"Forced development": the near extinction of the Waimiri-Atroari and the successful march of the Kaiapó during the "lost decade"

Abstract

Within the development context, researchers from the University of Oxford discuss the problem of “forced development”. Along with the discussed concept, there is a general accept among the researchers, including Anthony Oliver Smith, that forded development induce displacement and resettlement. This paper calls attention to two cases of resistance towards this model of development in indigenous territories in Brazil. The first case; the Waimiri-Atroari and their almost complete extinction, serves to remind the Brazilian state, that projects such as The Balbina Dam and the exclusion of indigenous people from there territories, entails an image of the social decadence towards the native Brazilian population. The second case; the trajectory of the indigenous resistance of the Kayapós during the 1980s, can be celebrated as a “campaign of success”, in which the indigenous people defended their existence as a “people” by themselves. Both cases symbolise the indigenous struggle against forced development.