Amazonia is an exhibit at the Museum of Anthropology that looks at the intersection of indigeneity, colonialism and the ecosystem of the Amazon region in South America. While the exhibit is small, it showcases original artifacts from the tribal groups and settlers, photographs, short video clips and numerous statistics and political laws that affect the region. It is interesting to look at the exhibit from a geographical lens because it ties in all the interconnections that led to why the region is the way it is now and how it affects the people that live there and the broader globalizing world.
Much of the exhibit illustrates tension between the Western settler nation-state and the natural tribal existance many tribes had before. A striking statistic was looking at how between 2003 to 2015 there were 891 targeted assassinations against indigenous people in Brazil, the largest country out of the nine countries that hold jurisdiction over the region (MOA). Within Brazil, the tensions between the Mebêngôkre (outsiders have also called this group the Kayapo), a local indigenous tribe, and the Brazilian government over the building of the Belo Monte Dam, which would provide major hydroelectricity to Sao Paulo by using the Xingu River, a tributary of the Amazon has been tumultuous and adds to the the growing clash of globalization and local diversity (MOA, Eaton).
The headdress from the Exhibit. Photo used with permission from Lilly Flawn.
The Belo Monte conflict is covered its connection to the broader urban world in a way that documents how a local issue can become global in an information era via the “space of flows,” as famed sociologist Manuel Castells would note (Castells 229). The “space of flows” refers to how physical places can have an impact all over the world due to the increased technology tied with a time-space convergence making the world a smaller and interconnected place (229). The exhibit features a headdress from the Mebêngôkre supplemented with news magazines from the 1980s when the first conflict of the dam started highlighting this convergence. The story of how the headdress came to be in Vancouver at the museum is interesting because it ties a connection between the indigenous and the environmentalists, namely between the Mebêngôkre, Dr. Tara Cullis and her husband David Suzuki who all actively fought against the dam (MOA). In addition, the news magazines show how local and international media quickly spread out information about the conflict. For example, one of the Brazilian negotiators during the first round of talks between the government and various tribes was cut by a machete by a member of the Mebêngôkre and was quickly on the front of the Times and Brazilian magazines (MOA).
While the Belo Monte conflict was only one small fragment of the broader exhibit, it showed the larger abstractions and concepts of which Amazonia was about. At the convergence of geography, globalism and colonialism, the region is threatened environmentally and socially. The same interconnections however can also help raise awareness and educate others about the rights of the natural world and tie environmentalists fighting for nature from Vancouver and indigenous peoples fighting for the preservation of their lives together.
Works Cited
Castells, Manuel. “Space of Flows, Space of Places: Materials for a Theory of Urbanism in the Information Age.” The City Reader. Sixth edition. ed. London: Routledge Ltd – M.U.A, 2015. 229-240. Print. Routledge Urban Reader Series.
Eaton, Joseph. “Pictures: A River People Awaits an Amazon Dam.” National Geographic News. 2011-12-13T20:01:00-0500 Web. Jan 18, 2018.<https://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/energy/2011/12/pictures/111213-belo-monte-dam-amazon/>.
Flawn, Lillian. Photo of Headdress. 2018. , Vancouver.
Porto, Nuno. Amazonia: The Rights of Nature. Vancouver: Museum of Anthropology, 2018. Web. Jan 18, 2018. <http://moa.ubc.ca/portfolio_page/amazonia/>