{"product_id":"a-future-for-amazonia-randy-borman-and-cofan-environmental-politics","title":"A Future for Amazonia: Randy Borman and Cofán Environmental Politics","description":"\u003cp\u003eBlending ethnography with a fascinating personal story, \u003ci\u003eA Future for Amazonia\u003c\/i\u003e is an account of a political movement that arose in the early 1990s in response to decades of attacks on the lands and peoples of eastern Ecuador, one of the world's most culturally and biologically diverse places. After generations of ruin at the hands of colonizing farmers, transnational oil companies, and Colombian armed factions, the indigenous Cof?n people and their rain forest territory faced imminent jeopardy. In a surprising turn of events, the Cof?n chose Randy Borman, a man of Euro-American descent, to lead their efforts to overcome the crisis that confronted them.\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eDrawing on three years of ethnographic research, \u003ci\u003eA Future for Amazonia\u003c\/i\u003e begins by tracing the contours of Cof?n society and Borman's place within it. Borman, a blue-eyed, white-skinned child of North American missionary-linguists, was raised in a Cof?n community and gradually came to share the identity of his adoptive nation. He became a global media phenomenon and forged creative partnerships between Cof?n communities, conservationist organizations, Western scientists, and the Ecuadorian state. The result was a collective mobilization that transformed the Cof?n nation in unprecedented ways, providing them with political power, scientific expertise, and a new role as ambitious caretakers of more than one million acres of forest. Challenging simplistic notions of identity, indigeneity, and inevitable ecological destruction, \u003ci\u003eA Future for Amazonia\u003c\/i\u003e charts an inspiring course for environmental politics in the twenty-first century.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eAbout the Author\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cp\u003eMichael Cepek is Assistant Professor of Anthropology at the University of Texas at San Antonio and a fellow in the Division of Environment, Culture, and Conservation at the Field Museum of Natural History. He began working with the Cofán people of Amazonian Ecuador in 1994 and continues to collaborate with them on academic and activist projects.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cbr\u003e","brand":"University of Texas Press","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":50318837088530,"sku":"9780292739505","price":27.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0831\/4771\/8930\/files\/img_bd22008b-3f79-4197-856c-185fd67c462a.jpg?v=1727561606","url":"https:\/\/surprise-castle.myshopify.com\/products\/a-future-for-amazonia-randy-borman-and-cofan-environmental-politics","provider":"Surprise Castle","version":"1.0","type":"link"}