian Amazon. This paper examines cattle culture—the positive cultural constructions associated with raising and analyzes the paths that brought it to one of the greenest corners of Amazonia. In the western Amazon state of Acre, Brazil, the rubber tapper movement protested the arrival of ranching in the 1980s, capturing worldwide attention with a message of sustainable forest-based development. Across Amazonia, groups who once opposed or were displaced by are now adopting it—including Acrean rubber tappers and colonists. Drawing on primary data collected among rural and urban groups in Acre, I explain how culture emerged in a state with a short and contest...