Expulsion by suffocation: Soybean plantations, toxicity, and land grabbing in the Brazilian Amazon.

This article focuses on the concept of "expulsion by suffocation" to analyze how the glyphosate-driven expansion of soybean plantations in the Lower Tapajós region of the Brazilian Amazon causes slow, chemical, and epistemological violence that displaces Indigenous, Quilombola, and riverine communities. Drawing on eighteen months of ethnographic research, it shows how glyphosate acts both literally—causing respiratory harm and crop failure—and metaphorically—choking knowledge production and traditional ways of life—thereby rendering territories uninhabitable and reinforcing colonial-military imaginaries of an "empty Amazon." The study highlights local narratives of suffocation and dispossession, the masking of these harms through "farces" such as scattered forest strips and roadside houses, and the political resistance of communities like the Tupinambá, who cultivate "living territories" as alternatives to agroindustrial monocultures. By integrating frameworks on slow and chemical violence with counter-plantation dynamics, the article contributes to understanding the socio-environmental impacts of industrial agriculture and the ongoing struggles to defend Amazonian life and land.