Caminhos da «ecoviolência»

Abstract

The objective of this research project is to study the ecological context of the violence which underlies conflicts between political or ethnic groups where the background involves access to and control over scarce resources. The article also seeks to outline the pathways in the struggle for those scarce but vital resources, a struggle which is the crucial catalyst for forms of collective violence. The concept of «ecoviolence», developed by Thomas Homer-Dixon, is used here both in the sense of the violence generated by the search for control over those valuable natural resources, and in the sense of the corresponding violent responses to it.