Representations and discourses: the role of local accounts and remote sensing in the formulation of Amazonia's environmental policy

This paper discusses the dynamics behind the establishment of scientific representations (e.g. reports, measurements, experiments) to the detriment of local representations (e.g. oral accounts, metaphors, symbols) in environmental policy-making in the Global South. To this end, the paper attempts to understand why local accounts of the Amazon in recent decades have gradually been replaced by satellite-based remote sensing (RS) technology in the region's policy-making. RS technology is shown to provide representations that match policy-makers discourses as regards the importance of: visibility, since satellite images are believed to provide a transparent window from which the Amazon can be seen by policy-makers working from centres of power; comprehensiveness, since the data obtained through RS claims to represent the entire region; and determinacy, as forecasting and spatial correlation techniques establish deterministic links between particular factors (e.g. the presence of farmers, inflation) and environmental issues (e.g. increases in deforestation). From this examination, it is argued that rather than focusing on identifying the essential differences between local and scientific representation, more attention should be paid to how different kinds of representations are in harmony or conflict with historically rooted governance discourses. The article also indicates that in order to revalue local representations in environmental policy-making it is necessary to challenge particular discourses which are “taken-for-granted” in governance practices at the present time.