A Future for Amazonia: Randy Borman and Cofán Environmental Politics

Blending ethnography with a fascinating personal story, A Future for Amazonia is an account of a political movement that arose in the early 1990s in response to decades of attacks on the lands and peoples of eastern Ecuador, one of the world's most culturally and biologically diverse places. After generations of ruin at the hands of colonizing farmers, transnational oil companies, and Colombian armed factions, the indigenous Cof n people and their rainforest territory faced imminent jeopardy. In a surprising turn of events, the Cof n chose Randy Borman, a man of Euro-American descent, to lead their efforts to overcome the crisis that confronted them. Drawing on three years of ethnographic research, A Future for Amazonia begins by tracing the contours of Cof n society and Borman's place within it. Borman, a blue-eyed, white-skinned child of North American missionary-linguists, was raised in a Cof n community and gradually came to share the identity of his adoptive nation. He became a global media phenomenon and forged creative partnerships between Cof n communities, conservationist organizations, Western scientists, and the Ecuadorian state. The result was a collective mobilization that transformed the Cof n nation in unprecedented ways, providing them with political power, scientific expertise, and a new role as ambitious caretakers of more than one million acres of forest. Challenging simplistic notions of identity, indigeneity, and inevitable ecological destruction, A Future for Amazonia charts an inspiring course for environmental politics in the twenty-first century.

Author: Michael L. Cepek
Publisher: University of Texas Press
Published: 11/01/2012
Pages: 272
Binding Type: Paperback
Weight: 0.92lbs
Size: 9.20h x 6.20w x 0.90d
ISBN: 9780292739505

Review Citation(s):
Choice 05/01/2013

About the Author
Michael Cepek is Assistant Professor of Anthropology at the University of Texas at San Antonio and a fellow in the Division of Environment, Culture, and Conservation at the Field Museum of Natural History. He began working with the Cofán people of Amazonian Ecuador in 1994 and continues to collaborate with them on academic and activist projects.