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Library Exhibit: "Garimpeiros" (February through August 2018)

Garimpeiros: The Wildcat Gold Miners of the Amazon Rainforest
February 9, 2018 throught August 31, 2018
Location: Ocean Gallery

The UCSB Library presents an exhibition of photographs of illegal gold mines in the Brazilian Amazon. Curated by Jeffrey Hoelle, UCSB Associate Professor of Anthropology.

The wildcat miners who work in the small-scale and often illegal gold mining camps of the Brazilian Amazon are known as garimpeiros. Across the centuries, garimpeiros have scoured the most remote reaches of the Amazon rainforest in search of gold. The garimpeiros unearth the gold that shines across the world, but they have the dirtiest of reputations. Gold mining is responsible for an estimated 10% Amazonian deforestation, as well as mercury contamination and sedimentation of vital rivers. In international news reports, garimpeiros are presented as violent and immoral villains pillaging the forest beyond the reach of the law. This exhibition provides a deeper understanding of Amazonian garimpeiros through anthropological research conducted in the garimpos in 2014 and 2015.

Grad Student Sarah Alami's Research Featured On UCSB Current

Grad student Sarah Alami's first-authored paper on the Tsimane indigenous population in the Bolivian Amazon has been featured in a new press release from The UCSB Current. Her research details how a harsh and unpredictable environment can impact an individual's willingness to seek available medical care in the Tsimane population.

The press release and the paper it features can be found here: http://www.news.ucsb.edu/2018/018753/pound-cure

Professor Stuart Smith Featured in Undark Magazine

Professor Stuart Smith's archaelogical project at Tombos has been featured in an article about Nubian archaeology in the online magazine Undark. It has also been reprinted in The Atlantic.

Read more about his project at Tombos here: https://undark.org/article/nubia-sudan-amara-west-archaeology/

Film Screening: Beyond Fordlandia

Workshop: Understanding Harmful Cultural Practices

Recent years have witnessed increased international commitments to eliminate cultural practices deemed harmful to women, particularly female genital cutting, child marriage and intimate partner violence. Addressing an urgent need to share insights across disciplines, this two-day workshop brings together evolutionary and cultural anthropologists, demographers, sociologists, political scientists and economists, working to understand the origins and drivers of so-called ‘harmful cultural practices’. Invited speakers will share their recent work questioning and informing current efforts of the international development sector, and government and multilateral agencies seeking to discourage harmful behaviors and promote female empowerment. Discussion sessions will focus on cross-cutting issues such as context-dependency in the evidence for harm, the motivations and interactions of multiple actors that maintain ostensibly harmful practices, methodological considerations when working with sensitive research topics, and the evaluation and design of behavior change initiatives.

The workshop is generously funded by the UCSB College of Letters and Science and the Broom Center for Demography. Image: Taken from a poster advertising the dangers of early marriage in Mwanza, Tanzania.

Please see the following link for more details: https://davidwlawson.wordpress.com/2018workshop/

UCSB Library Exhibit: "Garimpeiros"

The UCSB Library presents an exhibition of photographs of illegal gold mines in the Brazilian Amazon. Curated by Jeffrey Hoelle, UCSB Associate Professor of Anthropology.

The wildcat miners who work in the small-scale and often illegal gold mining camps of the Brazilian Amazon are known as garimpeiros. Across the centuries, garimpeiros have scoured the most remote reaches of the Amazon rainforest in search of gold. The garimpeiros unearth the gold that shines across the world, but they have the dirtiest of reputations. Gold mining is responsible for an estimated 10% Amazonian deforestation, as well as mercury contamination and sedimentation of vital rivers. In international news reports, garimpeiros are presented as violent and immoral villains pillaging the forest beyond the reach of the law. This exhibition provides a deeper understanding of Amazonian garimpeiros through anthropological research conducted in the garimpos in 2014 and 2015.

Pacific Views Series: Jeffrey Hoelle, "The Anthropology of Rainforest Destruction"

Pacific Views: Library Speaker Series Presents - The Anthropology of Rainforest Destruction

Tue, 02/13/2018 - 4:00pm

Location: Pacific View Room

The UCSB Library presents a talk by Jeffrey Hoelle (UCSB Anthropology) to be followed by a public reception.

The Amazon rainforest is a land of incredible biological and cultural diversity that plays a crucial role in global environment health. Yet the rainforest continues to be cut down to produce commodities, particularly cattle, soy, and gold. While we know that a combination of economic factors and governmental policies contribute to these destructive activities, on-the-ground research with groups making land-use decisions helps to better understand the socio-cultural context and logic of deforestation. Drawing on a decade of his anthropological research with cattle ranchers and gold miners in the Brazilian Amazon, Hoelle discusses the beliefs, values, and interests that contribute to destructive behaviors. His work explores the strategies that these ranchers and miners use to elude government surveillance and deforestation regulations, and sheds light on some of the ongoing challenges to more sustainable and just alternatives in Amazonia.

Jeffrey Hoelle is a cultural anthropologist and the author of Rainforest Cowboys: The Rise of Ranching and Cattle Culture in Western Amazonia. His collaborative research in the gold mines of Amazonia, funded by the National Geographic Society, is the subject of the current UCSB Library exhibition, “Garimpeiros: The Wildcat Gold Miners of the Amazon Rainforest.”

The Pacific Views: Library Speaker Series is co-sponsored by the Office of the Executive Vice Chancellor.