When the Ill is Pimped as the Cure

7/29/2019 When the Ill is Pimped as the Cure

1/48

When the Ill is Pimped

as the Cure

An Anthropological Critique ofSustainable Development Ideologies asApplied to the Amazon Rainforest

Bachelor of Arts Thesis

Suzanne Nievaart

e-mail: [email protected]

Scriptie begeleiders:

Dr. Gerd Baumann

Drs. Beatrice Simon

Cultural Anthropology and Sociology of Non-Western SocietiesUniversity of Amsterdam

20-09-2006


2/48

When the Ill is Pimped as the Cure

Suzanne Nievaart - 1 - 20/09/2006

Table of Contents

Introduction 2

Death to Amazonia and Filling the Bellies of the Wealthy 4

Development as the Ill and the Cure? 10

The Sustainability of Poverty 13

Blaming the Victim 17

The Overpopulation of Overconsumers 19

Whose Future is Sustainable? 23

Maana, Maana 24

Conclusion 29

References 32

Appendices 42

A : Deforestation Rates in Amazonia

B : Growth of Soy Planted Area in Brazil

C : Soybean Imports and Exports

D : Photos of Soybean Cultivation in Brazil

E : Correlation Growth of GDP in Brazil and Amazon Deforestation

F : Population Growth and Urbanization in Amazonia


3/48



IntroductionIn a top-down approach to sustainable development, which is unfortunately the case in most

projects, there is rarely consideration for what people on the ground, at the local level, want

and need. What is the ideal of sustainability to them? Environmental and development

agencies try to get around this problem by introducing the concept of so-called participation,

but this does not fully place the power in the hands of the people directly. Rather, they are

allowed to participate in the top-down scheme. How generous. Drawing from Persoon and

van Est (2000), I will discuss an anthropology of the future as an alternative to this approach,

to see what sustainability means at the local level.

Throughout the literature on development in general and industrial agriculture in

particular, social scientists and other critics signal symptoms of a sick system. It is aid gone

awry, as unintended consequences of fighting poverty increasing poverty andenvironmental destruction appear because of exactly the same tools that caused poverty to

begin with. These phenomena are found in Asia, Africa and Latin America. Soybean

cultivation in the Brazilian Amazon is a prime example of this illness, where consumption

patterns of the wealthy in Western Europe affect the daily lives and environment of the poor

in Latin America. This case study has been widely discussed, yet the system with all its ills

and effects continues and increases unabated today. Not only is it time for this suffering to

end, it is time for those promoting this system to face up to its tragic consequences.

In 1987, the Brundtland commission launched the term sustainable development

into the international political arena (WCED 1987). Since then, it has formed a precedent for

the neoliberal approach to developing populations, and planning their futures. Sustainable

development is thus a continuation of the hegemonic development discourse and paradigm,

which, according to Escobar (1995), disguises power relations. In the Brundtland report to the

UN, Our Common Future, fighting poverty is deemed necessary in order to achieve

sustainability, because poverty leads to unsustainable practices. Despite its shortcomings, as

I will discuss in this thesis, this position has maintained its course into the UNs Millennium

Development Goals. True, sustainability is impossible as long as there is poverty; however, the

danger in emphasizing this fact is that actors of the neoliberal capitalist world market

oversimplify it as poorpeople cause environmental problems.

I will argue that this is a result of the concept of sustainability now being a part of the

larger capitalist discourse of development. I will deconstruct this discourse, to show that the

relationship between poverty and the environment is actually the reverse, as the poor are

truly the victims of poverty as well as environmental problems. I will draw on Franks (1972)

dependency theory of metropoles and satellites relations to explain these contexts, and I will


4/48



demonstrate that they are reproduced in the neoliberal free-trade system, which is the

postmodern form of the capitalist world system of power relations, as analyzed by Wallerstein

(1974). Among others, Estevas (1992) critique is that the development discourse

perpetuates an attitude in which underdeveloped populations are inferior to developed

populations, creating a detrimental approach to relations on both sides. Therefore, I shall usethe term poverty to replace the term underdevelopment in Franks theory. According to

Frank, poverty is generated by the same historical process that generated the development of

capitalism itself. Therefore, I will look at the cause of poverty, as being wealth accumulated in

the world capitalist system of the metropoles by appropriating natural resources of the

satellites in order to accumulate material goods, as the root of environmental problems.

Different actors of the sustainable development discourse live by different definitions

of sustainability. Their respective definitions allow them to act in various contradictory ways.

Their perceptions of the Amazonian rainforest most often differ from its inhabitants. Therein I

suggest that the maana philosophy in Latin America is a concept for sustainability. To be

clear, the maana attitude is not one of laziness, but rather one of non-stress. How does

this concept of the future relate to the concept of future generations in the Brundtland

definition of sustainability?

Poverty, like sustainability, is an endlessly contested concept throughout development

studies. I will not define it according to any statistically derived formula, such as the World

Bank and the UN attempt with their GDP measurements or dollar-a-day pleas. Instead, its

definition in itself is part of the ill instead of the cure. The labelling of people as being poor

by the Brazilian government, local or international NGOs, development programs and projects,

perpetuates judgments of their inferiority, ignorance and insufficiency, which the people

themselves often then internalize as if these were their inherent characteristics (see Scheper-

Hughes 1992). Who defines poverty and what this implies certainly depends on whose

interests this represents, and the different definitions create tensions between these different

actors, much like the sustainability concept. Do the poor see themselves as such, and if so,

is this because others imposed it? These are questions that anthropologists would want

answered in any study of poverty. Therein, poverty has multiple dimensions: economic,

cultural and ecological. This said, in this thesis I will focus on those Brazilians that have found

themselves victims of a system that deprives them of their economic and/or ecological

means to survive. In their struggle to gain economic capital for survival, they are blamed for

depleting the ecological capital of the commons, as is evident in the case of soybean

cultivation in the Brazilian Amazon. In Amazonia, the poor are not often able to fuel their

fires for cooking with anything other than the young trees, and therefore receive the blame for

deforestation. Meanwhile, large logging companies and agrochemical companies are


5/48



destroying the bulk of the forest, in the name of development, whereby the ill is peddled as

the cure (Hall 1989: 234).

Death to Amazonia and Filling the Bellies of the WealthyOne of the big problems with Latin America has been that relations among thecountries, even among regions within the countries, have largely been broken and they

have individually been related to, and hence dependent on, foreign imperial powers

(Chomsky 1999: 99).

In 1988, when the rubber tapper cum activist Chico Mendes was assassinated, the world

went in uproar, and for the first time, became aware of Amazonia (Cleary 1991: 117). Since

then, throughout the nineties, Brazil was reified in the popular imagination as the place

where theyre burning all the forests (Cleary 1991: 116). Even now, for the past five years, I

have repeatedly received chain protest e-mails in my inbox from concerned friends, to stopdeforestation in Brazils Amazon rainforest. Amazonia is the icon of the environmental

movement as the lung of the earth, and Chico Mendes represents a turning point in the

global consciousness of environmental issues (Perz 2002). For the past twenty years, people

around the world are concerned about the forest, even though it is very far from their homes.

It has been the source of heated political debate and formed the stage for many of Brazils

policies. Deforestation, however, still continues today, and does not seem to have a tendency

of stopping anytime soon. Amazonia is seen by environmentalists as important in terms of

carbon sequestration, absorbing some of the increasing quantity of carbon man is pouring in

the air largely due to the burning of fossil fuels by automobiles, factories and electric

generatorsIts preservation is therefore crucial for moderating global warming, probably also

in regulating global weather systems (Bilsborrow 1997: 6-7). Since the 1970s, it has become

apparent that Brazils tropical forest has been under a massive transformation due to

deforestation (Bilsborrow 1997: 9). See Appendix A for a graph showing the increasing

deforestation rate since 1978.

