Social Conflicts over Extractivism in Latin America

2017

This book offers multidisciplinary perspective on contemporary development discussions in Latin America, marked on the one hand by the pursuit of economic growth, technological improvement and poverty reduction, and on the other hand by the growing concern over the preservation of the environment and human rights. It analyses some of the crucial challenges, contradictions and promises within current development, environmental and human rights practices in Latin America. Taking a multi-level perspective that links the local, national, regional and transnational levels of inquiry, the collection approaches questions concerned with the interaction of state and non-state actors in the promotion and opposition to natural resource development and how development policies have impacted on communities in the region and the promotion and protection of human rights. By focusing on the different, though interrelated levels of interaction (local, national, transnational), as well as actors and roles, the book contemplates the complex panorama of competing visions, concepts and interests grounded in mutual influences and dependencies that are shaping the contemporary arena of social-environmental conflicts in Latin America. The multi-dimensional scope of the book demonstrates the complexity of socio-environmental conflicts in Latin America and the mutual influences and interdependencies that are shaping the contemporary arena of social-environmental conflicts in Latin America. Table of contents: 1. Forces of resistance and human rights: deconstructing natural resource development in Latin America Malayna Raftopoulos and Radosław Powęska 2. Indigenous rights in the era of ‘indigenous state’: how interethnic conflicts and state appropriation of indigenous agenda hinder the challenge to extractivism in Bolivia Radosław Powęska 3. REDD+ and human rights in Latin America: addressing indigenous peoples’ concerns though the use of Human Rights Impact Assessments Malayna Raftopoulos 4. Violence in the actions of indigenous peoples from the Amazon region as a result of environmental conflicts Magdalena Krysińska-Kałużna 5. Neogeography, development and human rights in Latin America Doug Specht 6. From human rights to an urbanising environmental politics: understanding flood and landslide vulnerability in Brazil’s coastal mountains Robert Coates 7. Human rights and socio-environmental conflict in Nicaragua’s Grand Canal project Joanna Morley 8. Sustainable development, the politics of place and decoloniality: contradictory or complementary approaches to Latin American futures? Bogumila Lisocka-Jaegermann

Pacha:Defending the land, 2018

What is extractivism? Why is Latin America and the Caribbean the most dangerous region in the world for land defenders, environmental leaders, and activists? What are the impacts of extractivism on communities afected, women, indigenous and Afro-descendants? How do they stand before this process and what are their struggles and claims? What role do States, multinational corporations and other actors play in extractivism? Are there alternatives to extractivism? These are some of the questions that "Pacha: defending the land. Extractivism, Contests, and Alternatives in Latin America and the Caribbean "tries to respond. Visiting the protagonism of the communities affected by extractivism, we also want to show the multiplication of alternatives to development that generate diverse strategies for the defence of land and traditional ways of life, as well as the creation of new paradigms such as Good Living derived from knowledge and perspectives of the region's people.

ERLACS, 2015

Research related to extractive industries has grown significantly over the last decade. As the commodities boom appears to be winding down, this essay outlines areas for potential future research. Emphasis is placed on the need for research on: the relationships among extractivism, climate change and societal transitions; the aggregate effects of the commodity boom on the environment, on societal structures, on elite formation and on cultural politics; the implications of resource extraction on the couplings of space and power at different scales and with particular reference to the Colombian peace process; and the gendered and generation dimensions of the effects of extractivism on rights and citizenship. The paper calls for ongoing collaborations among scholars and activists, for greater collaboration among social and bio-physical scientists, for comparative analysis with regions beyond Latin America and for innovative ways of bridging research and the public sphere.

ERLACS, 2015

Indigenous Life Projects and Extractivism, 2018

The edited volume we present here examines indigenous life-making projects in the encounter with extractivist politics and operations. It includes ethnographic studies of Amerindian strategies performed to face the 'slow violence' (Nixon 2013) or the turbulences (Bessire 2014) undergone by human-nonhuman relationships in contexts and sites of extractivism in South America. We explore how alternative politics of nature are negotiated and mediated in arenas where the extractive industries increasingly privatise and commodify 'the common good' (Blaser and de la Cadena 2017). With attention to the continuous and asymmetrical confrontations and entanglements of different politics of nature, we examine the various ways in which extractivism actualises questions of ontological difference. We explore how indigeneity is represented, performed, and recreated-by

One of the main features of contemporary development politics in Latin America is the prominent role of the state. Another feature is the intensification of natural resource extraction. This extractivist drive is especially pronounced in the countries that are part of the 'turn to the left', which have at the same time played host to alternative development approaches. While Venezuela, Bolivia, and Ecuador have become emblematic of these processes, their impact can be felt across much of the region. These changes have emerged within a particular context in which the electoral successes of the leaders in power have been underwritten by promises to eradicate what has been seen as the two cardinal sins of neoliberal policies: poverty and inequality. Eschewing aggressive redistribution, they have sought to achieve redistributive extractivism accompanied with largely expanded expenditure for social policies. An 'extractive imperative' was thus borne as natural resource extraction came to be seen simultaneously as sources of income and employment generation and financing for increased social policy expenditure. According to this imperative, extraction needs to continue and expand regardless of prevailing circumstances, with the state playing a leading role and capturing a large share of the ensuing revenues.

The Oxford Encyclopedia of Latin American Politics, 2020

It is extremely dangerous to resist extractive megaprojects in Latin America. The intensive accumulation of natural resources for export on global markets has long characterized Latin America, but the boom in exports of raw commodities since 2000 has accentuated a violent history of dispossession. As of 2020, Latin America represents 60% of nature defenders killed in the world. Governments license natural resources at unprecedented rates, pushing land- and water-grabbing to new levels. Resistance against mining, oil, hydroelectric, and agribusiness projects is framed as antidevelopment and repressed with brutal violence. Governments are expanding the extractive frontier fast, promoting megaprojects in the name of national development or to fund social policies, a so-called redistributive neo-extractivism. This extractive consensus has increased social conflict across the region; but it has also inspired new forms of resistance. Resistance, which is mostly Indigenous and largely female, is a political struggle against extractive industries that represent ongoing forms of colonial dispossession. Resistance against extractivism focuses on the defense of nature as much as on rights to self-determination, a central element to shape a postextractive world. Ecuador is a case in point. The country recognizes international rights to prior consultation and established the first rights of nature framework in the world, yet it criminalizes nature defenders as it continues to expand the extractive frontier. The emerging rights of nature framework, like mining bans, are alternatives to extractivism that offer insights into experiences of resistance in the highlands of Ecuador. The Rio Blanco mine, an iconic megaproject financed by China, was suspended in 2018 thanks to a solid network of resistance that secured a broad mobilization of rural communities and urban youth, lawyers and academics, blending street protest with legal action. The Rio Blanco case shows the complementarity of various strategies, the potential of courts as allies, and the powerful coordination between social movements and government to contest structural dispossession.

Routledge eBooks, 2021

Centred in ecosocialist and ecofeminist perspectives, this paper examines the negative impact of extractivism as an economic activity that removes a huge amount of natural resources, and evaluates how global capital's ecological management, which I call "greening," has developed in Central and South America. Three questions are addressed: how the regional and local network on the governance of nature in Latin America has been organized; why extractivism strikes women hardest; and to what extent and how movements against extractivism have become involved in contesting global trends as well as national and local policies supporting them. The paper exposes the United Nations as a key force in the permanent model of colonialism, economic dependence, patriarchy, and geopolitical power characterizing extractivism.

Conservation and Society, 2015