By Eliana Guterman
Introduction
Environmental justice cannot be understood without considering the realities of multiple overlapping oppressions, namely the gender-based violence (GBV) faced by women of color. In the Amazon rainforest region of Brazil, indigenous women have been disproportionately affected by environmental degradation and deforestation. These women have played a crucial role in indigenous activism, but have also faced increased risks of sexual violence from the heavy military presence accompanying extractive activities from illegal mining to deforestation projects.
Focusing on Brazil, I argue that mainstream environmental justice literature contributes to the erasure of indigenous women by not centering issues of GBV that are associated with environmental harm. To address this, academia and policymakers need to take cues from intersectional activists and focus on gender issues across all environmental and social justice issues to shape national and international policies and societal norms. An intersectional approach would recognize how indigenous women are uniquely impacted by environmental degradation and dispossession due to their gender and indigenous identity.
In recent years, indigenous communities in Brazil have been forced onto the frontlines of defending natural resources and Amazonian land under President Jair Bolsonaro’s promotion of extractive industrial development and indigenous land grabbing. Guerrieras, or warrior women, have led environmental and indigenous rights activism against predatory exploitation throughout the Amazon in the twenty-first century.[i] Indigenous women exist in a specific situation of overlapping gender, ethnic, and geographical vulnerabilities that also propel their role as social leaders across multiple fields of mobilization.[ii] They have been increasingly leading the fight across communal and political spheres, with the highest number of women running for Congress in 2022 in response to Bolsonaro’s extractive environmental policies.[iii] Celia Xakriaba, a candidate from the Xakriaba people of Minas Gerais, said “Environmental activism is what we already do, it is our way of life. We [women] are the environment.”[iv]
Since Bolsonaro took power, female land defenders have suffered one of the highest rates of femicide in the world, increasing by about 44%.[v] Brazil ranks 5th highest in Latin America, but has the largest total numbers with 1,900 per 100,000 women.[vi] Meanwhile, the rise in GBV caused by the continuous advance of agriculture, cattle ranching, and illegal logging and mining activities is poorly documented. According to interviews with indigenous leaders, the FUNAI (National Indian Foundation), a Brazilian governmental protection agency for indigenous interests and culture, actively supports illegal industrial activities on certain reservations. According to reports from NGOs, universities, and technology companies under the MapBiomas Initiative, 0.2% of the total rural acreage deforested was identified as legally compliant in 2019.[vii] Extractive industries have brought these communities environmental pollution, exploitation, and abuse.
Environmental stressors create increasingly degraded resources, resulting in higher tension and intensified impacts on livelihoods. Within these contexts, GBV impacts the way and frequency with which individuals and communities use the natural resources at their disposal, especially during times of scarcity.[viii] These issues are thus mutually reinforcing, often forming vicious feedback loops of violence and environmental damage.
GBV is used as a form of socio-economic control to maintain or promote unequal and gendered power dynamics including the ownership, access, use, and benefits of natural resources. For many Brazilian indigenous women, their experience with environmental injustices is intertwined with their sense of womanhood. There are numerous accounts of women being subjected to beatings, verbal and sexual harassment, rape, and killings by forest guards or mine owners while they amass forest products in protected areas. A young woman of the Yanomami people was reported to have died after being raped by illegal gold miners. Yet there was no action taken by law enforcement.[ix] Women are also victims of economic violence in the use, collection, and trade of non-timber forest products, perpetuating discriminatory systems and gender stereotypes.[x]
GBV is rooted in discriminatory patriarchal norms and practices that enforce an inequitable power dynamic by limiting women’s rights and economic and social resources.[xi] According to the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, indigenous women are three times more likely to experience sexual violence than non-indigenous women.[xii] A case in point is Marinete Almeida, a member of the Tukano people and activist at Makira E’ta, an alliance of indigenous women advocating for the Amazon Forest and its inhabitants.[xiii] Almeida sees the land and environmental violations from destructive industries as “a continuation of violence against indigenous girls and women,” as they are the first to feel the adverse effects of deforestation.[xiv] The overlapping systems of violence and oppression are clear to her; “Lately, we have had many setbacks in our rights as women, which include the right to freedom from violence in our territory, protection from social violence caused by public policies that unfairly target us, and, finally, freedom from violence against our own bodies.”[xv]
This paper will analyze the overlapping structural and systemic causes of both environmental destruction and GBV to demonstrate that these are two symptoms of the same societal ills. There is a critical need for an intersectional approach to projects, reporting, data collection, academic analyses, domestic and international policymaking, as well as activism within climate and feminist movements. The current environmental justice literature has thus far excluded this interconnection from its main scope. I argue that academic and popular literature should follow the lead of on-the-ground individuals, citing their stories to gain media attention for the joint issues of environmental and gender-based violence.
