Before the Flood: The Itaipu Dam and the Visibility of Rural Brazil

Blanc Jacob

ISBN 10: 1478004894 / ISBN 13: 9781478004899

Published by Duke University Press, 2019

About this Item

pp. 320.

Seller Inventory # 369598893

Bibliographic Details

• Title: Before the Flood: The Itaipu Dam and the Visibility of Rural Brazil
• Publisher: Duke University Press
• Publication Date: 2019
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1478004894
• ISBN 13: 9781478004899
• Binding: Soft cover
• Condition: New

About this title

Synopsis

In Before the Flood Jacob Blanc traces the protest movements of rural Brazilians living in the shadow of the Itaipu dam—the largest producer of hydroelectric power in the world. In the 1970s and 1980s, local communities facing displacement took a stand against the military officials overseeing the dam's construction, and in the context of an emerging national fight for democracy, they elevated their struggle for land into a referendum on the dictatorship itself. Unlike the broader campaign against military rule, however, the conflict at Itaipu was premised on issues that long predated the official start of dictatorship: access to land, the defense of rural and indigenous livelihoods, and political rights in the countryside. In their efforts against Itaipu and through conflicts among themselves, title-owning farmers, landless peasants, and the Avá-Guarani Indians articulated a rural-based vision for democracy. Through interviews and archival research—including declassified military documents and the first-ever access to the Itaipu Binational Corporation—Before the Flood challenges the primacy of urban-focused narratives and unearths the rural experiences of dictatorship and democracy in Brazil.

About the Author

Jacob Blanc is Lecturer in Latin American History at the University of Edinburgh and coeditor of Big Water: The Making of the Borderlands between Brazil, Argentina, and Paraguay.