Ontological violence in the case of the ‘Paiter Suruí Carbon Credit REDD+ Project’

Sustainability initiatives are increasingly engaging with Indigenous realities across the world. Developed through a diversity of frameworks and supported by public and private actors, sustainability initiatives involve claims of conservation and development. However, such development notions often presume common ground between Indigenous realities and sustainability initiatives, neglecting foundational differences that can lead to contemporary forms of colonization and violence. In this paper, we explore how sustainability initiatives and Indigenous realities engage with each other by empirically engaging with the ‘Paiter Suruí Carbon Credit REDD+ Project’ in Rondônia - Brazil. Drawing from a political ontology lens, we examine ethical imposition and ontological violence over the life of this program, describing their mechanisms. We argue that despite the positive potentials of such programs, sustainability initiatives can lead to a process by which indigenous modes of life are disrupted by the imposition of external discourses and practices.