Review: Intersectionality in Environmental Justice Literature
Environmental justice has emerged as an essential framework for understanding the unequal distribution of environmental harms and benefits. This lens developed from place- and race-based circumstances during the U.S. anti-toxics and civil rights movements. Traditional environmental justice literature focuses on the relationship between race, poverty, and the distribution of environmental hazards as a direct reaction to the lack of racial and class issues in the mainstream environmental movement.[xvi] As environmental justice expanded and became globalized, the inequalities across gender, class, and larger-scale power dynamics began to use the framework for broader climate justice movements. Environmental justice scholarship focuses on how people’s experiences of the environment are shaped by their racialized social, economic, and political inequalities, and does not consider the intersection of gender as a causal or central category across which disparities exist.[xvii]
The purpose of this paper is to bring attention to the need for intersectional approaches since environmental justice literature has not adequately addressed GBV, while gender and development literature lacks climate considerations. Intersectional climate justice is a framework that seeks to address the multiple and intersecting forms of oppression including racism, sexism, and colonialism. The mainstream literature acknowledges the distributional injustices of disproportionate impacts of environmental harm on women, or the unequal distribution of environmental burdens placed on vulnerable minority communities.[xviii] The procedural injustices present in the gender disparities in adaptive capacity are also touched upon. However, it fails to address the increased GBV against indigenous women in the context of environmental injustice.
Gender and development literature has largely focused on heteropatriarchal norms subjugating women in both household and economic decision-making. Feminist political ecology is a subset of the field that focuses on gender as a critical variable that shapes resource access and control, processes of ecological change, and the ability to sustain ecologically viable livelihoods.[xix] Development interventions like deforestation and mining are also well-documented as exacerbating local gendered power relations and discourses while creating differentiated and unequal material opportunities.[xx] The concept of gender is reaffirmed by the actions, policies, and responses linked to changing environmental conditions and the management of natural resources, therefore cementing injustices and worsening disparities.[xxi] Overall, truly intersectional literature is scarce because race and class have been the primary factors looked at in the majority of environmental justice literature available, and research on the gendered nature of development does not account for environmental impacts on GBV.
Women are often more vulnerable than men to climate shocks due to socially constructed roles and responsibilities including securing food and water, limited access and control over resources, muted voices in decision-making, and restricted rights. They are more likely to suffer the health consequences of environmental harm, such as respiratory illnesses and cancers.[xxii] It has also been shown that natural disasters often intensify pre-existing gender inequalities, creating added vulnerabilities for women and girls.[xxiii] Also acknowledged are gender disparities in adaptive capacity referring to the potential or ability to adapt to the effects of climate change. Women have less adaptive capacity due to familial responsibilities and limited access to resources, power, and alternative livelihoods. For example, women in developing countries may have limited access to education, health care, and economic opportunities, which can limit their ability to adapt.[xxiv]
The intersecting forms of oppression that women of color face are often erased or de-centered in the mainstream environmental justice movement. By failing to recognize the historical contexts of mutually reinforcing and intertwined vulnerabilities of these communities, the environmental injustices we hope to ameliorate may be repeated. According to Amorim-Maia et al., indigenous women are particularly vulnerable to GBV due to their marginalization and the legacy of colonialism.[xxv] Those who benefit from environmental harm, such as illegal loggers, miners, and land grabbers often perpetrate this violence.[xxvi]
One reason for the inattentiveness to this issue may be the dominant paradigm of environmental justice that focuses primarily on distributional justice, or the fair allocation of environmental harms and benefits.[xxvii] As noted in Walker’s canonical work, Environmental Justice: Concepts, Evidence and Politics, “To talk of climate [or environmental] justice as only a distributional issue would be to neglect its integrative procedural justice components, related to how mitigation and adaptation are conceived and practiced, and the need for meaningful recognition of the most climate-vulnerable groups.”[xxviii] Despite the evolution of environmental justice activism and scholarship focus on distributional aspects to recognize that justice has multiple forms and phases, including procedural and recognitional justice, it has not catalyzed engagement with the complexities of intersecting environmental injustices.[xxix] [xxx] [xxxi] The calls for intersectionality have been coming from inside the house, with foundational scholars like Pellow advancing critical environmental justice which views “racism, heteropatriarchy, classism, nativism, ableism, ageism, speciesism, and other forms of inequality as intersecting axes of domination and control. These inequalities act together to produce and maintain systems of individual and collective power, privilege, and subordination.”[xxxii]
The intersectional experiences of indigenous women facing environmental harm and GBV simultaneously may be overlooked. This omission of GBV against indigenous women in the literature has important implications for policy and practice. The International Union for Conservation of Nature notes that “GBV may prevent women from participating in decision-making processes, limit their mobility, and restrict their access to natural resources and income opportunities.”[xxxiii] By excluding considerations of gender, the literature and subsequent policy action are less sensitive to the specific vulnerabilities of women.
Although women and racial and ethnic minorities are most severely impacted by climate change, they are often marginalized in adaptation planning and decision-making processes that prioritize technocentric approaches and exclude traditional knowledge, local needs, and historical struggles.[xxxiv] This prioritization perpetuates the idea that only experts and elite actors can engage in these processes, leading to climate policies that ignore the race and gender-related factors contributing to historical and ongoing injustices and risk creating new tensions over time.
