Drawing on fieldwork with Brazil’s Movimento dos Atingidos por Barragens (MAB), the author argues that MAB’s struggle is not just around those affected by dam projects; rather it is a part of a larger “alter-globalization” project. The author posits that MAB is not simply a social movement actor but a producer of knowledge that articulates theory and praxis resisting the larger hegemonic imperialist system. In this paper the following questions are explored: What can academia learn from social movements? How do scholars produce research that does not reinforce power hierarchies? And how do we create collaborative research?