Neo-extractivism

In this chapter, we contribute to the decolonial feminisms that are expanding our understanding of extractive geographies and political ecologies of the subsoil. In this, we take extractivism to denote both the material processes of removal as well as a particular logic (not only of economic accumulation but of being) that renders materials, territories and bodies extractible (and necessarily so). We critically examine the ways in which these extractive logics and processes frequently initiate and condone racialised sexualised violence. In this, we argue that intersectional violence is at the heart of extractivism. Extraction settles within internal ecologies (including ecologies of health and disease) in ways that reaffirm colonial logics of race and sexuality. This broadening of the meaning of extractivism is important in understanding (a) how extraction operates through multiple forms and scales of power and (b) its intersectional and pluriform impacts. Sexual violence, we conclude, is at the centre of racialised extractivism; this is illustrated in corporate language and the more informal logics of residential tourism, both of which are united by colonial logics that would render black life disposable. We conclude with reflections on the value of decolonial feminist dialogue-as-critique that attends to the resonances across and between black women’s experiences of extractivism.

En partant d’une enquête ethnographique au long cours (2014-2017) portant sur le mouvement « sur la voie 96 » d’Imider, cet article interroge les modalités de politisation des communautés marginalisées. Située au sud-est du Maroc, Imider est une petite commune rurale connue pour abriter le plus grand gisement d’argent en Afrique. L’exploitation du gisement minier par le groupe Managem, filiale de la holding royale, fait face à une contestation forte de la part des communautés locales depuis ses débuts dans les années 1970. Ce faisant, c’est à partir de 2011, que les habitants d’Imider se sont organisés autour d’un mouvement « sur la voie 96 » pour revendiquer d’abord, un droit à l’eau, puis, de manière générale, une juste répartition des richesses. Les militants ont occupé le « Mont Alebban » et fermé, durant les neuf dernières années, la principale vanne de la pompe à eau ravitaillant la mine. En partant d’une description des manières dont le mouvement « sur la voie 96 » a réussi à s’imposer dans l’espace public et plus largement dans le champ politique, l’objectif visé par cet article est d’inscrire l’étude des mobilisations des communautés marginalisées dans une analyse politique plus globale. L’hypothèse défendue vise ainsi à montrer en quoi une étude qui prend au sérieux les ressorts politiques des mobilisations des marges peut aider à comprendre le processus de changement et de transformation socio-politiques en cours au Maroc depuis 2011.

This article argues that the (Western-oriented) right to religion has been proven inadequate in protecting Indigenous Peoples’ rights. It recognizes that this is partly because of the distinctive characteristics of Indigenous religions, which differ from other dominant religions, but also because of the way in which religion has been used by colonialism with dramatic effects on Indigenous Peoples and their beliefs, spiritualities, and worldviews. The article focuses on Latin America to argue further that in addition to colonialism, the early Constitutions also attacked Indigenous religions. As Indigenous rights are more acknowledged in Latin America, we take this region as an excellent, albeit painful, example of how Indigenous religions have been pushed aside even in the most positive contexts. The article uses the constitutional and legal arrangements in Latin American states, mainly Ecuador and Bolivia, to critically assess the protection that these favorable to Indigenous People...

Pedro Neves Marques addresses the hangover in relation to the ideology of progress as translated into the concept of desenvolvimentismo ("developmentism") in Brazil, within the nascent neoliberal right of South America. In doing so, Neves Marques analyzes the work of artist Beto Shwafaty and architect Paulo Tavares's architectural research into the Amazon region and beyond. ← Prev

Este libro surge de la tensión entre visiones esperanzadas que consideran que los espacios cibernéticos  propician nuevas temáticas, estrategias y prácticas para los movimientos sociales contemporáneos, y visiones pesimistas que, ante la precariedad de los logros obtenidos en el mundo real y ante la intensificación de la vigilancia virtual, consideran que la tecnologización de las luchas puede minar la participación o exponer a las organizaciones a la neutralización. Dicha tecnologización puede estar cooptando las agendas de los movimientos, absorbiendo porciones importantes de sus limitados recursos, desviando las energías hacia luchas más virtuales que reales, y contribuyendo a insertarlos involuntariamente en la lógica del capitalismo posfordista por medio de la captura sistemática de sus datos con fines biopolíticos. Pero el uso de internet por los movimientos sociales puede estar permitiendo nuevas maneras de incrementar su capital social, abriendo nuevos campos de batallas identitarias, políticas y comunicacionales. El establecimiento de agenda, otrora privilegio exclusivo de los grandes medios empieza a fracturarse y se potencia lo que los zapatistas llaman la globalización de la rebeldía. El uso de Internet como parte de estrategias transmediáticas puede generar impacto social desde el momento mismo de su concepción y producción. Quince autores latinoamericanos y europeos analizan teorías, experiencias y casos en Chile, Argentina, Colombia, México, Estados Unidos, Guinea Ecuatorial, Birmania e Irán.