GBV is not just an individual or interpersonal issue, but a systemic problem perpetuated by social and cultural norms and unequal power relations.[xxxv] The conceptual link between the exploitation of nature and the subordination of women suggests that disregarding the importance of the natural world could lead to increased gender inequality in the future. It is, therefore, critical to proceed with climate justice through an intersectional lens, addressing the underlying root causes and historical legacies of racial and gender inequalities, accounting for overlapping vulnerabilities, and coalition-building across racial, gender, and environmental activism.[xxxvi]
Structural Causes of Environmental and Gender-Based Violence
GBV is exacerbated in large-scale extractive projects due to rapid urbanization and population growth with often minimal or unsafe infrastructure and increased stress caused by existing socio-cultural disadvantages or barriers.[xxxvii] The intersection of GBV and environmental injustice is particularly evident in Brazil’s Amazon region, where indigenous communities are disproportionately affected by both forms of harm relative to the general population. Indigenous women and girls are at greater risk of experiencing GBV, including sexual and domestic violence, forced prostitution, and human trafficking.[xxxviii] This results in significant and long-lasting impacts on their physical and mental health, reducing their social and economic opportunities.[xxxix] Cultural norms, coupled with high rates of poverty and legal marginalization, leave indigenous women more vulnerable to violence while preventing victims of abuse from reporting incidences.[xl]
At the same time, these indigenous communities are vulnerable to environmental injustices including deforestation, contamination of water sources, and the impacts of climate change.[xli] These environmental harms can devastate the health, livelihoods, and cultural practices of indigenous communities who depend on the forest for food, medicine, and spiritual practices.[xlii] Moreover, environmental harms can disproportionately affect different groups within indigenous communities, depending on gender, age, and socioeconomic status.[xliii] The state of Amazonas faces challenges accessing public services like transportation, education, and public safety measures due to the isolated population groups. This contributes to a lack of protections for women, such as reproductive health support, adequate sanitation services, and GBV responses.[xliv]
The linkages between GBV and environmental degradation are complex and multifaceted, as “GBV is both a cause and a consequence of environmental change.”[xlv] Environmental degradation and climate change disproportionately affect women and girls, who are the natural resource managers of indigenous communities. Likewise, resource extraction and infrastructure development projects are often linked to increased violence against women.[xlvi] The intersection of GBV and environmental injustice is exacerbated by various systemic factors, including colonization, discrimination, and the loss of traditional lands and resources.[xlvii] Capitalist, patriarchal societies and power imbalances lead to gender inequalities, increasing vulnerability to environmental degradation and climate change impacts. The IUCN report on these linkages states, “The unequal distribution of power and resources between men and women perpetuates poverty and marginalization, which exposes women to environmental risks and impacts, including GBV.”[xlviii] This unequal distribution of power creates a feedback loop where environmental degradation and climate change worsen gender inequalities and increase GBV risks in indigenous communities.[xlix] Moreover, the intersection of these harms is shaped by the social and cultural norms and practices that govern gender relations within indigenous communities, which may reinforce harmful gender stereotypes and inequalities.[l]
Addressing the root causes of environmental degradation and GBV requires transformative changes in societal structures and power relations. Transformation requires addressing patriarchal norms and gender inequalities, promoting women’s participation and leadership in decision-making processes, and integrating gender perspectives into environmental policies and practices. A comprehensive and intersectional approach must consider how different forms of oppression and marginalization intersect, including gender, ethnicity, race, and class.[li] It requires a recognition of the unique experiences and needs of indigenous communities, as well as their right to self-determination and control over their lands and resources.[lii]
Environmental injustice is also a manifestation of racial capitalism, which prioritizes profits over people and exploits marginalized communities.[liii] The accumulation process through the dispossession and devaluing of both non-white people and nature itself is essential to the capitalist, consumerist, and racialized society in which we exist. Pulido argues, “The logic of racial capitalism is at the root of environmental racism, as environmental harms are disproportionately inflicted on communities of color, who are considered expendable in the pursuit of profit and power.”[liv] Environmental racism refers to how environmental hazards and degradation are disproportionately distributed along lines of race and ethnicity. The Bolsonaro regime exemplified the type of state-sanctioned violence used to maintain this system of exploitation. Through agribusiness and political appointees at the FUNAI, the deterioration of indigenous health and educational infrastructure, and the suspension of indigenous land demarcation processes, Bolsonaro fortified the subordination and oppression of the indigenous population.[lv] The reversal of Brazil’s 1988 constitutional guarantee for indigenous land rights on ancestral lands released 38,000 square miles for permitted use by loggers, ranchers, and other landgrabbers.[lvi] The racial capitalistic policies promoting mining, logging, and deforestation through land grabs and deregulating resource extraction industries have further exacerbated environmental racism and violence against indigenous communities and their territories.[lvii] In Bolsonaro’s first year, there was a 134.9% increase in cases of violence related to invasions and illegal exploitation of resources in indigenous lands.[lviii] The total reported cases of sexual violence, assassination, and murder against indigenous peoples more than doubled.[lix]
Under the pro-development Bolsonaro regime, there was also a decrease in legal protections for indigenous land, relaxed enforcement of environmental laws, and a dismantling of the Brazilian Institute of Environment and Renewable Natural Resources (IBAMA), responsible for monitoring and fining breaches, leading to an 80% reduction in fines.[lx] As Pulido asserts, “State violence, including police brutality, the military occupation of territories, and the criminalization of indigenous resistance, is a key component of the maintenance of racial capitalism.”[lxi] Despite the difference in political rhetoric from the current President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, who has promised funding and support to stop deforestation and protect indigenous peoples, progress will also require a radical change in social, economic, and political systems.