To understand the recent and pending developments, it is useful, despite the risks of

selective historical summaries, to sketch here the main outlines of the changing politics of

the agroindusty as it pertains to the Brazilian case. The role of Amazonia in Brazils national

economy has historically been that of an extractive periphery in the world system, a region of

rich natural resources that were exported for processing elsewhere (Perz 2002: 45). Wealth

as the cause of poverty is imbedded in Brazils historical colonial context of slavery and

discrimination. Since the European invasion of the Americas, wealthy elites have exploited

the native and African populations, while enjoying European lifestyles. However, the large

foreign companies dominated the market in the end, through the open veins of Latin


6/48



America (Galeano 1973). Historically, Amazonia itself was a project for development. From

the 16th Century onwards, the perception of Amazonia was of an empty space, ripe for

development (Cleary 1991: 120). After 1970, the Brazilian government further intensified

this scheme, entailing deforestation and human resettlement, and set the tone for the

proceeding decennia of socio-economic as well as ecological transformations, which in turn,placed Amazonia on the international political and popular environmental agenda (Ibid.).

At the same time, the oil crisis propelled Brazil into a debt crisis (Rist 1997: 122). In a

battle for power, higher loans than were needed were given to Latin American countries

frivolously by U.S. investors, to ensure their loyalty to the U.S., so that they would not join the

Reds by receiving loans from the Soviet Union during the Cold War (Hertz 2004: 26). These

loans, in turn, were often spent unwisely on arms, exports, large industry etc., while only a

small percentage went to schools and hospitals, meanwhile improving the banks image as a

donor (Hertz 2004: 46). Lending from commercial banks, as interest on interest is collected,

the business of debts results in the lenders earning while the borrowers lose; it is a pure

commercial trade-off. Large industrial projects like the Green Revolution accelerated the

widening gap between rich and poor, reinforcing processes of inclusion and exclusion

throughout the region. While the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) increased, only the wealthy

elite benefited and the poor became marginalized, forced into squatting land and clearing the

Amazonian forest for survival (Leonel 1992). This form of internal colonialism wishes to

dispose of Amazonia in three ways: consume it, export it, and get rid of the landless and other

marginalized people by settling them there (Leonel 1992: 9).

After the Brady Plan of 1989, with the goal to eliminate global debt, the International

Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank became the guarantors of 80% of these debts,

whereby they implemented their Structural Adjustment Programs (SAPs) for repayments

(Stiglitz 2002). This name was given for a set of deregulation and free-trade policies to

increase Latin American export production and open the market for multinationals by

privatizing public services, which led to increased social polarization and poverty. Debtor

countries had to accept IMF and World Bank ever more intrusive control over their internal

economic policiesBut developing countries were by now in no position to argue (Hertz 2004:

71). In this stage of capitalism, writes Klein, the commons are for sale, where fences create

a global security state instead of a global village, protecting the haves from the have-nots

(2002: XX, see also Stiglitz 2002). This is echoed by Sachs (1999) and simultaneously

Radermachers (2004) notion of global apartheid based on class. There are countless

accounts of devastation due to the SAPs of the IMF and the World Bank (George 1997; Hertz

2004; Klein 2002; Chomsky 1999, and Stiglitz 2002). In Latin America, this has led to

accelerated deforestation, mass migrations, deepening poverty, expanded drugs trade,


7/48



leading to global instability and conflict (George 1997: 207). Since the SAPs, the debt service

outweighs received development and aid funding (Poppema 2004). Therefore, it is

apparent that the ideology of development pretends to be a self-evident truth, but in fact it is

merely a self-justifying construct (Burgess 1996: 134), and so the ill is prescribed as the cure.

In 1990, President Bush Sr. presented the Enterprise for the Americas Initiative as asolution to the debt burden, although this supported the interest of the neoliberals, by

implementing a free market system (OBrien 1991: 35). This free market system, some

would argue, reinforces inequality in an unethical manner (Giddens 2000): Business ethics

exalts the will to power and egoism, and scorns the weak and the losers. It falls back glibly

into Social Darwinism when it is caught red-handed. Too bad for the losers! (Latouche 1997:

139). Free trade was solely designed in economic terms, there was no consideration for the

environment, despite the international criticism Brazil was receiving for the destruction of

Amazonia. Brazils foreign debt, therefore, is widely seen as a leading cause of deforestation

in Amazonia. Large-scale industrial development programmes designed to repay foreign debt,

such as the Grande Carajs Programme, increased land clearing for highway construction,

agriculture, logging, mining and oil and gas extraction (Cleary 1991: 121-128, see also Treece

1993: 62, and Hall 1989). Although debt-for-nature programmes, which were designed to

protect the forest, were also popular during this time, they were a powerful symbol of

external interference in domestic Brazilian affairs, which furthered Brazils dependence on

foreign investors (Cleary 1991: 134). Thus, both poverty and environmental destruction are

directly linked to the ongoing debt crisis and the neoliberal structural adjustment programs

(Keen and Haynes 2000: 581).

In the 1990s, Brazilian agriculture contributed substantially to national economic

growth and servicing of the national debt through the expansion of exports ofprocessed goods in demand by international markets, particularly the European

Community. Crucial to Brazils increased export earnings is the expansion in exports of

soybeans, in part due to new production in Amazonia. This is one reason whymultilateral banks, which receive funding from OECD countries, have been keen to

make loans for infrastructure projects in Amazonia (Perz 2002: 47).

Recently, modern agriculture is the most wide-spread form of Amazonian colonization in

Brazil. Appendix B shows the growth of soy planted area in Brazil from 1995 to 2003. It is in

fact the modern food system and the mass consumption of the wealthy elite, which require

so much agriculture, in the form of non-traditional products such as the soybean, which is

used as food protein for livestock in Europe, recreating the so-called hamburger connection

of the 1980s cattle-ranching (Redclift and Goodman 1991: 52). Appendix C demonstrates

the direction of soya on the global market: Western Europe imports the majority of soybeanproducts from Brazil. The modern commercial agricultural sector, which is considered one of


8/48



the technology sectors, is an unequal exchange on the global market. Farmers must import

agricultural inputs, seeds, and machinery from corporations and receive very little in return for

their agricultural products (Roberts and Thanos 2003: 70; Reis and Blanco 1997).

The Green Revolution was a development programme exported as part of U.S. aid

projects, as a comprehensive remedy intended to alleviate poverty and hunger and toincrease technological and economic progress (Roberts and Thanos 2003: 69). It was first

introduced in India in 1967, and due to its success, countries in Africa and Latin America

soon followed. The Green Revolution was seen as the quickest means of generating the

capital necessary to drive modernization and to feed the ever-growing and hungry

populations of the Third World (Roberts and Thanos 2003: 69). It was chiefly a package of

genetically modified seeds, agricultural machines, fertilizers, pesticides, irrigation

installations and agricultural equipment (de Souza Silva 1991: 87). Initially, these products

were subsidized, and the farmers were promised high yields and a greater income for the

cash crops destined for export. Of course, this appealed to the rural poor, but the following

years the multinationals demanded a share of the profits, as they had patented the seeds,

and the farmers were now charged for new seeds, forcing them into their corporate crop

rotation cycle (Roberts and Thanos 2003: 70, Reis and Blanco 1997, and Stiglitz 2002: 32).

The same phenomenon had already occurred in the United States, prior to the Green

Revolution, which was a photocopy of this large-scale industrial agriculture meant to support

the growing fast-food market (Schlosser 2001: 117-119).

Thus, the Green Revolution principally created markets for the U.S., as the increased

demand for products made there boosted the U.S. agroindustry, yet drained the rural

economy of Brazil (Roberts and Thanos 2003: 69 and de Souza Silva 1991: 87). The cash

crops were also destined for the modern food system that was designed in the U.S. in the

1940s and 1950s, during the so-called Fordist regime of post-war accumulation, increasing

real wages and levels of personal consumption, during the 50s, 60s, and 70s, in the core

industrial countries (Redclift and Goodman 1991: 49). This Fordist diet, based on the

modern grains-livestock complex, however, is only enjoyed by the wealthy elite, or intended

for export, such as the soybean production in Argentina and Brazil.

The Green Revolution was not introduced into a social vacuum, and so it fell short of

delivering encompassing relief to poverty and famine in developing nations (Roberts and

Thanos 2003: 69). As small farmers became dependent on the agricultural inputs, their own

food production was sidelined, creating a double dependence on imports (Ibid.). Due to North

American and European protectionism, farmers in Brazil could not compete, as the prices

they received for their products did not or barely covered the cost of their inputs, leaving them

indebted (de Souza Silva 1991: 86, see also Roberts and Thanos 2003: 60). It also reinforced


9/48



and worsened the economic and social cleavages that have divided people for centuries

leaving the poor to slip into marginality or wage laborer status (Roberts and Thanos 2003:69),

reinforcing processes of inclusion and exclusion historically found in Brazilian society.