Valencia, Juan-Carlos y Garcia, Claudia Pilar (Editores). 2014.  Movimientos Sociales e Internet. Bogotá. Editorial Javeriana  ISBN: 978-958-716-717-7.

https://es.scribd.com/document/318786221/Movimientos-Sociales-e-Internet-Juan-Carlos-Valencia-y-Claudia-Pilar-Garcia-Editores

Winona LaDuke es una escritora y activista Anishinaabe de Minessota, el presente libro describe la lucha de los pueblos indígenas de EUA contra las políticas de despojo extractivista y ecocidio sistemático, en lo que podría considerarse una continuación actualizada del manifiesto de Deloria.

In the Latin American context social unrest surrounding extractive economies is  growing due to global capitalism, social disintegration and environmental degradation.  In this way, “extractive” capitalism and the territory it occupies cannot be understood  only as a economic activity that occurs within inert spaces, but as places where the  reproduction of biosocial life is happening continuously, having as a result the symbiosis
of space and social life that is indivisible. I will examine the social effects of a  hydroelectric project that started on 2010 and currently under construction,  in the  Cauca River Canyon, Department of Antioquia, in the Northwest of Colombia, South  America. 
The study attempts to explore how communities and their lands are being  produced and reproduced through  discourse, as a result of strategies that the  hydroelectric company and the State – at different levels of  governance - have begun  to employ to disrupt and create malleable communities. In Latin America,  companies
began using  this method as a socialization process and have been able to impose and  legitimize the new extractive  model from above.

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 affected, 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.

This thesis examines how the dispute over the Bolivian government’s plan to construct a highway through the TIPNIS indigenous territory and national park in Amazonian Bolivia crystallizes the divergent visions and politics at play in realizing development projects in the TIPNIS. While progressive indigenous and environmental rights were inscribed in the 2009 Bolivian constitution, I argue that the government’s plan to impose the TIPNIS highway is a settler colonial project to dispossess the TIPNIS communities of their lands. This is facilitated by a national government—civilian colonist complicity that undermines the TIPNIS sovereignty and brings the TIPNIS territory under increasing governance and regulation under a post-frontier governance regime. I furthermore employ a framework I call knowledge articulation to examine the struggles of different actors to resist and/or implement varying development visions, which sometimes overlap and at other times compete with each other, in the TIPNIS. All of these projects demonstrate that the Bolivian decolonial path is fundamentally an amalgam: articulated knowledges, hybrid economies, and development outcomes that are resisted, contested, and negotiated configurations of various actors’ uneven authority, expertise and power.

Latin America is one of the regions facing many disasters with some of the worse impacts. The current governance model has not proven successful in disaster risk reduction. This article aims to theoretically analyse the relationship between ideal regional disaster risk governance (DRG) and the actual production of disaster risk in Latin America. From the so-called ‘vulnerability paradigm’ and a regional standpoint, this analysis contributes to the debate with a specific focus on ‘neo-extractivism.’ Pointing mainly to sociopolitical processes triggered as of the early 2000s in Latin America, ‘neo-extractivism’ relates to a regional ecological-political pattern of intensive natural resource exploitation. The first part of this article presents a regional overview of DRG and its scope in disaster risk reduction, analysing its ineffectiveness through the lens of the neoliberal governmentality problem. The second part deals with the issue of ‘neo-extractivism’ to outline the actual links...

En este artículo se presenta la experiencia chilena en la constitución de lo que el autor denomina paisaje extractivista nacional, observando cómo el neoliberalismo en este país se instaló, a partir de la década de los 70’ del siglo XX, paralelamente a la instauración del despojo territorial y la búsqueda de alternativas para el ingreso del capital transnacional en minería, que constituirán los pilares del extractivismo en el país, desde los que se establecerán las bases institucionales para la ampliación de éste en Latinoamérica a finales de la década del 90’. Junto a ello y mediante la exposición del caso de la Región de Atacama, del norte de Chile, el autor muestra los resultados del extractivismo en el marco de un desarrollo empobrecedor.