Stories: Intersectional Realities in the Media
This section will highlight media stories of Brazilian women standing up to environmental and gender violence issues across movements and marches. Brazil’s environmental defenders and activists must protect themselves while fighting to defend the Amazon. Women defenders account for most victims in a country that has historically been afflicted by structural sexism.[lxii] More than one-third of all murdered environmental activists worldwide were indigenous people despite being less than 5% of the global population, according to a recurring trend in Global Witness’ annual reports.[lxiii] Furthermore, nearly two-thirds of female defenders killed were indigenous.[lxiv] Women under siege from extractive mining and industrial projects have been particularly vulnerable to sexual violence and harassment by outsiders, such as miners and illegal loggers, with little recourse for justice or support.
Alessandra Korap Munduruku
Alessandra Korap Munduruku is an indigenous leader and activist who has worked to protect the Munduruku people and their land from the impacts of large-scale mining and hydroelectric projects in the Brazilian Amazon. She received the 2023 Goldman Environmental Prize for her leadership in her community’s resistance to the destruction of their ancestral land and promotion of “the rights, knowledge, and autonomy of indigenous peoples.”[lxv] Brazil is one of the largest mineral producers globally, particularly in the Amazon region leading to over 3 million acres of deforestation. The Sawré Muybu Indigenous Territory, home to the Munduruku people in Para northern Brazil, contains approximately 439,000 acres of Amazon rainforest along the Tapajós River. Because the land is not formally recognized by the Brazilian government, it has been threatened by unregulated mining, hydroelectric projects, logging, and land seizure for cattle ranching. Alessandra is the first woman coordinator of the local indigenous association, successfully persuading a mining company to withdraw their permits through campaigns, protests, and community declarations. A British mining company, Anglo American, agreed to publicly withdraw 27 research applications to mine inside indigenous territories, including the Sawré Muybu Territory.[lxvi]
Alessandra’s activism has also focused on combatting GBV in indigenous communities. She states “The role of women is very important in our community because we work a lot in the fields. We plant, we harvest, we take care of the children, we are involved in politics. In the struggle for the demarcation of our land, the women played a key role. We are united to fight for the protection of our territory and natural resources.”[lxvii] She continues to advocate for the recognition of her community’s land despite the intimidation, threats, and attacks she faces.[lxviii] Overall, Alessandra’s work demonstrates the intersectionality of environmental justice and gender equity as she fights to protect the land and resources of her indigenous community while also advocating for the empowerment and safety of women.
Sônia Guajajara and Samela Sateré-Mawé: Indigenous Women at the Roots
Sônia Guajajara and Samela Sateré-Mawé are indigenous Brazilian activists fighting to protect their communities and the Amazon rainforest from destruction. Both women are members of the National Articulation of Indigenous Women Warriors of Ancestrality (ANMIGA), a grassroots Brazilian movement channeling ancestral female warriors’ energy, wisdom, and knowledge to mobilize communities and fight for environmental and social justice. In an interview with Vogue, they describe how women lead the fight against deforestation and the exploitation of natural resources in the Amazon while also battling GBV and discrimination against indigenous peoples.[lxix]
Sônia Guajajara is a mother, the executive coordinator of the Association of Indigenous Peoples of Brazil, a recently elected federal congresswoman, and one of the most influential environmentalists in Brazil. Sônia discussed the importance of understanding the interconnectedness of various forms of oppression, stating “We need to talk about the intersectionality of all the oppressions that indigenous women suffer—racism, violence, GBV, the destruction of our territories.”[lxx] She emphasized that the struggle for indigenous rights and the protection of the environment are intertwined, stating, “Our way of life is intimately connected to the protection of the forest and the rivers, and the fight for our rights as indigenous peoples is inseparable from the fight to protect our territories.”[lxxi]
Samela Sateré-Mawé is a youth leader and activist who highlights the importance of intersectionality in fighting against GBV. She was born into a legacy of matrilineal activism, as her grandmother founded the Sateré Mawé Indigenous Women’s Association.[lxxii] Samela emphasized the need to center the experiences of indigenous women in the fight against violence and discrimination, stating, “We have to talk about the specific violence that we suffer as indigenous women because it’s different from what non-indigenous women suffer.”[lxxiii] As a youth activist, she created and disseminated content aimed at bringing awareness and resolution to the human rights violations occurring in the region. Her campaign for COP27, the 27th session of the Conference of the Parties to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, focused on the slogan “nothing is for us without us,” fighting for political representation of young indigenous women.[lxxiv] Guajajara and Sateré-Mawé exemplify how understanding the interconnectedness of various forms of oppression can lead to more effective activism and a greater understanding of the complexities of the issues they are fighting.
Conclusion
This research paper underscores the integral connection between environmental justice and GBV, particularly in the context of Brazil’s Amazon rainforest region. The experiences of indigenous women, who face disproportionate impacts from environmental degradation and deforestation, reveal the intersectionality of their struggles. The erasure of these issues in mainstream environmental justice literature is highlighted, emphasizing the importance of adopting an intersectional approach to policymaking and activism. Indigenous women, serving as environmental and social leaders, navigate overlapping vulnerabilities, confronting challenges such as extractive industrial development, land grabbing, and GBV. The interplay between environmental stressors, resource scarcity, and GBV forms complex feedback loops, perpetuating cycles of harm. By recognizing the interconnectedness of environmental destruction and GBV, this research advocates for a holistic, intersectional approach in academia, policymaking, and activism to address the intertwined challenges faced by indigenous women in Brazil and beyond.
