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The book seeks to debate the space of interaction that has emerged between federal government and rural communities during the implementation of a state-sponsored socio-environmental development programme at community level in Brazilian Amazonia. This book seeks to show how demands from the grass- roots has scaled up to public policy, incorporated changes and has scaled down to local communities during the implementation process. Secondly, it investigates how a state-sponsored development programme using a popular participation approach, carried out by federal government and intermediated by NGOs interacts with, and impacts on, local communities. Through a methodology involving three levels of qualitative analysis (macro-, intermediary- and local-level), the study reconstitutes the socio- political context that influenced the creation of the development programme, describes the mechanisms of interaction between the federal government and the rural communities, points to the factors that have facilitated and/or hampered the implementation of the programme and reveals contradictions within its actions.

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is a senior lecturer at University of Amazonia. She is a sociologist and holds MPhl from the Centre of Advanced Amazonian Studies, Federal University of Pará (Brazil) and Phd from the Centre for Development Studies, Swansea University (United Kingdom), both in development studies.

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