Furthermore, Green Revolution agrochemical inputs and technologies have had

devastating consequences for the environment. There is growing concern and mountingevidence of the dangers of pesticide use for both humans and the environment. Ironically,

pests continue to destroy around 37 percent of the worlds agricultural products. In 1940,

before the onset of the Green Revolution, pests caused the loss of 35-40 percent of all global

agricultural production (Roberts and Thanos 2003: 70). Thus, Roberts and Thanos poignantly

ask: If the percentage of crops lost to pests has remained invariable over the last sixty years,

why have we remained committed to a pesticide-intensive development ideology? (Ibid.).

See Appendix D for photographs illustrating soybean cultivation and pesticide use in Brazil.

In numerous studies of the Brazilian Amazon, causes of deforestation coincide:

Primarily, it is due to migration to Amazonia form the poverty-stricken poor Northeast and

South in a government displacement program. Other crucial factors in deforestation are

signalled as the opening of the forest by road construction starting in the 1960s, as well as

large-scale development strategies, which in turn lead to more displacement and migration,

land conflicts and violence. The poor resort to coping strategies to survive, such as moving to

the cities where they end up in the misery of the favelas, or moving into the rainforest, which

in turn, allows outsiders to blame them for slash-and-burn deforestation (Fearnside 1988;

Perz 2002; Angelsen and Kaimowitz 1999; Fearnside et al 2004; and Schaeffer and

Rodrigues 2005). The ultimate causes are usually the same the greed of outsiders and, to

much lesser extent if at all, the needs of locals (Sponsel 1995: 265).

Multinational companies, such as Monsanto/Cargill, financed the clearing of the

forests, in order to sell their fertilizers, pesticides and other agrochemical products. Monsanto

has even created a hybrid seed that will resist its own pesticide, named Roundup, promoting

sales in both of its products (Roberts and Thanos 2003: 71). These seeds are called the

Roundup Ready variety. Monsanto owns the patents of these soy seeds, therefore Monsanto

will receive one percent of the sales earned on Roundup Ready soy crop being harvested and

two percent of the sales of the fall crop, by producers in Brazil, under a new agreement (Baker

and Small 2005). Roundup Ready soybeans were planted in Brazil in the period 2002-2003,

while a moratorium was in effect (Altieri and Pengue 2006). After a seven year lobby by

Monsanto (2005), Roundup Ready was finally approved by the Brazilian Government in 2005.

Furthermore, multinationals such as Monsanto/Cargill have not only financed the

clearing of the forest for agricultural land, they have also financed the construction of

waterways, railway lines, and roads to bring inputs and take away produce, which led to


10/48



private investment in logging, mining, ranching and other environmentally destructive

practices, which increase the classic causes of deforestation in Amazonia (Altieri and Pengue

2006, see also Redclift and Goodman 1991). Appendix A indicates the increase of

deforestation along the major highways in Amazonia. There is also a large discussion

concerning genetically modified seeds. Environmental activists and scientists warn againstthe inevitability of biodiversity destruction by biotechnology, as well as the plight of the poor

due to patenting (Bickel and Dros 2003; Shiva 1993 and 1995). Yet, corporatists maintain

that their Genetically Modified Organisms (GMOs) are the solution to poverty and hunger, and

are actually sustainable (Monsanto 2006; Griffin et al. 2005). They promise farmers

increasing yields, improved protection from insects and disease; they promise consumers

increasing quality and quantity of agricultural products; and they promise that conservation

tillage methods actually benefit the environment (Ibid.).

Soybean production not only contributes to displacement among small farmers and

agricultural workers, which does not benefit them economically nor the forest ecologically,

but their food security is also at stake. The soils that have been diverted to soybean for

exports would previously support a sustainable form of diversified agriculture of beans, maize,

fruits and vegetables, and now the farmers often buy their food from the supermarket, which

imports it from So Paolo (Lutzenberger 1993: 88, see also Altieri and Pengue 2006). This is

an ironic dualism (Hall 1989: 240), since traditionally farmers are producers of primary

needs, which are exported to the city, not the other way around. This is the political nature of

the economic coin: on one side is wealth, which cannot exist without the other side, which is

poverty. This is, in turn, a result of the ideology of development, and the capitalist world

system (Shiva 1993: 72, and Wallerstein 1974), wherein the ill is sold as the cure.

In Brazil, between 1960 and 1990, the average per capita income increased, yet the

number and proportion of poverty increased simultaneously, indicating a concentration of the

GDP into the hands of a few wealthy and powerful elite (Barradough and Gimme 1995: 53).

Meanwhile, agricultural production more than doubled, increasing more rapidly than the

population, which would mean that the entire population should technically have had more

than enough to eat, but in reality, the surplus was exported and hunger was widespread

among the rural poor, whereby the cure of development became the ill(Ibid.). As Brazils

GDP increased, deforestation increased, implying a direct correlation between this export-

oriented ideology of development and environmental destruction, as illustrated in Appendix E.

The history of development and thus deforestation in Amazonia lies precisely in the

fact that for several centuries Amazonia was more linked to the world market than to the

heartland of the countries to which it belonged (Pansters 1992: 7). Top-down, homogenous,

universalistic development schemes proved inadequate, as they do not allow for diversity on


11/48



the ground (Escobar 1995). I will now turn to an analysis and critique of the capitalist

discourse of development to explain the ideological and historical context of this case study.

Development as the Ill and the Cure?By imposing such a huge transfer of resources from Latin America to the West, and byinsisting that Latin America should increase exports come hell or high water to pay theinterest on the debt, the creditors had accelerated the destruction of Latin Americas

environment, pushed the poor into even greater poverty, and created the conditions for

social and economic collapse rather than sustainable development (OBrien 1991: 36).

The capitalist development discourse is a hegemonic, ideological paradigm. It is hegemonic

in its prescriptions, replicating its projects throughout the world, and its modernisation

assumptions rest on a scientific-rational ideology inherited from enlightenment thinking

(Shiva 1993). Development itself is the problem, yet it is sold as the solution. Neo-Marxist

Frank (1972) proposed that the underdevelopment of the satellites is part of the samehistorical process of economic development in the metropoles: the development of

capitalism itself. It has an exploitative power relationship and class structure, originating in

colonization, replicated in imperialism and is being reinforced by free trade and the global

world market today (Shanin 1997). The satellites, in this case Amazonia, are dependant on

the metropoles, such as So Paulo, for trade and manufactured goods, whereas the satellites

are economically subordinated to provide the wealthy elite in the metropoles with raw

materials and labour in order to produce the export products for the luxurious metropoles,

which results in wealth flowing in one direction, leaving those producing that wealth in

poverty. In each moment of exchange, the wealthy metropoles gain more wealth, as the

satellites are depleted, economically, socially and environmentally, whereby they become

doubly dependent on the metropoles for survival. Such a resource that is appropriated by the

metropoles is land, and land in Amazonia has historically been a reason for strife and conflict.

Small farmers and rural workers have continually been displaced to make way for

development projects, and migration for seasonal employment has increased as a result,

which has often led to violence and impoverishment (Redclift and Goodman 1991: 53-54).

Every act of development involves, of necessity, an act of destruction (Appell in Sponsel

1995: 269). Wallerstein (1974) echoes Franks thesis in his modern world system

(capitalism) and replaces the names of metropoles and satellites with the names core and

periphery. Wallerstein sees capitalism as an ideology, which inherently produces private

wealth and public poverty.