El modelo forestal chileno ha transformado el territorio del centro-sur del
país mediante el desarrollo de plantaciones extensivas, deteriorando las relaciones ambientales (sociedad-ecosistemas). Este trabajo presenta una crítica a dicho modelo, planteando que hoy se legitima con la imagen modernizadora de la economía verde mientras su estructura de corte neo-extractivista esconde un modelo territorial insustentable. Para ello, se estudia cómo el modelo ha afectado la territorialidad de comunidades indígenas y campesinas de las zonas rurales de La Unión, tras la inequitativa distribución de los beneficios económicos y los costos socio-ecológicos

Have the achievements of the various left-leaning states set stage for further revolutionary breaks with the current order, or have they reached a dead end? To answer this, we might look beyond the state, to movements, margins, and social practices offering alternatives to capitalism. Raquel Gutiérrez, participant alongside García Linera in the Bolivian group Comuna, a onetime forum for theoretical work on and among Bolivian social movements, approaches the issue from an angle opposite her former collaborator. She cites ‘an exclusive epistemic disjunction between State-centered politics and autonomous politics’. In this view, the revolutionary potential of Latin America was never encapsulated by states or charismatic leaders, and still less by their rhetoric. The possibilities for an alternative to capitalism have always been strongest at the grassroots. This distinction, says Gutiérrez, presents itself as an irreducible political choice: on the one hand, to ‘“occupy” public posts in order to “consolidate” what has been won’ and ‘change some of the most oppressive social relations’, or on the other, ‘to develop and expand the range of autonomy in everyday life as to propel struggles and impose limits on the capitalist devastation of life in general’. She places herself squarely in the latter camp. Her formulation, however, likewise suggests reduced expectations. To enter the state and seek reform, or to seek reform at the level of everyday life? The shared moderation between two otherwise divergent figures casts doubt on the prospects for revolution. Where, if anywhere, are the possibilities for a further political and economic rupture?

In the following, I examine the Bolivian case more closely in order to address these questions. Bolivia is arguably the most successful example among the Latin American countries that have made a left turn, facing neither economic crisis nor national right-wing political opposition. But even there the ruling Movimiento al Socialismo (MAS) faced a recent defeat when their attempts to alter the constitution and permit Morales to run for a fourth term were upset in a referendum. A deeper exploration of recent Bolivian history that outlines its objective political obstacles, as well as subjective failures and missed opportunities, will permit some observations on the issue of revolutionary viability in Latin America today, as well as the meaning and strategies of revolution more generally.

Este libro presenta un análisis crítico del proceso bolivariano liderado por Hugo Chávez, desde una perspectiva decolonial y haciendo un recorrido histórico-geográfico en la configuración del extractivismo y la Venezuela petrolera contemporánea. Se propone una lectura crítica del consensuado ideal del "desarrollo", la construcción de 'soberanía nacional' y la dominación de la Naturaleza como ejes centrales, y la forma cómo se expresó en la llamada 'Revolución Bolivariana'. Se evalúan las continuidades y rupturas en el devenir del Petro-Estado venezolano, en un proceso político que anunciaba cambios radicales. La idea de Chávez de la 'Venezuela Potencia Energética Mundial', orientada hacia la continua búsqueda de un nuevo Dorado, esta vez en la Faja Petrolífera del Orinoco, recreaba el viejo fantasma de la 'Gran Venezuela'. El libro se distancia de una lectura polarizada, que ha sido dominante en el país, y propone una lectura multidisciplinaria, articulando la economía política, la geografía crítica y la ecología política, en busca de una interpretación integral del problema extractivismo, el rentismo petrolero, el Petro-Estado y la colonialidad.

Al incio del siglo XXI los altos precios para los commodities en el mercado global permitieron a varios países dependientes de recursos materiales una fase de un (relativo) bienestar económico. En este contexto, el debate académico internacional puso mucho énfasis en el caso latinoamericano donde se logró combinar crecimiento económico con importantes mejoras de los principales indicadores sociales y legitimidad democrática. No obstante, voces críticas señalaron las negativas consecuencias ecológicas de la intensificación de la explotación de los recursos naturales y subrayaron que los modelos de desarrollo basados en materias primas suelen estar propensos a crisis. La caída de los precios de los recursos naturales desde 2013/2014 demostraron estos problemas estructurales de los modelos basados en la extracción y exportación de materias primas. La actual crisis relativiza o incluso cuestiona totalmente los logros de desarrollos del inicio del siglo XXI. La publicación „Nada dura para siempre: Neo-extractivismo tras el boom de las materias primas“ indaga en estudios de casos y comparaciones desde diferentes perspectivas las consecuencias económicas, sociales, políticas y socio-ambientales del Neo-extractivismo y de la reciente caída de los precios de los commodities para los modelos de desarrollo basados en recursos naturales de América Latina. Las distintas contribuciones analizan especialmente los retos que se presentan a las políticas económicas sociales y laborales para efectuar un cambio hacia modelos de desarrollo más sostenibles y una mayor diversificació ecónomica  en América Latina. Para este fin, el libro reúne investigaciones que se vinculan a una cooperación académica entre la cátedra de Relaciones Internacionales e Intersocietales de la Universidad de Kassel, el International Center for Development and Decent Work y la Unidad de Información Socio-Ambiental de la Universidad Andina Simón Bolívar en Quito / Ecuador.

