Abstract
Belo Monte is one of the most divisive dams in Brazilian history, becoming entangled in a thirty-year struggle between pro- and anti-dam interests over the role of the facility within a complex web of Brazilian development and the future of the Brazilian Amazon. This research explores how the proponents of Belo Monte have adopted a number of policy frames as a means of deflection, to divide the opposition and legitimize the project. It investigates this claim by analyzing speeches given within the Brazilian Câmara dos Deputados and the public speeches of high-level politicians. These sources, organized around a framework previously identified by Ahlers et al. (2014), show that the government and individual politicians have used a number of framing devices to legitimize the hydroelectric facility. Principal methods of framing used also demonstrate how contemporary narratives (e.g. sustainability) have been employed to deflect opposition criticism and widen the scheme’s perceived beneficiaries. In doing so, this paper demonstrates how the transformation represented by Belo Monte encompassed not only a process of engineering but also a re-articulation of the complex and its role in modern Brazil.
Original language | English |
---|---|
Pages (from-to) | 276-292 |
Number of pages | 17 |
Journal | Singapore Journal of Tropical Geography |
Volume | 38 |
Issue number | 3 |
Early online date | 13 Jul 2017 |
DOIs | |
Publication status | Published - 26 Sept 2017 |
Keywords
- Brazil
- Belo Monte
- political framing
- Amazon
- Dams
Fingerprint
Dive into the research topics of 'Dammed and Diversionary: The multi-dimensional framing of Brazil’s Belo Monte dam'. Together they form a unique fingerprint.Profiles
-
Dr Ed Atkins
- School of Geographical Sciences - Senior Lecturer
- Bristol Poverty Institute
- Cabot Institute for the Environment
Person: Academic , Member