The history of Brazil is, according to Frank, the clearest case of the development of

underdevelopment or the development of poverty: the metropoles develop while the

satellites underdevelop and their poverty increases. Frank demonstrated that when the ties


12/48



to the metropoles are weak, the satellites develop more, which is opposite to the common

hypotheses of development at the time, and todays myth of the trickle down effect

(Latouche 1997). The capitalist system itself, Frank showed, has meant uneven development

throughout history, wherefore inequality between the satellites and metropoles are the

necessary foundations of this system. The Marxist theorist Frank therefore proposed asocialist revolution for Latin America. This revolution, however, did not quite materialize in the

way he had hoped. Since the 1980s, Reagan and Thatcher style free trade and neoliberal

policies took the upper hand, reinforcing the metropole-satellite exploitation (Stiglitz 2002:

13). This outcome was due to unsurpassable foreign competition, the promotion of an export-

oriented economy instead of self-sustenance, and progressive income inequality, which

induced the soybean production in Amazonia. These are the results of transactions framed by

uneven power structures (Goldsmith 1996[1]). This is a virtual repetition of the style of free

trade that was introduced at the beginning of the nineteenth century, when the latifundia

replicated the capitalist colonial formation of the rural class structure and mode of production

in Latin America: a few large, mainly foreign landowners, and many exploited labourers

producing monoculture exports, repatriated for the foreign markets of the metropoles.

This is a process that continues today with the soybean cultivation in Brazil, victimizing

the poor and further depleting Amazonian rainforest. It is mainly U.S.-based multinational

corporations that receive the largest profits, which Johnson (1972) noted was apparent in the

1950s, and continues today (Khor 1996; Reis and Blanco 1997) as a form of corporate

colonialism (Goldsmith 1996[2]). The emergence of giant corporations from the U.S.,

reinforcing their hegemony in the world market, replaces the dominance of European colonial

power through the monopoly of capital (Rist 1997: 111), such as Monsantos system of

total control on food (RFSTE 2004). As foreign debt is added to the mix, this system of power

relations is a modern version of imperialism. In order to produce for export, foreign debt was

accumulated. In order to service this debt, new loans were taken out. And, in order to repay

the loans, export production is increased, for which more loans are needed, and so continues

the vicious cycle (Hertz 2004 and Morris 1996), the ill repeatedly peddled as the cure.

Although Frank and Wallerstein have been criticized by post-development theorists in

the 1990s as unable to deliver actual solutions to the problems they posed, Franks

hypotheses and the dependentistas theories were very progressive for their time. They

rejected Rostows ideal-typical stages of development as a-historical, which was a model on

which most of his peers based their development theories. However, post-development critics

are quick to point out that the dependencia school does not challenge the basic

presuppositions of development itself, which comes down to the idea that growth is

necessary to gain access to the Western mode of consumption (Rist 1997: 121). Rist


13/48



suggests the center-periphery theory is just another variant of the dichotomy of tradition and

modernity (Ibid.). Sachs refutes the idea that the metropole-satellite division of the world can

be overcome by accelerating the course along the racetrack of development (1997: 296),

which is suggested by the dependentistas ideas of underdevelopment: the development of

the satellites was being blocked (Rist 1997: 120).Trumans post World War II speech is signalled throughout the literature as a turning

point for progress to become development, turning global poverty into a problem and the

focus of attention: a project for the wealthy to solve, as the poverty of the Othertwo-thirds of

the worlds population posed a threat to the security of the wealthy (Sachs 1996). However,

development further deepened poverty and social unrest, which we can still see today, in the

reactionary terrorism against super-powers the United States and the United Kingdom. Again,

the ill is promoted as the cure.

By 1955 a discourse had emerged which was characterized not by a unified object but

by the formation of a vast number of objects and strategies; not by new knowledge butby the systematic inclusion of new objects under its domain. The most important

exclusion, however, was and continues to be what development was supposed to be all

about: people (Escobar 2002: 86).

The 1975 UN Report What Nowproposed Another Development in response to criticism of

the universalistic, photocopy type of development models, and the one-size-fits-all approach

of the 1960s (Rist 1997: 155, and Stiglitz 2002: 34). Around the same time, the basic needs

approach was launched by the World Banks president Robert McNamara in 1972 (Rist 1997:

160). Both these alternatives merely promoted more development assistance, as the idea of

fulfilling essential human needs of food, clothing and shelter was certainly not new in

development projects. Yet, the World Bank continued to support large-scale development

projects of outside interference instead of the local, grassroots level (Rist 1997 163-164).

Development, as an ideology and paradigm, has been widely criticized as a patriarchal

form of (neo)colonialism, imperialism, racism, intervention, domination, power, and control

(Rahnema 1997, Burgess 1996, Escobar 1995, Goldsmith 1996[2], Shiva 1993). As a concept,

it is derived from the history of the teleological belief in and idea of progress, from the

Industrial Revolution, to urbanization, to colonisation, to modernization, and echoes through

the still-pervasive temple of economic growth (Castles 2000 and Shanin 1997).

Post-development theorists thus look to think outside the box of the ideology of

progress in order to find an alternative approach to poverty. This approach looks beyond the

economic dimension and linear thought. Illich (1997) compares economic development to

Coca-Cola, as a package deal consumption form of education that is exported from themetropoles to the satellites as if that were the key to prosperity and happiness, when it is,


14/48



like Coca-Cola, truly all marketing, with no actual nutritional value. This also rings true for

soya: it deprives Brazilians of their food security yet fattens the bellies of the wealthy in

Western Europe. Yet, post-development theorists do not truly present an alternative paradigm.

They criticise the idea of development but fail to stop talking about the world as divided by

these two categories: the developed and the underdeveloped. Although they may be givendifferent names, the dichotomy remains, and implies that those that are to be developed are

inferior to those that are already developed.

The 1980s were coined the lost decade, because this period proved to be a failure for

economic development. In reaction to the lost decade, but nonetheless continuing in the

logic of modernity, the UN launched the fashionable Human Development Index, which adds

a humanitarian gloss to the ethnocentrism of the all-important growth of the GDP as a sign

of progress and economic development (Latouche 1997). Today, Brazil is the second largest

exporter of soya, which raises its GDP significantly. This reinstates the famous trickle down

effect, although uncovered as a myth and a paradox by the post-development theorists that

began with Illich as early as the late 1960s (Rahnema 1997: xiv), yet it is reiterated by those

promoting the concepts of social development and sustainable development today. Even

the UNs Millennium Development Goals still promote the same package deals of education,

health and infrastructure of the 1980s (Escobar 2002). The development myth all sell or

promote images of a better future for our children, while in fact their operations are doing

these people and their children out of their very livelihoods (Burgess 1996: 138). This issue

pertains to the food security that is lost for the Brazilians due to the soybean cultivation.

However, despite the Club of Rome report in 1975, the limits to growth are still not

taken seriously (Tellegen 2006). The concentration of wealth in the metropoles is today still

not addressed as the biggest problem, which is in fact what reinforces poverty in the satellites

(Poppema 2004). Thus, there is no paradigm shift - as promoters of alternative development

would assume - they are still working within the same economic model (Nederveen Pieterse

1998). In the next section, I will demonstrate that sustainable development is therefore a

reiteration of the development discourse.

The Sustainability of PovertyIt is also clear that the drive towards environmentally sustainable development is a

commercial necessity, in order to maintain the marketability and attractiveness of thiscommodity. More noticeable is the way in which much, if not all, the discussion

bypasses the interests of local people (Mowforth and Munt 2003: 275).