Exploring indigenous life projects in encounters with extractivism, the present open access volume discusses how current turbulences actualise questions of indigeneity, difference and ontological dynamics in the Andes and Amazonia. While studies of extractivism in South America often focus on wider national and international politics, this contribution instead provides ethnographic explorations of indigenous politics, perspectives and worlds, revealing loss and suffering as well as creative strategies to mediate the extralocal. Seeking to avoid conceptual imperialism or the imposition of exogenous categories, the chapters are grounded in the respective authors’ long-standing field research. The authors examine the reactions (from resistance to accommodation), consequences (from anticipation to rubble) and materials (from fossil fuel to water) diversely related to extractivism in rural and urban settings. How can Amerindian strategies to preserve localised communities in extractivist contexts contribute to ways of thinking otherwise?

Estudio sobre las Industrias y Proyectos Extractivos (IPE) en Guatemala.

Contiene elementos teóricos, históricos y territoriales sobre historia del extractivismo y el neoextractivismo en Guatemala.

Estudio realizado en 2013, publicado en 2016. Investigadores: Elizabeth Moreno, Camilo Salvadó (AVANCSO)

¿Qué es el extractivismo? ¿Por qué América Latina y Caribe es la región más peligrosa del mundo para las/os defensoras/es de la tierra, líderes y activistas medioambientales? ¿Cuáles son los impactos del extractivismo sobre comunidades de afectados, mujeres, indígenas y afrodescendientes? ¿Cómo se posicionan éstas/os ante este proceso y cuáles son sus luchas y reivindicaciones? ¿Qué papel desempeñan en el extractivismo los Estados, las empresas multinacionales y otros actores? ¿Existen alternativas al extractivismo? Estas son algunas de las preguntas que “Pacha: defendiendo la tierra. Extractivismo, conflictos y alternativas en América Latina y Caribe” intenta responder. Visibilizando el protagonismo de las comunidades afectadas por el extractivismo, queremos también mostrar la multiplicación de alternativas al desarrollo que generan diversas estrategias por la defensa de la tierra y las formas de vida tradicionales, así como la creación de nuevos paradigmas como el Buen vivir, derivados de los saberes y perspectivas de los pueblos de la región.

En el presente artículo se expone una reflexión respecto de las particularidades del extractivismo contemporáneo en Chile, sus orígenes en las legislaciones implementadas en dictadura y su profundización en los periodos de los gobiernos democráticos. Se da cuenta de cómo el modelo extractivista es consustancial a la instalación y desarrollo del neoliberalismo en Chile y con ello se reconoce la importancia de las movilizaciones sociales para develar las contradicciones profundas del modelo y su agotamiento. Si bien se profundiza en el caso minero, se da cuenta de otros sectores que constituyen el paisaje del extractivismo en el país. Finalmente se presentan algunos antecedentes de la Región de Atacama, que constituye para el autor el caso más extremo y evidente de la  contradicción del modelo del despojo neoliberal.

Economic and political pressures to extract Canada’s oil sands—among the most carbon-intensive and polluting fossil fuels on the planet—have increased manifold, while heightened risks of toxic spills, climate change, and environmental degradation from fossil fuel use and production have solicited intense public concern. Yet, influenced by neoliberalism, political solutions to climate and environmental crises are often swept aside in favor of market-based approaches to economic and social organization. In the face of such depoliticizing trends, and an economic model that makes life on Earth increasingly precarious, a loose network of environmental organizations and citizens took social and political action against oil pipelines in response to the “failure of institutional representation” (Dufour et al., 2015: 127). This movement—dubbed the anti-fossil fuel or anti-pipeline movement (Klein, 2014)—sought to challenge the dominant cultures and politics of fossil-fueled capitalism to initiate a public conversation about building and governing differently in a socio-ecologically precarious world. For that reason, social resistance to a specific oil infrastructure project, the Energy East pipeline in Canada, presents an opportunity to unpack how political claims for a post-carbon society are enacted and formulated. Drawing primarily on reviews of the social science literature on risk, capitalism, and environmental politics, as well as discourse analysis and in-depth interviews with key anti-fossil fuel movement actors, the thesis aims to explore how anti-pipeline claims problematize capitalist solutions to contemporary environmental problems. It argues that social resistance to pipelines carves out a space in the public imaginary for a future beyond petroleum—and perhaps even modern capitalism itself.

