Indigenous women against Bolsonaros government in Brazil: Resisting right-wing authoritarianism and demanding climate justice

This chapter discusses the role of the Brazilian indigenous women movement in climate change politics. It focuses on the standpoint of indigenous women in the political intersection of Bolsonaro’s anti-environment and anti-indigenous rights agendas, two important pillars of Brazil’s position towards global climate justice. It shows how indigenous women movements took the lead on indigenous rights mobilization and recurred to several available strategies, connecting their communities to a highly institutionalised field of activism and disputed national and international arenas. They became key political actresses in climate politics and an important counterpoint to Brazil’s right-wing government vision on climate change and on indigenous peoples’ rights. The chapter ultimately discusses how the context of contemporary neoliberalism and antidemocratic politics has put the movement under severe pressure and attack, but it was also an opportunity for indigenous women to gain voice both in the resistance to the government and in the global activist field for climate justice.