Since there has not been a paradigm shift, the definitions of sustainability and sustainable

development are highly contested, as the Brundtland definition was initially vague and open

to interpretation, and therefore commodified within the different development discourses, by


15/48



its promoters (Mowforth and Munt 2003; Gasper 1996). There is considerable confusion

surrounding what is to be sustained (Redclift 2005: 214). As a result, they have become

buzzwords and have lost their original meaning that was intended by the WCED. Nowadays,

in the intention to popularize development, there is even talk of pimping poverty, using MTV-

jargon to make poverty sexy (Plug 2006). Using the term pimp in this context adds anotherdimension to the already known concept of the controversial poverty pimps posing as aid

workers, which are discussed in the literature. The term poverty pimp is defined as a

derogatory label for an individual or group which, to its own benefit, acts as an intermediary

on behalf of the poorPoverty pimps gain a higher quality of existence from exploiting the

poverty of others (Loughner 2005). Pimping poverty in development programs, is poverty

packaged and sold as hype, so that young people become involved to achieve the Millennium

Development Goals (Ad hoc 2005), or in cancelling debt such as the Live8 campaign, with all

its pop-star sex appeal (Plug 2006). In this way poverty is presented as a fashion craze,

promising those that join the bandwagon some quick and easy feel-good values. Because

poverty as a problem has existed for so long (since Truman), and only seems to be

increasing, the fight has lost its momentum, so that people would prefer to make a

difference without it being too complicated: sending a text message via mobile phone or

wearing a white plastic bracelet (Plug 2006), instead of looking at the behaviour in their own

daily lives as a contribution to the solution. This may be a result of individualization trends

that Marx (1932) signalled as alienation due to the capitalist division of labour. Sustainable

development marketers thus encourage people to fight poverty, like many quick-fix

pharmaceutical drugs, they are fighting the symptoms of a sick system, and not curing what

causes the illness to begin with: development itself, whereby the ill is prescribed as the cure,

so that the war on poverty is ultimately a paradox (Loungani 2003, see also

www.povertyfighters.com). Therefore, neoliberal leaders have taken these terms and applied

them to the advantage of their own agendas, adding yet another dimension to the term

pimping. Their applications are either a form of green-washing or enable the continuation

of the free-trade approach to capitalist development, such as the debt-for-nature swaps

applied to Amazonia. For example, Friedmans (2005) level playing field theory is based on

the equality of all people, assuming the poor have the same opportunities for economic gain

or environmental preservation as the wealthy elites. However, such as demonstrated by Frank

(1972), the creation of this system reinforces the metropole-satellite exploitation, thus the

neoliberals are pimping the ill as if it were the cure.

Named the greening of capitalism (Smith 2002: 173), sustainable development was

proposed as an answer to the accelerating environmental movements of the 1960s and

1970s; the Club of Romes publication, Limits to Growth, which recognized the environmental


16/48



problems of development; and in turn, civil societys pressure on governments and businesses

to pay attention to environmental issues in resource-rich satellites which have been

exhaustively exploited since Trumans call for economic development of these

underdeveloped areas in 1946 (Tellegen 2006 and Sachs 1996). Thus, the collision

between development and environment led to theories on sustainable development(Holland 2002: 185), and paradoxically made Amazonia a site for both increased GDP andenvironmental concern.

The famous Brundtland Report, Our Common Future, called for the global need to

develop sustainably, for the survival of future generations. The report signalled the link

between poverty and environmental degradation, yet most environmentalists and post-

developmentalists see development as the ill rather than the cure for both poverty and the

environment (Sachs 1996, 1997 and 1999; Rist 1997; Shiva 1995; Burgess 1996; Daly 1996,

among others). Although the report names poverty as the cause and effect of global

environmental problems (WCED 1987:3), there is no reference to a solution that addresses

both problems simultaneously. According to Rist, the report and the commission hardly

presented anything that would encourage the industrial countries to make basic changes in

their consumption pattern (Rist, 1997:181). The main contradiction in the report is that the

growth policy supposed to reduce poverty and stabilize the ecosystem hardly differs at all

from the policy which historically opened the gulf between rich and poor and placed the

environment in danger (Rist, 1997:181).

The essentialist Brundtland definition of sustainable development allows for

neoliberals to blame the poor for environmental destruction. Since this report, it has been

easy for developmentalists to use it as a crutch to increase economic development programs

similar to the past fifty years, under the banner of sustainable growth (Daly 1996). Thus,

most sustainable development approaches continue to employ patriarchal, technocratic and

ethnocentric top-down approaches of social planning (Escobar 1995 and 2002), even while

introducing terms such as participation and the basic needs approach, they fail to address

the power inequities that reproduce poverty and all its facets, such as a minimal priority to

the environment or to sustainability, and a maximum profit for capitalists in the metropoles

(Castles 2000). Participation is a case in point. How generous it is that the beneficiaries

(Rahnema in Escobar 2002: 79) of these development projects may take part, that they were

even asked, as if they are otherwise passive victims of oppression (Scott 1997). The poor

are definitely victims of the system, yet they do have their own agency. In the MST movement

in Brazil the landless poor squat unused agricultural land of large estates. After years of

squatting and protests, the government courts often rule in their favour so they are given

legal ownership of the land, which now provides many with self-sustenance (Hammond 1999).


17/48



Needs - assumed in the Brundtland definition, and the basic needs approach to

development - is another term that is very suspicious. Whose needs are they, and who

decides what their needs are? (Rahnema in Escobar 2002: 79, Moser 1995 and Sachs 1997).

Furthermore, the needs themselves change, as future generations will certainly not have the

same needs as we have today (Redclift 2005: 213). Similarly, needs are culturally defined,and therefore Redclift sees a syllogism emerge: sustainable development is necessary for all

of us, but it may be defined differently in terms of each and every culture (Ibid.). Additionally,

people often define their needs in ways that effectively exclude other peoples livelihoods,

contributing to processes of inclusion and exclusion (Redclift 2005: 215, and Beckerman

1999: 83). Most of all, the Brundtland definition still emphasizes the need for development,

which implies that economic growth shall continue to increase in the future, while Sachs

(1999) and others plead to leave the economic model of development behind us, in order to

achieve sustainability. Furthermore, connecting sustainability to development requires a

compromise between ecology and economy, but most of its promoters tend to prioritize the

economic dimension, leaving Amazonia up for grabs.

Therefore, sustainable development remains an oxymoron (Redclift 2005). Wealth

creation itself reinforces poverty and exploitation, whereby the economic vision excludes the

majority of the worlds population. The poor are made into a problem, as they are not

participating in the formal world economy, even though this group constitutes about 80% of

all people (Sachs 1999: 30). Our Common Future is full of paradoxes. Its policy

recommendations aim to please all parties, therefore each new page of the report contradicts

the preceding page and vice versa. This most likely reflects the different interests of those in

the WCED, so that the report remains vague and indefinite such as its policy

recommendations and empirical evidence to support its base, in order not to imply or favour

any one party in the process. This is both its strength and its weakness. Both

environmentalists and developmentalists have their views represented and justified by the

report, yet both are confronted by each others argumentation. This is representative of the

reality of diverging interests. The concept of sustainable development itself is thus such a

paradox, where the ill of development is pimped as the cure of sustainability.

Since the concept of sustainability entered the political arena in 1987, it has passed

into the everyday language of the politicians, and is consequently in danger of losing any real

meaning (OBrien 1991: 24). Although every technocrat from the World Bank to the IMF,

Monsanto, the UN Development Program (UNDP) and the Food and Agriculture Organisation

(FAO) are green-washing their image by promoting their projects as contributing to

sustainable development or corporate social responsibility, there is a clear segregation

between the environment and trade, agriculture, poverty and development policy. In free-


18/48



trade negotiations the environment is not a subject for negotiation; nor are environmental

matters included in the text of the agreements (Goldsmith 1996 [1]: 90). This is most likely a

result of the power of multinational corporations in such negotiations as NAFTA and GATT,

and the undemocratic manner in which the agreements were created, sold, and passed

(Nader and Wallach 1996: 92, see also Chomsky 1999: 90). Multinationals have certainlysucceeded in the WTO, as their soya is now a major global commodity. Furthermore, the UNs

Millennium Development Goals are not indicative of an acknowledgement that poverty,

development and the environment are inextricably linked, as they are each presented in

separate Goals, as separate problems, with separate solutions to fix them (UN 2000).

Therefore, the Brundtland definition of sustainable development is usually interpreted as: the

poor all need to do and be the same as the rich, yet this is ecologically unsustainable.

However, there is an alternative movement, an amalgamation of post-sustainability

(Redclift 2005: 219) discourses, in which this thesis is also situated: There is a huge number

of people in the world probably the vast majority that is strongly opposed to the economic

and social policies being carried out on a global scale (Chomsky 1999: 92). There are trends

in Brazil showing that its society is indeed changing. Protests from the grass-roots, which

started around the time of Chico Mendes in the 1980s, are successful in the MST movement

(Landless Peoples Movement) and the first World Social Forum, which took place in Porto

Alegre in 2001. The forum is now an annual event and continues to grow and multiply into

regional forums throughout the world (FSM 2006). The forum was initiated by various local

NGOs and calls for a radical form of local participatory democracy (Klein 2002: 202). At the

forum, globalization was defined as a mass transfer of wealth and knowledge from public to

private, and participants of the forum are looking to reverse this phenomenon (Klein 2002:

199). Similarly, I am looking to move the sustainable development discourse away from

blaming the victim, as I will discuss next.