La publicación aborda el neo-extractivismo en América Latina y más precisamente en el Ecuador. Incluye varios artículos desde distintas disciplinas (ciencias políticas, antropología social, economía y estudios del desarrollo). Incluye un artículo conjunto entre Ivette Vallejo, Cristina Cielo, Fernando García y Natalia Valdivieso sobre la exclusión que se ha perpetuado en la Amazonía durante el período del auge de los precios de los commodities en el mercado nacional. Si bien el gobierno de pretendido post-neoliberalismo del movimiento Alianza País ha apuntalado políticas de redistribución de la renta petrolera volcadas hacia la Amazonía, con la idea de configurar una Nueva Amazonía, no se contemplan los efectos ambientales y sociales que ocurren al profundizar el extractivismo. Una muestra de ello lo que ocurre en las denominadas Ciudades del Milenio, a las que han sido transformadas comunidades indígenas y mestizas ribereñas.

Latin America is at the forefront of thinking on how to build a new sustainable economy that rejects consumerism and extractivism. An exciting compilation on new ideas such as Buen Vivir that are reshaping the global debate on how to live in harmony with each other and nature.

Dos suizos, dos libros, una única obsesión: la explotación del “oro negro” de la selva amazónica, en la época del auge cauchero en el Oriente de Bolivia. Con apenas unos meses de diferencia, Franz Ritz y Ernst Leutenegger trabajaron en la misma barraca gomera durante la primera década del siglo XX, y ambos publicaron luego sus recuerdos en su país natal. Son estos relatos que, traducidos por primera vez al español, nos propone descubrir aquí Lorena Córdoba. La mirada más entusiasta de Ritz y la visión más melancólica de Leutenegger evocan ambas tópicos de la fiebre cauchera en la selva boliviana: la dura vida en las barracas; la ley del más fuerte en un mundo donde el Estado está ausente; los enganches tramposos, las deudas hereditarias, la explotación de los indígenas. Sin embargo, estos relatos permiten ir más allá de los clichés y matizar en gran parte las visiones en blanco y negro sobre esta época crucial para la economía boliviana, la paulatina incorporación del Oriente al país y el destino también de los pueblos indígenas amazónicos. Con su lectura, la Historia gana en humanidad, en matices enriquecedores, en profundidad y credibilidad.

The planetary transformations of Capitalocene affect us in multiple and
heterogeneous forms. In this context, activisms emerging as embodied, experiential and situated manifestations of affectation. This article is an exploration of the activisms and resistances against impacts that Capitalocene -specifically, the extractivism- has had in Chilean society, from the perspective and experience of our own trajectories as global south academics and activists, committed to the entanglements that emerge constantly in the face of the impacts.
Our work refers to the affects and resistances that we as authors have had the chance to experience in spaces of training and companionship of activists who resist in territories affected by the mining, agro-export and energy industry; and those who studied the Diploma in Social Ecology and Political Ecology from the Group of Agroecology and the Environment at the University of Santiago, offered between 2013 and 2017. Based on these experiences, we argue that the "affective turn" offers an indispensable perspective about hegemony, resistances and political changes in the current crisis.