Environmental justice movements have traditionally focused on addressing environmental degradation. However, the intersectionality of social identities such as race, gender, and socioeconomic status, is increasingly recognized as vital to understanding and addressing environmental injustices. Despite the clear connections between environmental harm, GBV, and indigenous communities in Brazil, the mainstream environmental justice literature has not adequately addressed their convergence. This significant gap must be addressed to understand the impacts of environmental harm and to develop effective strategies for achieving environmental justice and gender equity. This outright omission has severe implications for policy and practice, as GBV against indigenous women prevents their participation in decision-making processes, limits their mobility, and restricts their access to natural resources and income opportunities.
The literature reviewed highlights the importance of recognizing the gendered dimensions of environmental degradation and climate change. Women are disproportionately affected by environmental harm, in terms of exposure to pollutants and the economic and social barriers they face in adapting to environmental change. Moreover, women of color, particularly indigenous women, face unique challenges due to their intersecting identities and experiences of colonization, marginalization, and GBV. These women have played a central role in organizing and mobilizing against resource extraction projects and advocating for their rights to land and self-determination. An intersectional approach would justly recognize and support these efforts while acknowledging the unique challenges and barriers faced by their gender and indigenous identity.
Future scholarship on any environmental injustice must analyze inequities related to race, ethnicity, indigeneity, class, gender, age, disability, and spatial location as multiplicative and interwoven rather than as discrete factors. Similarly, the limited but strong data we have on GBV and its linkages to environmental degradation through deforestation, land use change, climate change, flooding, droughts, extreme weather events, etcetera warrants more research and exploration. On the activism side, the environmental justice and human or gender-based rights movements must find common ground and solidarity against patriarchal, industrial, and racial capitalism as the causal mechanisms of both climate change and gender inequalities.
Recommendations for policymakers:
- Intersectional Policy Frameworks: Develop and implement intersectional policy frameworks that address the interconnected challenges of environmental degradation and GBV, with specific considerations of the experiences of indigenous women.
- Legal Protections: Strengthen legal protections specifically addressing GBV associated with environmental harm. This includes enforcing existing laws against violence and ensuring that legal frameworks protect the rights of indigenous women to a safe and secure environment.
- Community Engagement and Empowerment: Foster community engagement and empowerment initiatives that amplify the voices of indigenous women and support active participation in decision-making processes.
- Land Rights and Resource Access: Safeguard land rights of indigenous communities and ensure equitable access to and control over natural resources. Implement and enforce land tenure policies that protect against illegal activities such as mining and logging.
- Environmental Education Programs: Establish comprehensive environmental education programs that integrate gender perspectives and raise awareness about the links between environmental degradation and GBV.
- Capacity Building: Invest in capacity-building programs for indigenous women to enhance their leadership skills, promote economic independence, and enable them to play active roles in the local economy and political arena.
- Data Collection and Reporting: Improve data collection methods to accurately capture instances of GBV associated with environmental degradation. Policymakers should encourage transparent reporting mechanisms and collaborate with local communities to gather accurate and comprehensive data.
- Monitoring and Enforcement: Strengthen monitoring and enforcement mechanisms to address illegal activities contributing to environmental destruction and GBV. This includes holding accountable those responsible for violence and ensuring that laws protecting indigenous rights are rigorously enforced.
- International Collaboration: Foster international collaboration to address the transboundary nature of environmental issues and GBV. Policymakers should engage in partnerships with neighboring countries, international organizations, and NGOs to implement coordinated strategies.
- Support for Indigenous Leadership: Provide support and recognition for indigenous women’s leadership in environmental and social activism. Policymakers should acknowledge the critical role these women play in protecting natural resources and advocate for their inclusion in decision-making forums at local, national, and international levels.
In conclusion, the interconnectedness of environmental harms and GBV highlights the urgent need for deeper and more intersectional approaches to environmental justice. By incorporating an intersectional analysis that considers the multiple and intersecting forms of oppression and marginalization faced by indigenous women, scholars and activists can better understand the complex nature of environmental injustice and develop more effective strategies for promoting social and environmental justice in Brazil and beyond. It is imperative to prioritize intersectionality in climate policy-making and decision-making processes globally to ensure that the voices and experiences of marginalized communities, particularly indigenous women, are heard and accounted for.
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Schlosberg, D. 2012. “Justice, Ecological Integrity, and Climate Change.” Pp. 165–183 in Ethical Adaptation to Climate Change: Human Virtues of the Future. A. Thompson and J. Bendik-Keymer, Eds. Boston, MA: The MIT Pres.
Schlosberg, D. 2007. Defining Environmental Justice: Theories, Movements, and Nature. NewYork: Oxford University Press.
Schlosberg, D. 2013. “Theorising Environmental Justice: The Expanding Sphere of a Discourse.” Environmental Politics 22 (1): 37–55. doi:10.1080/09644016.2013.755387.
Sultana, F. (2012). Suffering for water, suffering from water: Emotional geographies of resource access, control and conflict. Geoforum, 43(1), 107-116. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.geoforum.2011.06.011.
Sze, Julie. 2017. “Gender and Environmental Justice.” In Routledge Handbook of Gender and Environment. Routledge.
UN News. (2021, January 28). ‘We are not afraid’: Indigenous Brazilian women stand up to gender violence. https://news.un.org/en/story/2021/01/1082752.
