Reimagining Development with Indigenous People: Reflections from the São Gabriel da Cachoeira Workshop

Abstract

Across the world, development is either failing or threatening indigenous peoples. The Brazil Reimagining Development event was held in the small Amazonian town of São Gabriel da Cachoeira, an important centre of indigenous political organisation which has recently elected an indigenous?led municipal administration. The discussions that took place there ranged across the themes of climate change, democratic governance and health system reform, and emphasised the profound ambivalence of the concept of ‘development’ for indigenous peoples. Indigenous participants highlighted the socially and environmentally destructive consequences of dominant development models, and called for greater access to opportunities and services to be combined with greater respect for their knowledges and greater responsiveness to their realities. In the process, they highlighted some of the key challenges that face efforts to reimagine development strategies for a world in which poverty is increasingly to be found among marginalised minorities in large and unequal middle?income countries.