Neither big data, nor data justice are particularly new. Data
collection, in the form of land surveys and mapping, was key to
successive projects of European imperialist and then capitalist
extraction of natural resources. Geo-spatial instruments have been
used since the fifteenth century to highlight potential sites of
mineral, oil, and gas extraction, and inscribe European economic,
cultural and political control across indigenous territories.
Although indigenous groups consistently challenged maintained
their territorial sovereignty, and resisted corporate and state
surveillance practices, they were largely unable to withstand the
combined onslaught of surveyors, armed personnel, missionaries
and government bureaucrats. This article examines the use of
counter-mapping by indigenous nations in Canada, one of the
globe’s hubs of extractivism, as part of the exercise of indigenous
territorial sovereignty. After a brief review of the colonial period, I
then compare the use of counter-mapping during two cycles of
indigenous mobilization. During the 1970s, counter-mapping
projects were part of a larger repertoire of negotiations with the
state over land claims, and served to re-inscribe first nation’s
long-standing history of economic, social and cultural relations in
their territories, and contribute to new collective imaginaries and
identities. In the current cycle of contests over extractivism and
indigenous sovereignty, the use, scope and geographic scale of
counter-mapping has shifted; maps are used as part of larger
trans-media campaigns of Indigenous sovereignty. During both
cycles, counter-mapping as data justice required fusion within
larger projects of redistributive, transformative and restorative
justice.

El artículo aborda la conflictividad que emerge en el centro-sur de la Amazonía ecuatoriana a partir de la ampliación de las fronteras extractivas (del petróleo). Una de sus expresiones son los conflictos que se desatan en territorios étnicos, por el control de territorios y recursos, derivando en acciones chamánicas de amedrentamiento y muerte. Es el caso de lo sucedido en comunidades sapara sobre cuyo territorio se traslapan dos bloques concesionados (79 y 83) a la empresa china Andes petroleum.

Esta tese parte de um caso analisador-revelador, o duplo homicídio dos ambientalistas populares Maria do Espírito Santo da Silva e José Cláudio Ribeiro da Silva, no sudeste do Pará, na Amazônia Oriental, para investigar as contradições do desenvolvimento, a
violência nos conflitos socioambientais e as estratégias de resistência das classes
subalternizadas na luta pelo comum e pelas alternativas de existência. Articulo uma
perspectiva de investigação descolonial em ecologia política para tentar responder a
diversos questionamentos que surgem a partir de um problema central: Como o modelo de
crescimento econômico na primeira década do século XXI e as políticas ambientais se
relacionam com as instituições democráticas do país? A hipótese com a qual trabalho é que
existe uma contradição entre o papel atribuído às instituições e o modelo econômico
colocado em prática, o que gera uma permanente tensão entre os sentidos do interesse
publico e os benefícios privados, que conduz à associação de interesses antidemocráticos e
limita a prática da política como uma anti-violência. Dentro deste quadro analítico em
ecologia política, investigo a expansão do capitalismo a partir do efeito de compressão do
tempo e do espaço, e a apropriação do tempo-espaço em trocas desiguais globais,
construindo um espaço da extração aonde os obstáculos para o avanço do capital são
removidos violentamente. Para situar localmente a compreensão da violência nos conflitos
socioambientais, proponho uma revisão analítica do espaço sócio-histórico dos castanhais
de Bertholletia excelsa, como um ambiente antropogênico, transformado em um espaço de
conflito territorial com o avanço do capitalismo e os cercamentos. Em uma ecologia dos
saberes, é desenvolvido um procedimento investigativo que busca registrar experiências na
construção de alternativas. Estas alternativas emergem da luta dos movimentos sociais
aprendidos como um processo epistêmico, o qual sustento por uma revisão da formação do
movimento sindical e a construção da ideia do agroextrativismo como uma possibilidade
alternativa de desenvolvimento sustentável em uma luta contra-hegemônica contra a
privatização do comum. O processo de privatização do comum é entendido como um
movimento continuado, violento, e que visa separar a classe trabalhadora das condições
materiais de reprodução. Como principal contribuição, interpreto a "ousadia" como revolta
constituidora do processo de subjetificação na luta pelo comum e pela vida.
____
This thesis elaborates on a core case-study, the murder of Maria do Espírito Santo and José
Cláudio Ribeiro da Silva, a couple of ‘popular environmentalists’ in the southeast part of
the state of Para, in the Eastern Amazon, to investigate broader contradictions of
development and the role of violence and resistance in socio-environmental conflicts,
focusing on subalternized classes in the struggle for the commons and alternatives to
existence. My proposal is to articulate a decolonial research perspective in Political
Ecology, in order to answer the central question of this research: how has the accelerated
economic growth model pursued by Brazilian governments in the first decade of the 21st
century affected the country’s environmental politics and democracy itself? My hypothesis
is that there is a main contradiction between the role of state institutions and the economic
model, which produces a permanent tension between public interests and private benefits;
this tends to produce an antidemocratic association of interests between State and the
private sector, which limits the exercise of politics, understood as the opposite of violence.
Building upon the analytical framework of Political Ecology, I investigate the expansion of
capitalism from its main effect of "time-space compression" in unequal global exchange, a
process that constructs spaces of extraction where any obstacle to the advancement of
capital must be violently removed. In order to situate locally the understanding of violence
in environmental conflicts, I propose a socio-historical review of the forestry space of the
castanhais (chestnut forest) of Bertholletia excelsa (Brazilian nut) as an anthropogenic
environment, inhabited by human populations through the past 9.000 years and, until
recently, a territory occupied by Tupi and Macro-Jê Amerindians populations. This
anthropogenic forest has been transformed into a space of territorial and environmental
conflicts through the expansion of capitalism and enclosures during the last century. Using
the sociological perspective of the "ecology of knowledges", I develop a process of
investigation that aims to articulate different experiences in the construction of economic
alternatives and alternative forms of existence as they emerge from the struggle of labor/
social movements in the rural areas of Amazonia. These are built around the idea of
agroextractivism as a possible alternative to sustainable development and deforestation, in
a counter-hegemonic movement against the privatization of the commons and
overexploitation of labour. I look at the process of privatization of the commons as a
violent movement that has as its main objective to divide the working class from its
material conditions of reproduction. The main theoretical contribution of the thesis is a
reflection on the concept of "dare" (ousadia), as Maria do Espírito Santo would describe
what motivates her and Zé Claudio to fight for the forest: as a revolt of subjectification in
the struggle for the commons and for life.