UN News. 2023. ‘We Are Not Afraid’: Indigenous Brazilian Women Stand up to Gender Violence. UN News, January 24, 2023. https://news.un.org/en/story/2023/01/1132572.
United Nations Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights. 2019. “Report on the Situation of Environmental Human Rights Defenders.” UN Doc. A/HRC/42/43. https://spcommreports.ohchr.org/TMResultsBase/DownLoadPublicCommunicationFile?gId=27090.
United Nations Human Rights Council. “Indigenous Peoples and the United Nations Human Rights System.” Accessed November 15, 2023. https://www.ohchr.org/en/indigenous-peoples.
Vandergeest, Peter, and Nancy L. Peluso. 2015. “Political Ecology, Extractivism, and Tourism Development in Bali: Long-Standing Connections and Possibilities for Future Research.” Journal of Political Ecology 22 (1): 253-278.
Walker, Gordon. 2012. Environmental Justice: Concepts, Evidence and Politics. London, United Kingdom: Taylor & Francis Group. http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/aul/detail.action?docID=958746.
[i] Tom Phillips, “Indigenous Warrior Women of Brazil Fight for Their Ancestral Lands,” The Guardian, September 10, 2021, https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/sep10/indigenous-warrior-women-brazil-ancestral-lands-protest.
[ii] Rodriguez de Assis Machado, Marta, Denise Vitale, and Danielle Hanna Rached. 2023. “Indigenous Women against Bolsonaro’s Government in Brazil: Resisting Right-Wing Authoritarianism and Demanding Climate Justice.” In Feminist Frontiers in Climate Justice, 268–93. Edward Elgar Publishing. https://doi.org/10.4337/9781803923796.00016.
[iii] Perobelli, Amanda, and Pilar Olivares. 2022. “A Wave of Indigenous Women Run for Brazil’s Congress in Bolsonaro Backlash.” Reuters, September 24, 2022, sec. Americas. https://www.reuters.com/world/americas/wave-indigenous-women-run-brazils-congress-bolsonaro-backlash-2022-09-22/.
[iv] Ibid.
[v] “#16Days | Brazilian Women Fighting to Protect the Amazon.” 2022. (Education International. December 5, 2022.) https://www.ei-ie.org/en/item/27142:16days-brazilian-women-fighting-to-protect-the-amazon.
[vi] Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC), “Bringing an end to violence against women and girls and femicide or feminicide: a key challenge for building a care society,” Femicidal Violence in Figures: Latin America and the Caribbean, No. 1 (Santiago, 2023).
[vii] Annual Deforestation Report of Brazil 2019 – São Paulo, SP – MapBiomas, 2020 – 49 pages.http://alerta.mapbiomas.org.
[viii] Ibid: 6.
[ix] Reuters. 2022. “Brazil Indigenous Agency Monitoring Reported Rape of Yanomami by Miners.” (Reuters, April 27, 2022) sec. Americas. https://www.reuters.com/world/americas/brazil-indigenous-agency-monitoring-reported-rape-yanomami-by-miners-2022-04-27/.
[x] International Union for Conservation of Nature, GBV and environment linkages: The violence of inequality (Switzerland: International Union for Conservation of Nature, 2019): 34.
[xi] Ibid: 140.
[xii] United Nations Human Rights Council, “Indigenous Peoples and the United Nations Human Rights System,” accessed November 15, 2023, https://www.ohchr.org/en/indigenous-peoples.
[xiii] UN News. 2023. ‘We Are Not Afraid’: Indigenous Brazilian Women Stand up to Gender Violence. (UN News, January 24, 2023. https://news.un.org/en/story/2023/01/1132572.
[xiv] Ibid.
[xv] Ibid.
[xvi] Gordon Walker, Environmental Justice: Concepts, Evidence and Politics (London, United Kingdom: Taylor & Francis Group, 2012): 2, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/aul/detail.action?docID=958746.
[xvii] Julie Sze, “Gender and Environmental Justice,” in Routledge Handbook of Gender and Environment (Routledge, 2017): 159.
[xviii] Ibid: 182.
[xix] Rocheleau, D., Thomas-Slayter, B., & Wangari, E. (Eds.). (1996). Feminist Political Ecology: Global Issues and Local Experience (1st ed.). Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9780203352205: 4.
[xx] Coles, Anne, Leslie Gray, and Janet Momsen. The Routledge Handbook of Gender and Development. 1st ed. London: Routledge, 2015: 59.
[xxi] Ibid: 62.
[xxii] Pulido, Laura, “Geographies of race and ethnicity II: Environmental racism, racial capitalism and state-sanctioned violence,” Progress in Human Geography 39, no. 6 (2017): 809-817.
[xxiii] CARE International, “Unseen, Unheard: GBV in Disasters,” 2019, https://www.care-international.org/news/stories-blogs/unseen-unheard-gender-based-violence-in-disasters.
[xxiv] Ibid.
[xxv] Ana T. Amorim-Maia, Isabelle Anguelovski, Eric Chu, and James Connolly, “Intersectional Climate Justice: A Conceptual Pathway for Bridging Adaptation Planning, Transformative Action, and Social Equity,” Urban Climate 41 (January 2022): 101053, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.uclim.2021.101053.
