The contradictory languages of fishing and gold panning in the Peruvian Amazon

This article examines multiple and changing development discourses and communicative practices of the Arakmbut, a fishing, hunting and gold panning people in the Southeast Peruvian Amazon. It does this through an investigation of their self-development or ‘life project’ as it has unfolded over a period of thirty years in co-existence and contestation with multiple and changing development practices. Taking three moments of change or ‘scenarios’ focused on the river Pukiri, a major source of fish and mineral resources, the paper investigates the discourses and practices of resource exploitation, indigenous rights and biodiversity conservation and the languages, literacies and oracies embedded in them. It asks what these development discourses and their associated communicative practices mean for the Arakmbut and their fishing in terms of their vision and strategies for defining and managing their future