Working Paper der DFG-KollegforscherInnengruppe Postwachstumsgesellschaften von Ulrich Brand
In Europa und Lateinamerika gibt es zwei Diskussionsstränge, in denen aktuell und prominent Kritiken an vorherrschenden Entwicklungen wie auch Alternativen verdichtet werden und die künftig orientierend wirken könnten. Die Diskussion um Degrowth in Süd- und Westeuropa und jene um Post-Extraktivismus in Lateinamerika. Erstaunlicherweise werden bislang die beiden Perspektiven kaum aufeinander bezogen. Doch, so die Annahme des Working Papers, die Realisierungschancen einer Degrowth-Perspektive und Alternativen zum Ressourcen-Extraktivismus werden ganz entscheidend davon abhängen, auch die internationalen politischen, sozio-ökonomischen und kulturellen Verhältnisse zu verändern. In dem Text werden die unterschiedlichen zeitgeschichtlichen Kontexte in beiden Regionen skizziert, dann die Kernelemente von Degrowth und Post-Extraktivismus in notwendig knapper Form vorgestellt und daran anschließend die beiden Perspektiven miteinander „ins Gespräch“ gebracht. Damit sollen die jeweiligen Stärken und Schwächen erhellt und weitere Diskussionen wie auch Präzisierungen angeregt werden. Der letzte Abschnitt formuliert offene Fragen an beide Diskussionsstränge.

This introductory book adopts an interdisciplinary and critical perspective, incorporating contributions from economics, politics, ecology and more. An exploration of negative local impacts, such as ecological and health degradation and violence, along with spillover effects that redefine democracy and justice. Presented for the first time in English this is a comprehensive overview of the theoretical innovations currently being discussed in the South, such as the distinction between appropriation and production modes, a redefinition of surplus to include social and economic features and new
understandings on conflict dynamics. An evaluation of extractivisms under both conservative and new-left governments, making clear that it has very deep roots in culture and ideologies. Finally, an overview of postextractivists alternativas.

In this paper, we critically engage with the notion of a ‘post-neoliberal turn’ in Latin America. The analysis interrogates the existence and characteristics of post-neoliberalism as a mode of regulation, and explores the contributions (and limits) of the concept as a means of theorizing political and economic re-structuring. We critically synthesize the literature, articulating commonly cited principles and practices of post-neoliberalism according to different political, ideological, and geographical contexts. To generate productive engagement across disciplinary and geographical boundaries, we draw on perspectives from Latin America and on concepts of ‘variegated neoliberalization’ and ‘counter-neoliberalization’ (thereby abstracting from, rather than about, Latin America).

El extractivismo es definido como la explotación de grandes volúmenes de recursos naturales, que se exportan como commodities y generan economías de enclave (localizadas, como pozos petroleros o minas, o espacialmente extendidas, como el monocultivo de soja o palma). Requiere grandes inversiones de capital intensivas, generalmente de
corporaciones transnacionales. Presenta una dinámica de ocupación intensiva del territorio, generando el desplazamiento de otras formas de producción (economías locales/regionales) con impactos negativos para el ambiente y las formas de vida de poblaciones locales.