Blaming the VictimAs a matter of fact, it is the poor who suffer the most from the consequences of

environmental degradation (Dahles & Keune 2002: 20).

Blaming the poor for environmental destruction is an oversimplification: the poor are in their

position due to a complex web of broader socio-economic and political circumstances, deeply

rooted in a history of inequality, oppression, racism and power relations beginning in

colonialism, through industrialization, capitalism, modernization, post-war development, the

oil crisis which spurred on the debt crisis, which in turn spurred on the SAPs, free trade,

neoliberalism and multinational corporate domination. Therefore, the free market as it


19/48



appears today has produced severe consequences: deepening poverty, inequality and

environmental depletion. Can we at least stop calling it free? (Klein 2002: 71).

Anthropologist Scheper-Hughes (1992) shows that the wealthy elite in Northeast Brazil

look down on the poverty and disease of the populations poorest citizens, who work at and

around the sugarcane plantations. She demonstrates the result of the expression blamingthe victim, wherein the victims receive the blame for the position in which they find

themselves. The postcolonial power structures with a history of slavery keep this group

repressed and in a vicious circle of poverty and illness. They are also suffering due to the

environmental consequences of the sugarcane plantations: this monoculture makes it

impossible to grow any other crops. Therefore, they are doubly dependant on the higher

classes to provide them with food. Scheper-Hughes demonstrates the macro socio-economic

context that determines the poverty, repression, powerlessness, and invisibility of the poor in

Northeast Brazil. She pleads for an alternative view of poverty, one that steers clear of

blaming the victim, in order to reveal the broader postcolonial capitalist system as the cause

of poverty, and break through the culture of silence.

The case study presented in this thesis is an example of the same phenomenon which

Scheper-Hughes analyzed. It is a repetition of the same system, elsewhere in Brazil. The

agribusiness of soybean production, as it is Brazils current leading export product, replaces

the previous success of the sugar cane plantations. The poverty produced by this industry in

the Northeast resulted in the migration to Amazonia, and those same peasants have in turn

been displaced by the soybean production, forcing them to move into the rainforest for their

livelihood, and thus contributing to unsustainable practices (Perz 2002; Angelsen and

Kaimowitz 1999; Fearnside et al 2004; and Schaeffer and Rodrigues 2005).

In the development discourse of the past 20 years, the finger is pointed at the

underdeveloped populations as soon as the sustainability issue surfaces. The underlying

implication of the concept of sustainable development is often that poverty, and thus poor

people, cause environmental problems, instead of the poor being the actual victims. This

blame is derived from an attitude of superiority prevalent in Brazil, which starts at the

government level and is filtered down to the poor themselves (Rocco 2006 and Dek 2001).

Due to their lack of formal education, they are seen as ignorant and this ignorance is seen

as the reason that they pollute and destroy not because of their poverty. The roots of such

extreme differences both in income and the quality of the environment go back to the origins

of So Paulo and Brazilian society itself (Dek 2001: 1). The history of slavery on the

plantations in Brazil during colonization set the tone for this inequality and discrimination

(Scheper-Hughes 1992). Thus, the poor are blamed for their own poverty and every other

problem that results from poverty, such as environmental destruction. This is literally blaming


20/48



the victim, which leads to a top-down form of environmental management, with disastrous

consequences for the local peoples, such as depleted food security and displacement. This is

illustrated in the birds-eye photograph of soybean cultivation in Amazonia on the cover. This

form of blaming the victim is due to the assumptions found in the sustainable development

discourse, which lead to its misinterpretation and abuse by actors in the neoliberal capitalistworld market. Development implies economic progress, which, according to Sachs (1999), is

detrimental to sustainability. Therefore, many of the development projects that have taken

place in the past in Latin America have focused on economic development rather than

environmental sustainability. The local people have been taught to work towards this form of

progress, in total disregard of the environment, whether or not this was culturally valued

originally, such as the culture of sustainability found in the maana philosophy, as will be

discussed below.

Simultaneously, the poor are oppressed in a culture of silence (Scheper Hughes

1992). Scheper-Hughes poignantly addresses silence on several levels to represent the

oppression of the poor and marginalized by the privileged classes. Firstly, the systematic

repression by the state and the elites, which results in a silence of the poor, that is necessary

for their survival in such a political and economic climate. Secondly, she addresses the

silence of these elites towards the suffering of the poor: they are necessarily marginalized

and kept quiet in order to support their position of power. Generally poverty is defined

negatively, as awful or terrible, as a dysfunction, and the poor are pitied and seen as

outcasts, living on the fringe of society (Rahnema in Escobar 2002: 79). This view is derived

from the concept of development, which historically meant progress and modernization in

the post-World War II era from which it evolved. As Scheper-Hughes demonstrated, rarely are

the poor seen as human beings with the same dignity as everyone else, forming their own

social structures and working hard in order to survive. The poor most likely live much more

sustainably in the periphery than the wealthy in the center. Their survival strategies - or

maana attitude - most often include recycling and reusing materials and consuming a bare

minimum as opposed to the over-consumption patterns of the elite (Shiva 1995). This over-

consumption is the ill for the environment, whereas the cure is often marketed as population

reduction strategies, which I will discuss now.

The Overpopulation of Overconsumersonly a small portion of the worlds resources serves the basic needs of the poormajoritywho sink deeper into the trough of poverty and destitution. This is the

ultimate environmental and social tragedy of our time (Khor 1996: 54).


21/48



Environmental problems are not only blamed on the poor, but also because there are so

many poor people. The population growth argument is based on Malthusian logic, and its

advocates mathematical modelling equation of deforestation and population growth in

Amazonia (see for example, Pfaff 1997 and Margalis 2004) lead them to argue that

deforestation is an inevitable result of growing human populations. The FAO even concludedthat population growth was the cause of deforestation globally (Skole and Chomentowski

1994: 3). However, urbanization has been on the increase at nearly the same rate of poverty

(Redclift and Goodman 1991:63). Appendix F shows that population growth in Amazonia has

actually decreased since 1980, and the majority live in urban areas, as opposed to rural areas,

such as the rainforest.

This population-deforestation rhetoric literally points the finger to the poorest

populations, as they are most vulnerable to migration and simultaneously economically

dependant on agricultural shifts and changes. They are at the same time victims of

environmental degradation, as it determines their capacity for survival.

The focus on population as the cause of environmental destruction is erroneous at twolevels: 1) it blames the victimsand 2) by failing to address economic insecurity and by

denying rights to survival, the current policy prescriptions avoid the real problem. Falseperceptions lead to false solutions. As a result, environmental degradation, poverty

creation, and population growth continue unabated, despite the billions of dollarsspent on population control programmes (Shiva 1993: 285).

Thus, poverty as the cause of environmental problems is often linked to the problematic idea

of overpopulation, so that deterring population growth (which predominantly takes place

under the poor) by forced family planning is justified as an improvement for the

environmental situation (Shiva 1993).

The population growth argument is also derived from the concept of carrying capacity,

which is a calculation of the maximum amount of humans possible to be carried in a given

ecosystem, without it being depleted. Carrying capacity, in turn, is a cousin of the ecological

footprint concept. This concept suggests that if all the worlds people were to live at current

North American standards, and if the global population were to be 10 billion within the next

century, we would require five earths to provide us with sufficient resources and enough

space as a large enough sink for our waste (OCallaghan 1997). Yet it is the wealthy that

have the largest footprints, and are therefore truly responsible for environmental degradation:

This focus on numbers disguises peoples unequal access to resources and the

unequal environmental burden they place on the earth. In global termsa drasticdecrease of population in the poorest areas of Asia, Africa, and Latin America would

make an environmental impact immeasurably less than a decrease of only five percent in present consumption levels of the richest countries (Shiva 1993: 268).


