Globalization and the Americas

Globalization and the Americas is dedicated to understanding the major social, political and economic developments taking place in the Americas. The ever deepening process of globalization has ruptured the hemisphere's frontiers, not only for international capital and trade, but also for the peoples of the Americas who migrate across national frontiers in ever increasing numbers in search of a better life.

The program's activities range from investigative reporting trips to Latin America to participation in conferences and seminars to discuss issues related to globalization and the development of popular movements. We conduct research on the US empire and US foreign policy, including opposition within the United States to imperial wars and intervention in Latin America.

Globalization and the Americas releases news articles on important developments in the hemisphere that are often picked up by a variety of publications and web sites. It also publishes articles in selected journals, and publishes books on critical trends in the Americas.

At present the project is working on a book, The New Fire in the Americas: Popular Challenges to Failing States and a Faltering Empire. Its central thesis is that there is a new rebellion in the Americas, one that provides hope and inspiration in the midst of a world ravished by imperial wars. It is a fire that is burning on many fronts, with differing intensities, one that flares up at unexpected moments in unpredictable locations throughout the hemisphere.

Roger Burbach is coordinator of Globalization and the Americas, working with CENSA Associates Adam Sgrenci, Paul Cantor and Isabella Kenfield on the program.

The Dark Side of Brazil's Agribusiness Boom: Violence, Mutiny and Environmental Pillage in the Amazon

Isabella Kenfield

October 13, 2008

As Brazil's economy booms from rising agricultural commodity prices worldwide, conflicts over land in the Amazon-where the agricultural frontier is rapidly expanding-are also on the rise. At times, the region appears to be ungovernable for the administration of President Luis Inácio "Lula" da Silva and the governing Workers' Party (PT), which face strong pressure to yield to the interests of regional, national and international agribusiness.

Since it came to power in 2003, the Lula government has been embroiled in a conflict between six large-scale rice growers and 19,000 indigenous people over 4.2 million acres of Amazon grassland, forest and river called Raposa Serra do Sol, in the northernmost state of Roraíma, on the border with Venezuela and Guiana. Today, the land dispute threatens to provoke a civil war in the region.