[xxvi] “‘We are not afraid’: Indigenous Brazilian women stand up to gender violence,” UN News, January 28, 2021, https://news.un.org/en/story/2021/01/1082752.
[xxvii] Schlosberg, D. 2012. “Justice, Ecological Integrity, and Climate Change.” Pp. 165–183 in Ethical Adaptation to Climate Change: Human Virtues of the Future. A. Thompson and J. Bendik-Keymer, Eds. Boston, MA: The MIT Pres.; Schlosberg, D. 2007. Defining Environmental Justice: Theories, Movements and Nature.NewYork:Oxford University Press.; Schlosberg, D. 2013. “Theorising Environmental Justice: The Expanding Sphere of a Discourse.” Environmental Politics 22 (1): 37–55. doi:10.1080/09644016.2013.755387.
[xxviii] Gordon Walker, Environmental Justice: Concepts, Evidence and Politics (London, United Kingdom: Taylor & Francis Group, 2012): 215, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/aul/detail.action?docID=958746.
[xxix] Gordon Walker, Environmental Justice: Concepts, Evidence and Politics (London, United Kingdom: Taylor & Francis Group, 2012): 215, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/aul/detail.action?docID=958746.
[xxx] Schlosberg, D. 2012. “Justice, Ecological Integrity, and Climate Change.” Pp. 165–183 in Ethical Adaptation to Climate Change: Human Virtues of the Future. A. Thompson and J. Bendik-Keymer, Eds. Boston, MA: The MIT Pres.; Schlosberg, D. 2007. Defining Environmental Justice: Theories, Movements and Nature.NewYork:Oxford University Press.; Schlosberg, D. 2013. “Theorising Environmental Justice: The Expanding Sphere of a Discourse.” Environmental Politics 22 (1): 37–55. doi:10.1080/09644016.2013.755387.
[xxxi] Stephanie A. Malin and Stacia S. Ryder, “Developing Deeply Intersectional Environmental Justice Scholarship,” Environmental Sociology 4, no. 1 (2018): 2, https://doi.org/10.1080/23251042.2018.1446711.
[xxxii] David N. Pellow, What Is Critical Environmental Justice? (Cambridge: Polity Press, 2018): 28-30.
[xxxiii] International Union for Conservation of Nature, GBV and environment linkages: The violence of inequality (Switzerland: International Union for Conservation of Nature, 2019).
[xxxiv] Stephanie A. Malin and Stacia S. Ryder, “Developing Deeply Intersectional Environmental Justice Scholarship,” Environmental Sociology 4, no. 1 (2018): 1–7, https://doi.org/10.1080/23251042.2018.1446711.
[xxxv] Carol Albertyn, Margaret Campbell, Héctor Álvarez García, Sandra Fredman, and Maria Machado, eds., Feminist Frontiers in Climate Justice (London: Zed Books, 2023).
[xxxvi] Ana T. Amorim-Maia, Isabelle Anguelovski, Eric Chu, and James Connolly, “Intersectional Climate Justice: A Conceptual Pathway for Bridging Adaptation Planning, Transformative Action, and Social Equity,” Urban Climate 41 (January 2022): 101053, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.uclim.2021.101053.
[xxxvii] O’Neil, D. Renzy, A. McDermott, and A. Atanassova, Building a Safer World: Toolkit for Integrating GBV Prevention and Response into USAID Energy and Infrastructure Projects (USAID’s Advancing the Agenda of Gender Equality, Task Order 3, 2015), https://www.usaid.gov/documents/1865/building-safer-world-toolkit-integrating-gbv-prevention-and-response.
[xxxviii] Holland, Julia. Gender, Violence and the Environment: Exploring the Intersectionality of Lived Experiences. (Routledge. 2018)
[xxxix] Fowler, Cynthia et al. “Gendered Dimensions of Environmental Injustice in Latin America,” in The Routledge Handbook of Latin American Development, ed. Julie Cupples and Ronaldo Munck (Routledge, 2020), 306-319.
[xl] C. Henry and J. Adams, “Spotlight on Sexual Violence and Harassment in Commercial Agriculture: Lower and Middle Income Countries,” Working Paper, no. 31 (Rome: ILO, 2018), https://www.ilo.org/wcmsp5/groups/public/—dgreports/—inst/documents/publication/wcms_630672.pdf.
[xli] Abigail Lynch, Alice Collier, and Jaqueline Lee, “Amazon Dams and the Risk of Violence against Women,” Environmental Science & Policy 84 (2018): 204-211.
[xlii] Vandergeest, Peteand Nancy L. Peluso, “Political Ecology, Extractivism, and Tourism Development in Bali: Long-Standing Connections and Possibilities for Future Research,” Journal of Political Ecology 22
[xliii] Fowler, Cynthia et al. “Gendered Dimensions of Environmental Injustice in Latin America,” in The Routledge Handbook of Latin American Development, ed. Julie Cupples and Ronaldo Munck (Routledge, 2020), 306-319.
[xliv] “‘We Are Not Afraid’: Indigenous Brazilian Women Stand up to Gender Violence,” UN News, January 24, 2023, https://news.un.org/en/story/2023/01/1132572.
[xlv] International Union for Conservation of Nature, GBV and environment linkages: The violence of inequality (Switzerland: International Union for Conservation of Nature, 2019).
[xlvi] Ibid.
