Maron E. Greenleaf, a cultural anthropologist and political ecologist at Dartmouth, dives deep into green capitalism in the Brazilian Amazon. She discusses the complexities of forest carbon offsets, revealing how they serve both ecological and economic purposes. Greenleaf also highlights the intertwined history of rubber tapping and colonialism, along with the socio-economic dynamics driving deforestation. Her insights showcase the intriguing yet challenging relationships between local communities, biodiversity, and the evolving landscape of environmental policy.
49:46
forum Ask episode
web_stories AI Snips
view_agenda Chapters
menu_book Books
auto_awesome Transcript
info_circle Episode notes
question_answer ANECDOTE
Fieldwork Experience in Acre
Maron conducted 15 months of fieldwork in Acre, Brazil, combining surveys and ethnographic research.
She gained trust by showing respect to locals genuinely working to preserve their environment.
insights INSIGHT
Unique Nature of Forest Carbon
Forest carbon offsets are unique because their value comes from preserving rather than extracting resources.
This makes them a state of being, tied to the forest's multi-species relationships and infrastructures.
insights INSIGHT
Integrating Relational and Legal Perspectives
Indigenous and feminist economic anthropology informed Greenleaf's relational approach to green capitalism.
Legal training focused her attention on property, land rights, and political questions within forest carbon valuation.
Get the Snipd Podcast app to discover more snips from this episode
Water and the Infrastructures of Citizenship in Mumbai
Nikhil Anand
Nikhil Anand's "Hydraulic City" examines the intricate relationship between water infrastructure, citizenship, and urban development in Mumbai, India. The book explores how water access and management shape social inequalities and political power dynamics. Anand's work highlights the complex ways in which water infrastructure is intertwined with broader issues of governance, social justice, and environmental sustainability. The book uses ethnographic methods to provide a rich and detailed account of the lived experiences of Mumbai's residents in relation to water. It challenges conventional understandings of urban planning and governance by centering the experiences of marginalized communities.
Insurgent Citizenship Disjunctions Of Democracy And Modernity In Brazil
James Holston
James Holston's "Insurgent Citizenship" provides a critical analysis of democracy and modernity in Brazil. The book explores the complex relationship between citizenship, social movements, and political participation. Holston examines how marginalized groups challenge existing power structures and negotiate their rights within a rapidly changing society. The work highlights the tensions between formal legal frameworks and the lived experiences of citizens. It offers a nuanced understanding of the challenges and possibilities of democratic participation in a context marked by significant social and economic inequalities. The book remains a significant contribution to the study of citizenship and social movements in Latin America.
The Social life of things
Arjun Appadurai
Arjun Appadurai's "The Social Life of Things" explores the cultural and social significance of objects. It examines how objects move through different social contexts, acquiring new meanings and values along the way. The book challenges traditional anthropological perspectives on material culture, emphasizing the dynamic and fluid nature of objects' social lives. Appadurai's work highlights the interconnectedness of global flows of goods and ideas, and how objects embody cultural narratives and histories. It's a significant contribution to the field of anthropology and cultural studies, offering a nuanced understanding of the relationship between objects and society.
Forest Lost: Producing Green Capitalism in the Brazilian Amazon
Forest Lost: Producing Green Capitalism in the Brazilian Amazon
Producing Green Capitalism in the Brazilian Amazon
Maron E. Greenleaf
Maron E. Greenleaf's "Forest Lost" offers a nuanced ethnography of forest carbon offsets in the Brazilian Amazon, specifically within Acre. The book explores the complex interplay between environmental protection and capitalist logics, highlighting the challenges and contradictions of green capitalism. Greenleaf examines how the commodification of forest carbon affects local communities, land rights, and broader political dynamics. The research reveals the intricate relationships between humans, non-human actors, and the environment, challenging simplistic narratives of environmental conservation. Ultimately, the book provides a critical analysis of the promises and limitations of green capitalism in addressing environmental degradation.
Forest Lost: Producing Green Capitalism in the Brazilian Amazon (2024) is an ethnography of forest carbon offsets and the wider effort to make the living rainforest valuable in the Brazilian Amazon. Situated in the state of Acre, which continuously had to grapple with a complex positionality between frontier and periphery, Maron E. Greenleaf explores forest carbon offset to understand green capitalism. Commodifying forest carbon offset requires keeping carbon in place through forest protection and valuation, unlike other forest commodities – for example Açaí berries, which also feature in the ethnography – that involve extraction. Initially set out to do a supply chain analysis, Greenleaf instead wrote a well-thought-out account disentangling the relationships at play in a place which at the time was celebrated for being ‘a leader in forest- focused development’, through tracing the complexity of the uneven, contingent and contesting cultural, material and multispecies relations involved in making forest carbon valuable. At the same time, she illustrates how forest carbon’s commodification turned it into a source of redistributable public environmental wealth and how green capitalism can also reinforce just the marginalization it seeks to combat. By outlining these complex relations and tensions, Greenleaf elucidates broader efforts to create a capitalism suited to the Anthropocene and those efforts’ alluring promises and vexing failures.
Mentioned in this episode:
Anand, Nikhil. Hydraulic City: Water and the Infrastructures of Citizenship in Mumbai. Duke University Press, 2017.
Appadurai, Arjun, et al. The Social Life of Things: Commodities in Cultural Perspective. Edited by Arjun Appadurai, Cambridge University Press, 1986.
Holston, James. Insurgent Citizenship: Disjunctions of Democracy and Modernity in Brazil. Princeton University Press, 2008.
Maron E. Greenleaf is a cultural anthropologist, political ecologist and legal scholar and currently Assistant Professor at the Anthropology Department at Dartmouth. She is interested in how human and more-than-human relationships are shaped through efforts linked to environmental crisis. Her topics of interest include landscapes, green economies, environmental justice and land rights.
Olivia Bianchi is a postgraduate student at the University of Oxford, currently finishing the MSc program in Visual, Material and Museum Anthropology. Her interests include anthropological inquiries into materials, especially textiles, as well as the topics of sustainability and waste more generally.
New Books in Economics 
