Extractivism and resistances. Power, territories and knowledges in movement

Session Submission Type: Panel

Abstract

The expansion of extractivism has converted disputes over the control of territories and commons into the principal source of social conflict and mobilization in Latin America. Extractive projects tend to reorganize local territories and lives, deepening intersecting colonial, patriarchal, and capitalist patterns of power. Local populations’ responses have been diverse, sometimes seeking favorable negotiations with mining or oil companies, and in other cases defending alternative(s) (for) development(s).
Conflicts and resistances against extractive projects have not only transformed local territories. They have also impacted political culture and organization more broadly, due to the emergence or renovation of political identities, strategies, and imaginaries. Within the processes of social organization, gender and race relations, discourses on identity and nature, and relations with NGOs, political parties and national social organizations have been further politicized and transformed through both conflict and construction.
As such, struggles against extractivism have also meant the reconfiguration of colonial and patriarchal capitalism. This panel interrogates the implications of resistances against extractivism in terms of political strategies and discourses. We seek to understand how historical power patterns and contemporary comprehensions of identity, territory, and nature are reconfigured in these processes, and we will discuss the potentials and limitations for wider societal transformation through these local resistances. Finally, we will analyze how state and private actors have sought to limit this transformative potential.

Sub Track

• Civil Society and Social Movements

Session Organizers

• Marisol de la Cadena, University of California/Davis

• Raphael Willem Hoetmer, Programa Democracia y Transformación Global

Chair

• Marisol de la Cadena, University of California/Davis

Individual Presentations

• De-indigenized but not defeated: Alter-territories, race, and peace in Colombia’s Peace Community and Campesino University - Christopher Courtheyn, Universidad Minuto de Dios

• Dogs and anti-miners. Extractivist discourses and repressive practices in Peru - Rocio - Silva Santisteban, Pontificia Universidad Católica del Perú

• Yasunidos: a new generation of anti-extractivist activism in Ecuador - Diana M Coryat

• On Criminalization of dissent, and (new?) economies of conflict and violences: The Las Bambas and Conga mining proyects in Peru - Raphael Willem Hoetmer, Programa Democracia y Transformación Global