22/48



These consumption levels, in turn, are related to the vast amounts of modernized agricultural

schemes that are literally eating up the Brazilian Amazon, as well as perpetuating poverty

(Keen and Haynes 2000: 579-580, see also Shiva 1993: 284).

Galeano (1973) blasted the idea of population control in Latin America, pointing out

that with a few exceptions population densities in Latin America are among the lowest in theworld (Roberts and Thanos 2003: 77). Galeano attributes the popularity of population-based

arguments to American squeamishness that masses of poor brown people will flow up the

isthmus into the United States (Ibid.). The same reasoning can be applied to the large

amounts of African migrants that are detained at the borders of Spain, trying to seek refuge

in Europe. However, Many Latin Americans bristle at the idea that their numbers need to be

controlled, seeing such arguments as patronizing and frightening especially when these

arguments come from groups in the nation that acted for so long as Latin Americas colonial

power The United States (Ibid.).

I do not think that a depletion in the population growth will necessarily be an

improvement for the environment, and I fear the way in which such a solution would be

achieved, such as it was in China this past century, for example, or as is happening now in

several parts of Asia (Shiva 1993). Shiva presents an alternative focus:

It might then well be more fruitful to directly address the roots of the problem: the

exploitative world market system which produces poverty. Giving people rights and

access to resources so that they can generate sustainable livelihoods is the onlysolution to environmental destruction and the population growth that accompanies it

(Shiva 1993: 285).

Shiva discusses how the poor are blamed for having too many children. However,

reproduction is often their only guarantee for their old age, as there is no welfare system to

take care of them. Shiva poses that a sustainable livelihood would provide the alternative

security that they need. Furthermore, she states that the over-consumption of the wealthy

populations is truly the biggest factor in environmental destruction, and the solution lies in

the depletion of this behaviour. Therefore, global overpopulation is only a problem as long as

everyone behaves such as the capitalist elites of the metropoles. While they are

overconsuming, they are gaining wealth in times of food shortage, it is therefore doubly in

their interest to control food production, so that they may be fed luxuriously and reap the

economic benefits simultaneously. It is, in turn, the poor of the satellites which are producing

the food, yet becoming indebted in the process, due to the neoliberal promises of the level

playing field. The overpopulation of these wealthy capitalist elites is what needs to be

stopped, as keeping the poor in poverty is only lucrative for them, which is in the end, thesustainability of unsustainability, or the cure becoming the ill.


23/48



Looking at current trends on the global level, however, the combination of population

growth in combination with economic growth is clearly unsustainable. Economic growth in its

current form leads to overconsumption, and a rise in wealth leads to the consumption of

animal products, wherefore large amounts of agricultural land are necessary, in the

inefficient and intensive cattle ranching and the production of soybean products for theirconsumption. Meanwhile, the global levels of overweight people are on the rise (Reijnders

2006). Considering current trends, soybean production will most likely increase, as eighty

percent of industrially processed foods now have soybeans in them (Shiva 2000: 28).

Therefore, population growth implies agricultural growth, and hence environmental

destruction, and a consequential loss in biodiversity and increase in methane emissions

which furthers climate change, which, in turn, has negative consequences for agricultural

production (Reijnders 2006:4). Ironically, there is a simultaneous increase in malnourishment,

hunger and poverty worldwide, which signals a significant unequal and uneven development

(Mowforth and Munt 2003): a global apartheid of the haves and the have-nots (Sachs

1999 and Radermacher 2004: 91), which is the furthest thing from sustainability. To realize

the goals of sustainable development, it must be liberated from its embeddedness in the

ideology and institutional parameters of capitalism (Fernando 2003: 590). Considering Shiva

(1993) and Sachs (1999), let us move the focus away from poverty and overpopulation as

environmental problems in policy making and development programmes. Instead, let us

focus on development itself, as a neoliberalist, free-trade, capitalist form of globalization due

to the greed and corruption of a few and the poverty and repression of the many, as the

biggest problem for sustainability. It is the ill and not the cure, indeed.

The World Bank and IMFs near mystical (Klein 2002: 12) faith in trickle-down

economies have the tendency to emphasize that the poor are overusing resources, while I

would question if it is not rather the eight per cent wealthy few that have a much larger

ecological footprint than all the poor around the world, combined (Sachs 1999: 30).

Ironically, survival strategies of the poor, including squatting land at the peripheries of the

forest and using it as a resource for their basic needs, is seen as environmentally destructive,

thus the poor receive the blame for their own predicament. Poor and marginalized people

live where they do because of macro forces in the history, politics, and economies of whole

regions. They have no other livelihood choices (Roberts and Thanos 2003: 67).

Having no alternative is something believers of the level playing field do not seem to

comprehend, as they drive to the golf course in their SUVs. Free-trade logic echoes Garrett

Hardins (1974) life-boat ethics, wherein the poor put an unnecessary burden on the

planets resources. This view, and the responses and strategies that emerge from it totally

ignore the fact that the greatest pressure on the earths resources is not from large numbers


24/48



of poor people but from a small number of the worlds ever-consuming elite (Shiva 1993: 86).

The worlds ever-consuming elite are producing money that produces ever more money, which

the large numbers of poor people will never benefit from within the current free market

paradigm. The processes of exploitation, exclusion and marginalization are well-known

phenomena of the world capitalist system today, yet powerful players at the top, which arebenefiting from this system, are not prepared to part with any of their wealth in order to

redistribute it among the poor. Providing opportunities to those people they are exploiting

would decrease their power, and diminish their comfortable positions. Such opportunities

could be achieved by moving towards an emancipatory discourse for the poor, and in order to

do this, I will first look at the role of anthropology in the sustainability debate.

Whose Future is Sustainable?"Universal responsibility is the key to human survival." - The XIVth Dalai Lama

The ideal of sustainable development seemingly faired by all its contesters is a

multidimensional concept in which a balance is sought between ecological, social and

economic dimensions, and in practice, global inequality and poverty are eradicated in order

for sustainability to be achieved. In reality, the dissolution of the world has local effects,

wherefore large-scale projects such as soybean cultivation in Amazonia and other

oversimplifications do not present local solutions (Grin 2004). Escobar warns that the

Brundtland report propagates such strategies:

who is this we who knows what is best for the world as a whole? Once again, we

find the familiar figure of the Western scientist turned manager...But can reality be

managed? The concepts of planning and management embody the belief that socialchange can be engineered and directed, produced at will (1995: 193-194).

Scott (1998) demonstrates that these concepts are designed to standardize and simplify

society in order for it to be legible, politically motivated for control, manipulation and

centralized power. Scott illustrates that these utopian plans are products of short-term

thinking instead of the continuous changes, complexities, diversity and variety of real life on

the ground: Administrative man recognizes that the world he perceives is a drastically

simplified model of the buzzing, blooming confusion that constitutes the real world (Scott

1998: 45). He concludes that in practice, these utopian designs are doomed to fail, because

their simplicity undermines these elements of local reality. Thus, top-down methods often

ignore the local circumstances, needs and desires of the targeted population.

In these schemes, local populations and organizations are often seen as obstacles to

progress (Castles 2000). The need to look and operate at the local level to promote the

autonomy of the people themselves is signalled throughout the literature. There has indeed


25/48



been an increasing emphasis on local processes in the anti-globalisation movement since the

1990s, in the form of indigenous movements such as the Zapatistas and the revitalization of

local knowledge and culture (Poppema 2004). Therefore, social scientists are called upon to

undertake long-term research, with less focus on the people in society with positions of power,

and more on the marginalized groups, to be able to recognize their problems, needs anddesires. This is where anthropology comes in, and where development research has failed in

the past. The new focus on sustainability and poverty demands a participatory approach to

processes of change. This is ideally to give the marginalized a voice, and to gain deeper

insight into specific environmental and social problems and their possible solutions, yet in

practice it is often more of the same top-down strategies. Escobar (1997) recognized the

value of local knowledge in the development of ecological concepts, although Fernando

warns, that in practice, NGOs may abuse this knowledge to legitimize the very practices that

they seek to transform (2003:54).