[xlvii] Janet M. Chernela, “Gender and Environmental Governance in Indigenous Communities of the Amazon Region,” Gender, Place & Culture 25, no. 8 (2018): 1147-1164.
[xlviii] International Union for Conservation of Nature, GBV and environment linkages: The violence of inequality (Switzerland: International Union for Conservation of Nature, 2019).
[xlix] Holland, Julia. Gender, Violence and the Environment: Exploring the Intersectionality of Lived Experiences. (Routledge. 2018)
[l] Janet M. Chernela, “Gender and Environmental Governance in Indigenous Communities of the Amazon Region,” Gender, Place & Culture 25, no. 8 (2018): 1147-1164.
[li] Crenshaw, Kimberle, “Mapping the Margins: Intersectionality, Identity Politics, and Violence against Women of Color,” Stanford Law Review 43, no. 6 (1991): 1241-1299.
[lii] Janet M. Chernela, “Gender and Environmental Governance in Indigenous Communities of the Amazon Region,” Gender, Place & Culture 25, no. 8 (2018): 1147-1164.
[liii] Pulido, Laura, “Geographies of race and ethnicity II: Environmental racism, racial capitalism and state-sanctioned violence,” Progress in Human Geography 39, no. 6 (2017): 809-817.
[liv] Ibid.
[lv] CIMI (Conselho Indigenista Missionário), “Report on Violence Against Indigenous Peoples in Brazil – 2019 Data,” Indigenist Missionary Council, 2021: 36, https://cimi.org.br/wp-content/uploads/2021/01/Report-Violence-against-the-Indigenous-Peoples-in-Brazil_2019-Cimi.pdf.
[lvi] “Brazil Opens 38,000 Square Miles of Indigenous Lands to Outsiders.” 2020. Mongabay Environmental News. May 8, 2020. https://news.mongabay.com/2020/05/brazil-opens-38000-square-miles-of-indigenous-lands-to-outsiders/.
[lvii] Brum, Eliane,”The Amazon Is A Woman,” Atmos, accessed April 13, 2023, https://atmos.earth/the-amazon-is-a-woman/.
[lviii] CIMI (Conselho Indigenista Missionário). “Report on Violence Against Indigenous Peoples in Brazil – 2019 Data,” Indigenist Missionary Council, 2021: 6, https://cimi.org.br/wp-content/uploads/2021/01/Report-Violence-against-the-Indigenous-Peoples-in-Brazil_2019-Cimi.pdf.
[lix] Ibid: 7.
[lx] Rodrigues, Meghie. 2022. “Bolsonaro’s Troubled Legacy for Science, Health and the Environment.” Nature 609 (7929): 890–91. https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-022-03038-3.
[lxi] Pulido, Laura, “Geographies of race and ethnicity II: Environmental racism, racial capitalism and state-sanctioned violence,” Progress in Human Geography 39, no. 6 (2017): 809-817.
[lxii] “16Days | Brazilian Women Fighting to Protect the Amazon,” Education International, December 5, 2022, https://www.ei-ie.org/en/item/27142:16days-brazilian-women-fighting-to-protect-the-amazon.
[lxiii] “Decade of Defiance,” Global Witness, September 2022: 11. https:///en/campaigns/environmental-activists/decade-defiance/.
[lxiv] Ibid.
[lxv] “Alessandra Korap Munduruku – Goldman Environmental Prize,” 2023, https://www.goldmanprize.org/recipient/alessandra-korap-munduruku.
[lxvi] Ibid.
[lxvii] Ibid.
[lxviii] United Nations Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, “Report on the Situation of Environmental Human Rights Defenders,” UN Doc. A/HRC/42/43, 2019, https://spcommreports.ohchr.org/TMResultsBase/DownLoadPublicCommunicationFile?gId=27090.
[lxix] Emily Farra, “Sônia Guajajara and Samela Sateré-Mawé Are Fighting to Save the Amazon, and Their Communities,” Vogue, September 2, 2020, https://www.vogue.com/article/sonia-guajajara-samela-satere-mawe-brazil-amazon-interview.
[lxx] Ibid.
[lxxi] Emily Farra, “Sônia Guajajara and Samela Sateré-Mawé Are Fighting to Save the Amazon, and Their Communities,” Vogue, September 2, 2020, https://www.vogue.com/article/sonia-guajajara-samela-satere-mawe-brazil-amazon-interview.
[lxxii] E. Rosenbaum, “‘We are digital guerrilla fighters’: Q&A with young indigenous activist Samela Sateré-Mawé,” Mongabay News, December 5, 2022, https://news.mongabay.com/2022/12/we-are-digital-guerrilla-fighters-qa-with-young-indigenous-activist-samela-satere-mawe/.
[lxxiii] Emily Farra, “Sônia Guajajara and Samela Sateré-Mawé Are Fighting to Save the Amazon, and Their Communities,” Vogue, September 2, 2020, https://www.vogue.com/article/sonia-guajajara-samela-satere-mawe-brazil-amazon-interview.
[lxxiv] E. Rosenbaum, “‘We are digital guerrilla fighters’: Q&A with young indigenous activist Samela Sateré-Mawé,” Mongabay News, December 5, 2022, https://news.mongabay.com/2022/12/we-are-digital-guerrilla-fighters-qa-with-young-indigenous-activist-samela-satere-mawe/.
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