Deforestation and Indigenous Resistance in South America and Beyond
Dr. Freg J. Stokes (Max Planck Institute of Geoanthropology, Jena, Germany)
While there is growing international awareness that Indigenous territories in the Amazon rainforest play a key role in obstructing deforestation, the deeper history of this resistance has received less attention. From the sixteenth century onwards, a series of commodity frontiers has devastated South America’s forests. Each of these commodities (sugar, gold, coffee, cattle and now soy) has also nourished the expanding capitalist world-economy.
But what about the forests that are still here? A closer reading of the archival record, alongside collaboration with Indigenous communities and analysis of satellite imagery, reveals another story: multi-generational resistance by a range of decentralised Indigenous societies has played a crucial role in the conservation of these biomes. This is a globe-spanning story, with the contrasting results of colonial conflicts in South America, North America and India highlighting the importance of long-term Indigenous resistance in forest survival.
Freg Stokes is an Australian historian and postdoctoral researcher at the Max Planck Institute of Geoanthropology in Jena, Germany. Over the last decade Freg has worked with Guaraní researchers in South America, mapping deforestation and Indigenous resistance to colonisation since 1500. His current research expands on this theme, drawing on archival sources to map capitalist expansion, deforestation and political resistance over the last five centuries on a global scale.
Date:
2 July 2025
17:45-19:15 (CEST)
Venue:
Seminar Room S252
Global South Studies Center (GSSC)
Classen-Kappelmannstr. 24, 50931 Köln