Institute at Brown for Environment and Society

Luiz Paulo Ferraz, a PhD candidate in History from Brazil, is spending the 2023-2024 Academic Year traveling through various Brazilian cities. His journey involves interviewing Indigenous leaders, their allies, and government officials while examining historical documents in private and public archives. All this is part of his research for his dissertation, tentatively titled "Becoming 'the Real Climate Leaders:' The Rise of Brazilian Indigenous Peoples as Environmental Defenders in the Global Political Arena." Luiz Paulo's work looks at how Indigenous and environmental issues overlapped during the Brazilian military dictatorship era (1964-1985) and its aftermath, and how this influenced debates on Indigenous and environmental rights both within and outside Brazil.