The establishment of soy moratorium in Brazilian Amazon rainforest: Strategic environmental action to exploit opportunities in multiple fields

Author(s)

Silvio Eduardo Alvarez Candido ^[1]

Affiliation

^[1] Universidade Federal de São Carlos - Brasil

• Document type: Journal article
• Source: Sociologias; v. 25, 2023-11-27.

Abstract

Abstract The paper addresses how environmental movement organizations were able to establish the soy moratorium in the Brazilian Amazon. It combines the Strategic Action Field (SAFs) perspective with ideas of social movements theory, addressing markets as cultural, political and historical constructions. Qualitative research was conducted using data from multiple sources. Debating with authors who conceptualized the political opportunity structures (POS) of markets, we demonstrate that these may be better understood as an ensemble of interconnected SAFs. In order to deal with closed POS in the Amazon, environmental organizations had to strategically shift the scale and internationalize their protests, identifying and taking advantage of openings in European sectors and companies and pressuring them into using their force to transform the practices of major soy traders. (AU)

• FAPESP's process: 20/16236-7 - Financial restrictions for actors in the soy and cattle beef production chains involved in the illegal deforestation of the Amazon Rainforest: may the financial field contribute to forest conservation?
• Grantee: Silvio Eduardo Alvarez Candido
• Support Opportunities: Regular Research Grants
• FAPESP's process: 18/00292-5 - Environmental criticisms and the transformations in the production of soybeans and beef in the Brazilian Amazon
• Grantee: Silvio Eduardo Alvarez Candido
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships abroad - Research