Anthropologists strive to be wary of ethnocentrism, as the application of a universal

scale to evaluate societies, such as the GDP, is irrelevant and a large obstacle for

anthropologists whose goal it is to understand societies from within. The focus of

development has often been named ethnocentric because of such measurements (Esteva

1992 and Escobar 1997). Esteva states that the concept of development itself implies a

positive change, from inferior to superior, from worse to better, with individualism, technology,

mass consumption and wealth at the top of the ladder (Esteva 1992 and Villa 2004). For two-

thirds of the world population, he points out, the concept of development, and therein its

polar opposite underdevelopment, is a reminder of what they are not (Esteva 1992).

Therefore, I would hope that anthropologists approach development, as well as

sustainability critically, and problematize this ethnocentric premise. To turn this criticism

into action, I will explore the concept of time, in particular the future, as a subject of

anthropology for a meaningful contribution to the sustainability debate. Therein I will present

maana as such a concept.

Maana, MaanaYoud think with all these things that are speeding things up for us and moving us along that

wed get places earlier, or at least on timebut I dont have any more time, I have less time.

- Ellen Degeneres

Maana is a well-know concept throughout Latin America, and this idea is one of

sustainability. Leaving something for tomorrow, for ones children, for ones grandchildren, is

as future-oriented as one can live on a daily basis. In Western Europe we have a lot more

trouble living by an abstract notion of future generations and we can certainly learn from the


26/48



maana culture. If we were to perpetually live by this notion, the sustainability debate would

no longer be up for discussion. Adopting a maana philosophy,by putting something off until

tomorrow, can actually prevent environmental destruction today and preserve natural

resources fortomorrow.

The Brundtland definition of sustainable development, is unfortunately vague, and theidea of future generations itself is quite vague as well. At the ground level, it generally implies

ones children, and perhaps ones grandchildren, as forty to sixty years is approximately what

most people can fathom (Rademaker 2006). The environmental consequences to todays

development, however, reach much further into the future. Just as there are different

definitions and representations of sustainability, there are various time perspectives found in

environmental and development projects.

Concepts of time are seen both as universal and culturally defined. Time itself is

perceived as objective, yet the interpretation of it as a concept can vary culturally, making its

experience subjective, as a result of socialization (Gell 1992: 327). Durkheim sees time as

one of the universal properties of thingslike the solid frame surrounding all thought (1915:

9), and that time exists for us because we are social beings, as one of the Kantian categories.

Kant (1929) saw time and space as pure concepts of understanding. Durkheim (1915) and

Leach (1961) both believed time to be an objective, universal category of cognition, although

social time can be culturally constructed, according to a societys rituals or rhythms, or

derived from ideology. Furthermore, the concept of time is bound up in language (use) and

culturally defined and constructed, so that language is a prominent starting point for the

anthropology of time (Gell 1992: 30). There is body time and clock time, literal and epochal

time, linear and cyclical time (Munn 1992).

The concept of time in the sustainable development paradigm is seen as a product in

the capitalist system. Much like the growth philosophy, in the capitalist discourse, time is

money, where material goods are produced faster and faster, representing the turnover time

of capital, or the commodification of linear time (Munn 1992: 109, see also Meerloo 1970:

31-32) so that there may be more and more production in a shorter period of time to

compete with the next capitalist, while interest on interest accumulated over time forces the

indebted poor into a downward spiral. Simultaneously, such as Marx demonstrated, it is the

cost of labour that is kept to a minimum in the process. Therefore, the capitalist system is not

sustainable: the accumulation of wealth as quickly as possible by appropriating natural

resources and exploiting the poor for their labour does not consider maana, and thus

Brundtlands future generations. At the same time, acceleration cancels itself out: one

arrives faster and faster at places at which one stays for ever shorter periods of time (Sachs

1997: 299), and therein the capitalist creates his own competition, and ultimately, the


27/48



inability to keep up with himself. This efficiency in capitalist modernization is representative

of space and time being defined and represented by those in power, and shifts in tempo or

spatial ordering can redistribute social power by changing the conditions of monetary gain, in

turn, affecting social life (Harvey 1989: 229-232). Control over time is not just a strategy of

interaction; it is also a medium of hierarchic power and governance (Munn 1992: 109). Andyet today, this hurry, hurry, money, money is experienced as the rush to nowhere (Neville

2002: 25, and Swift 2002). This process prevailed in the de-industrialization process, the

transition from Fordism to flexible accumulation, otherwise known as Post-Fordism (Harvey

1989: 284; Mowforth and Munt 2003). Thus time, speed and postmodernity are intertwined

in the current capitalist world system, resulting in a time-space compression:

The annihilation of space through time has radically changed the commodity mix thatenters into daily reproduction. Innumerable local food systems have been reorganized

through their incorporation into global commodity exchange (Harvey 1989: 299).

This is illustrated by industrial agriculture in the form of soybean production in Brazil, which

links the poor being blamed for deforestation in Amazonia to the steak on the dinner plates

of wealthy Western Europeans. Some see this form of globalization as careening out of our

control, a runaway world (Giddens 2000: 2), yet simultaneously in the control of fewer,

wealthy and powerful elite: diminishing spatial barriers give capitalists the power to exploit

minute spatial differentiations to good effect (Harvey 1989: 294). This acceleration of

change is used as an excuse to legitimize our blindness to the future or to claim that the

future is unthinkable (Bind 2002: 42).

There are many ways to comprehend the future: commitments in a schedule, future

markets, insurance, future technology, (linear) calendars (Judge 2002: 15). However, the

future is actually the past and present repeating itself. For the Zinacanteco, descendants of

the Mayas in Mexico, the ancestors control/are the future. Therefore, the past becomes the

future in the present belief. In this system, the future has already been determined by the

ancestors. There is no need for concern with the future because the future will always be the

present (Gifford 1978: 278). And so we will be the ancestors in the future, for the future is

made up of the past and the present.

The much utilized term future generations is one of the fashionable buzz words in

global conversations (Judge 2002: 13). Although the concept of generation is an essentially

biological organization of time (Judge 2002: 16), it is culturally constructed, essentially a

fiction (Needham in Gell 1992: 17). It is understood in different cultural contexts as 14 years,

33 years, lived cycles of experience, or the wheel of life for some Eastern religions (Judge2002: 20). The evolution of the dimension of time in human consciousness is a timescape


28/48



(Holland 2002: 181). The term timescape is a term that emphasizes the rhythmicities,

timings and tempos of past and present activities and the interactions of organisms and

matter, including their changes and contingencies (Adam 1998 in Persoon and van Est 2000:

21). An active timescape is projected time that will influence actions But rarely, if ever, do

people live by an active future timescape of more than a generation or two. (Holland 2002:182). Therefore, a generation of 14 years is a very limited timescape (Holland 2002: 183).

Sustainability seems to be a term (ab)used by NGOs, politicians and academics and

is seldom used by the people whose future sustainable development plans affect (Simon

2006). Yet, people always speak of their future, the future of their village, and their childrens

future (Ibid.). Thus, there is a large gap between these plans, often at the macro level, and

what actually occurs at the micro level (Ibid., and Calvert and Calvert 1999). At the macro

level, sustainability most often refers to the conservation of natural resources for future

generations. At the micro level, people are most affected by past policies: the generations of

today and tomorrow are responsible for repaying the debts incurred by past generations.

An ideal of sustainability is a concern for future generations, which is an active future

timescape, which can be interpreted as posterity: my childs childs childs child (Holland

2002: 182). Sustainability is therefore giving time to the future generations, and

unsustainability is stealing time from them. In the example of soybean agriculture in Brazil,

there were high yield returns to begin with, which produced quick economic growth in the

present (which is now the past), yet in the long run there is widespread debt, poverty, and

environmental depletion for the future, which is already present now (in the present). However,

the future is often absent as a topic for discussion with informantsAnthropologists,moreover, have not been trained in this kind of reflectiononce they have returned

from the field anthropologists often feel pressed to make statements about the futureof the people they have studied. That is why these reflections often reveal highly

personal opinions and lack empirical evidence (Persoon and van Est 2000: 16).

Persoon and van Est attest that there is a lack of focus on the future, and predominance of

focus on the past in anthropology. Therefore, anthropology to date has worked with a linear

perception of time, refusing to

When the Ill is Pimped as the Cure

Documents

Transcript of When the Ill is Pimped as the Cure