Abstract
Departing from the emblematic munduruku and riverside peoples resistance context in face of the systematic attempts of imposing the São Luiz and Jatobá dams in the Tapajós river basin, Amazonia, between 2013 and 2015, I aim at drawing an analytical perspective able to grasp how the substantive character of the logic of progress/development - identified with the state - is embodied in ordinary life by multiple social actors. I identify two different modes through which this logic operates: rumor - which, as pointed out by Veena Das, characterizes the realization of what is only potentiality -, and non-performative - in which, according to Sara Ahmed, the speech act comes to stand in for the effects. I suggest that the persistence of the munduruku and the riverside peoples in their own self-determination processes was fundamental in order to enable the denaturalization of violence underlying the logic of progress/development, and so to expose its intentionality before the mega-enterprise became a fait accompli, allowing specific fortunate modes of resistance to flourish, even under enormous power balance disparities.
Keywords:
Collective Self-Determination; Critic of Progress/Development; Middle Tapajós; Resistance; Munduruku; Riverside Population