This chapter presents country-specific descriptions of human intervention in the Amazon. In general, a rapid expansion of agricultural and extractive activities, mostly for export but also for domestic markets, and to a lesser degree small scale agriculture, have led to extensive deforestation and environmental degradation without substantially improving the living conditions of the population. Government policies and the extent of State ascendancy in the area also seem to be a powerful determinant of the nature and scale of the process. Despite the common underlying international and domestic economic and political forces in the Amazon, each country has its own particularities. In the case of Colombia, the process was shaped by the guerilla presence and deteriorated after the Peace Treaty, which does not mention “deforestation” and perpetuates Colombia’s extractivist model. Ecuador’s case is representative of the link between fossil fuel extraction, environmental deterioration, and social exclusion. The case of Peru shows an Amazon perceived as a territory awaiting to be “conquered, occupied, and exploited”, subjected to an unwavering extractive and market-orientated drive. In Bolivia, contradictions between conservation and state-led development policies and business activities, which have transformed it into the second deforestation hotspot of Amazonia after Brazil, are presented. The Venezuelan Amazon is subject to rampant violence and illegal activity driven by the political geography of gold in mixed configurations of governance, with blurred boundaries between legality and illegality and prevailing negligence concerning conservation. The Guianas share low deforestation levels and lower environmental pressures, but the recent expansion of gold mining poses a serious threat. The Brazilian case presented in the previous Chapter is referenced here when comparing countries’ experienes. Conservation experiences are also included. In all cases, unsustainable extractivist models have outpaced conservation policies; however, these experiences can prove useful in the design of effective conservation policies, reduction of greenhouse gas emissions, and improvements in living conditions of Indigenous peoples and local communities.

En este artículo se argumenta que la movilización sociolegal transnacional en los conflictos socioambientales ligados al extractivismo es una estrategia de acción colectiva en constante crecimiento y expansión en América Latina. Dicha movilización revela la apropiación de los derechos humanos como una herramienta para el activismo por parte de amplios colectivos sociales en defensa del medio ambiente sano. Al analizar empíricamente la tendencia regional de movilización ante el sistema interamericano, se identifican actores, estrategias, diferencias por países y casos paradigmáticos.

Tras la consolidación del bloque chavista
a mediados de la década pasada, Venezuela vivió una
oleada de modernización y expansión del modelo de
petro-Estado desarrollista y sus males endémicos.
Este avance sin precedentes de la frontera
extractiva, muestra en la actualidad las nuevas
y viejas alternativas políticas que conviven en la
Revolución Bolivariana. Por un lado las estructuras
del antiguo modelo petrolero y, por el otro, diversas
experiencias que buscan configurar un modelo más
allá del rentismo.

El presente artículo analiza el extractivismo minero en América Latina haciendo dos aportaciones principales. Primero, planteando un modelo explicativo del extractivismo minero en América Latina basado en cuatro pautas multitemáticas, imbricadas y compartidas en la región: la irrupción de la minería transnacional, la asistencia institucional, la apropiación territorial y la conflictividad persistente. El segundo aporte del artículo es la interpelación del modelo del extractivismo minero con una lectura plural y antagonista de la democracia, misma que cuestiona la faceta liberal-representativa-procedimental que ha sustentado al extractivismo minero y ha relegado a quienes se han opuesto al mismo. Se concluye que, a pesar de las excepciones al modelo, el extractivismo minero perpetúa la base económica primario exportadora, la dependencia externa y la colonialidad en América Latina pero que sus límites se hallan precisamente donde comienza el poder constituyente de la democracia.
Abstract. The article analyses mining extractivism in Latin America. It makes two major contributions. First, it sets forth an explicative model of mining extractivism in Latin America based on four cross-regional patterns: the emergence of transnational mining, institutional assistance, land-grabbing and constant unrest. Secondly, the article discusses the model of mining extractivism drawing on a plural and antagonist reading of democracy. The latter is critical with the liberal-representative-procedural dimension of mining extractivism and has paid little attention to opponents to the model. The article concludes that, in spite of the exceptions to the model, mining extractivism perpetuates Latin America's

Martínez Espinoza, Manuel Ignacio. (2016). “¿Extracciones y consultas? La minería y los derechos de los pueblos indígenas como un mentís de la democracia en Guatemala” En García Aguilar, María del Carmen. Solís, Jesús. Uc, Pablo (Coord.). Democracias posibles: crisis y resignificación. Sur de México y Centroamérica. UNICACH: Tuxtla Gutiérrez. Pp. 195-220