Constructing conservationists: Identity politics and processes in Amazonian sustainable development plans

This dissertation explores how people articulate their identities in often highly pragmatic ways, as a means of furthering their legitimacy in relation to target audiences and in particular social contexts. The subject is the framework of sustainable development in Brazil, and the theoretical tool used to explore it is constructivism. Based primarily on ethnographic field research in three case studies, the dissertation demonstrates how social identities and political processes are mutually constitutive. The process is not merely linear; people are shaped by the articulations of sustainability which are advanced by others. The actors who benefit most from the sustainable development land use plans are those able to articulate and deploy an identity framework for themselves as sustainable actors. Even though it is an ill-defined normative framework, sustainable development is also an organizing tool and political point of contact. As identities are constructed in relation to the norm of sustainable development, this dissertation shows how it is something which gains resonance, entails liabilities and is simultaneously fraught with tension.