Indigenous entrepreneurship in the Amazon rainforest: custodianship of traditions and the forest

Indigenous entrepreneurship is a vital phenomenon for the native communities of the Amazon. It is how these communities sustain themselves, bringing economic and social development. The relationship with the market becomes the channel for commercialising indigenous culture and the Amazon biodiversity. However, this interaction is frequently entrenched in tensions that represent a paradox: while, as entrepreneurs, they seek the development of the community, they also want to preserve the forest and maintain indigenous traditions and traditional knowledge. How do indigenous entrepreneurs deal with this duality? How do they balance this paradox, strengthening the protection of the forest, their traditions, and culture while dealing with the colonial legacy that emerges in their relationship with the market? This study delves into the Brazilian Amazon to investigate how indigenous entrepreneurship is critical in providing local social and economic development through entrepreneurship while maintaining and preserving traditions and nature despite the paradoxical duality that emerges from the relationship with the market. We theorise Custodian Entrepreneurship, connecting concepts of Intergenerational Traditional Knowledge, Place-based Worldview and Collective Governance as a triad that leads Indigenous entrepreneurship to play the role of Custodianship of Tradition and Forest.