The Pandemic’s Golden Touch: (Neo)Extractivism, Coloniality, and Necropolitics on Brazil’s Indigenous Territories

Abstract

Mining has been at the forefront of coloniality for hundreds of years in Brazil, representing one of the main threats to the integrity and health of Indigenous lands. The 1988 Brazilian Constitution recognized Indigenous peoples’ rights to the lands they occupy, and their natural resources, according to their traditions, uses, beliefs, and practices. Constitutional provisions, however, have not impeded governments and lawmakers from actively enabling extractive activities in Indigenous territories and their surroundings. Recently, the Bolsonaro government proposed a package of laws and policies to legalize mineral exploitation on Indigenous lands, using the economic uncertainties generated by the COVID-19 pandemic as a justification. However, this action must be explained through the paradigms (or philosophical frameworks) of the extractive economy and coloniality of power, operationalized by necropolitics. The article’s main argument is that the Constitution requires the government to engage in practices of decoloniality that express Indigenous legal traditions. Even though a newly elected government has been revoking many of Bolsonaro’s proposals, the paradigms of the extractive economy and the coloniality of power have a profound, structural influence on the Brazilian legal and political systems and must be challenged by a revival of decolonial ways of thinking and acting.