Call for article submissions for dossier (Edition 2025.1) - The Brazilian Amazon under analysis
The submission period is now open for contributions to the The Brazilian Amazon under analysis: power, actors, and political dynamics in the recent trajectory dossier of Somanlu: Revista de Estudos Amazônicos, to be published in the first semester of 2025. Submissions must be made by May 15, 2025.
Guest Editors:
Prof. Arleth Santos Borges / Universidade Federal do Maranhão
Prof. Ivan Henrique Mattos e Silva / Universidade Federal do Amapá
The Legal Amazon is a complex and diverse region that comprises nine Brazilian federative units, located within the Amazon biome, which contains the largest river basin in the world. Its total area corresponds to approximately 60% of the national territory and accounts for nearly 70% of the planet's tropical forests. The region includes the states of Amazonas, Acre, Rondônia, and Roraima in Western Amazonia, as well as Pará, Amapá, Tocantins, Mato Grosso, and a large part of Maranhão in Eastern Amazonia. Nevertheless, it is essential to consider the existence of multiple “Amazons,” given the region’s plurality and diversity in economic, cultural, political, and social dimensions.
In recent years, political and social conflicts have intensified in the Brazilian Amazon. Mining, the construction of hydroelectric plants, the expansion of the agricultural frontier, the increasing cultivation of soy and livestock farming, and land conflicts illustrate a complex scenario that directly threatens the region’s traditional peoples and communities. This situation worsened significantly during Bolsonaro’s administration (2019–2022), when measures adopted by his ministries and technical teams weakened control and oversight institutions, displaced Indigenous peoples from their lands, halted demarcation processes, and explicitly supported loggers and illegal miners operating in these areas.
Although the Legal Amazon comprises a plurality of political and institutional trajectories, along with distinct patterns of electoral competition and party structuring, an important unifying trend has emerged since 2002 (and more markedly since 2014): despite regional specificities, all nine states in the region have undergone a significant electoral realignment, shifting their voting patterns toward the right of the ideological spectrum across all elections and positions.
This trend reached its peak in 2018, with the election of Jair Bolsonaro (then affiliated with the PSL) as President of the Republic. Of the nine governors elected that year, seven openly aligned themselves with the Bolsonarist camp, including governors from center-left parties with a history of alignment with the national PT (Workers’ Party), such as Waldez Góes (PDT) in Amapá. Similarly, twelve out of the eighteen senators elected were aligned with Bolsonaro, then a PSL candidate.
Although the 2022 elections marked a slight retreat in the conservative shift of voting patterns in the Amazon, Bolsonarist support remained strong. This time, six of the nine elected governors sided with Bolsonaro, while two supported Lula. Additionally, four out of nine senators openly endorsed Bolsonaro, compared to three who supported Lula and two who remained neutral. Notably, even Governor Wilson Lima (PSC) of Amazonas secured re-election with strong Bolsonarist appeal, despite the trauma experienced by Manaus at the height of the Covid-19 pandemic.
In this context, this dossier aims to explore recent political dynamics in the Brazilian Legal Amazon broadly, encompassing historical and interpretative aspects, electoral processes, and the role of social movements in the region. Special attention will be given to the social entrenchment of Bolsonarism — in its various forms — as well as the mobilization and traditions of resistance among traditional peoples and communities.
