Mirna Inturias - Academia.edu (original) (raw)

Papers by Mirna Inturias

Research paper thumbnail of Territorios, justicias y autonomías:Un diálogo desde los gobiernos autónomos indígenas de Bolivia

Research paper thumbnail of Conflict transformation in indigenous peoples’ territories: doing environmental justice with a ‘decolonial turn’

Development studies research, 2018

One of the distinctive features of environmental justice theory in Latin America is its influence... more One of the distinctive features of environmental justice theory in Latin America is its influence by decolonial thought, which explains social and environmental injustices as arising from the project of modernity and the ongoing expansion of a European cultural imaginary. The decolonization of knowledge and social relations is highlighted as one of the key challenges for overcoming the history of violent oppression and marginalization in development and conservation practice in the region. In this paper we discuss how conflict transformation theory and practice has a role to play in this process. In doing so, we draw on the Socio-environmental Conflict Transformation (SCT) framework elaborated by Grupo Confluencias, which puts a focus on building community capacity to impact different spheres of power: people and networks, structures and cultural power. We discuss this framework and its practical use in the light of ongoing experiences with indigenous peoples in Latin America. We propose that by strengthening the power of agency of indigenous peoples to impact each of these spheres it is possible to build constructive intra and intercultural relations that can help increase social and environmental justice in their territories and thus contribute to decolonizing structures, relations and ways of being.

Research paper thumbnail of Challenges to intercultural democracy in the Plurinational State of Bolivia: case study of the Monkoxɨ peoples of Lomerío

The adoption of Bolivia's new political Constitution in 2009 marked the birth of a new plurin... more The adoption of Bolivia's new political Constitution in 2009 marked the birth of a new plurinational state. One of the most important constitutional changes was a new state system of territorial division that recognises departmental, municipal, regional and indigenous autonomies as new plural forms of political organisation seeking to decentralise decision-making power and the management of public funds, wresting them away from central government. Whereas departmental, municipal and regional autonomy can apply within the pre-2009 territorial division of the state, simply being juxtaposed over former departments, municipalities or regions, indigenous autonomies pose a greater challenge, as they often overlap with more than one municipality or department and therefore necessitate greater institutional and legal changes

Research paper thumbnail of Cameras to the people: Reclaiming local histories and restoring environmental justice in community based forest management through participatory video

Research paper thumbnail of Bolivia: contribution of indigenous people to fighting climate change is hanging by a thread

Research paper thumbnail of Decolonizing wildfire risk management: indigenous responses to fire criminalization policies and increasingly flammable forest landscapes in Lomerío, Bolivia

Environmental Science & Policy

Research paper thumbnail of Motley territories in a plurinational state: forest fires in the Bolivian Chiquitanía

Third World Thematics: A TWQ Journal

In August and September 2019, wildfires destroyed over 3 million hectares of forest in the Bolivi... more In August and September 2019, wildfires destroyed over 3 million hectares of forest in the Bolivian Chiquitanía. They were caused by slash-and-burn land clearance techniques used to prepare land for agriculture. In this article, we examine how the forest fires constitute a way of making territory, paying particular attention to how underlying relations of power have historically shaped territories in the region. We trace the actors and social relations of power that have historically developed in the region from the 17th century to today, putting an emphasis on the necessity to expand the temporal lens through which we analyse struggles over territory in Latin America. The Chiquitanía region is an illustrative case study, as it reflects Bolivia’s highly diverse society, revealing multiple, simultaneously existing territorialised social relations, which we conceptually grasp as motley territories. We define motley territories as diverse territorialised social relations that were established in different epochs but continue to coexist in often unarticulated ways. We argue that the state-sanctioned appropriation of slash-and-burn practices by landowners is a mechanism to integrate more land into the agricultural frontier while rendering other forms of inhabiting those motley territories more difficult.

Research paper thumbnail of Territorios, justicias y autonomías:Un diálogo desde los gobiernos autónomos indígenas de Bolivia

Research paper thumbnail of Conservationists' perspectives on poverty: An empirical study

People and Nature, 2020

This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which... more This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

Research paper thumbnail of Fair ways to share benefits from community forests? How commodification is associated with reduced preference for equality and poverty alleviation

Environmental Research Letters, 2019

This research is concerned with the trend towards commodification of forestry, in the context of ... more This research is concerned with the trend towards commodification of forestry, in the context of community forest governance for sustainable development in the tropics. In these contexts, commodification takes different forms, including sales of certified timbers and sales of carbon credits. In addition to the general aim to enhance income, these market-based forestry interventions typically aim to align with sustainable development agendas, including (a) safeguarding ecological integrity and (b) promoting poverty alleviation. Our concern here is that the process of forest commodification might lead to a shift in local norms of benefit-sharing, in ways that can hinder these key components of sustainable development goals. We report the results of a survey (N = 519) conducted across sites in Bolivia, China and Tanzania that shows that switching from non-monetary to monetary benefits is associated with changes in preferences for distributional fairness in ways that may be detrimental ...

Research paper thumbnail of Cameras to the people: Reclaiming local histories and restoring environmental justice in community based forest management through participatory video

Alternautas, 2016

Alternautas is a peer reviewed academic blog that publishes content related to Latin American Cri... more Alternautas is a peer reviewed academic blog that publishes content related to Latin American Critical Development thinking. 1 Gilberto Gil. It was sung for the first time by Gal Costa in a music festival of Record, a Brazilian TV channel, in 1968 and became one of the most representative songs from the Tropicalia movement. The movement arose in the late 1960s, combining a fusion of traditional Brazilian culture with foreign influences and offered strong political criticism, in particular of the dictatorship that followed the 1964 Brazi tat. Preface | 8 Finally, the last contribution of this first section is a compelling study by Juliette Roguet that analyses the phenomenon of bricherismo in the highly touristic district of Cuzco, Peru. The article discusses the amorous encounters between bricheros, of seduction and a romantic expert in conquering and female Western travellers that perceive them as authentic and exotic Roguet describes the complexity of the power relations that emerge with bricherismo, since its intersection of gender, sexuality, class and race constantly shifts dominated and dominant positions. The second part of this issue comprises a special dossier dedicated to discuss the of the progressive cycle in Latin Edited by Gerardo Muñoz and including articles from

Research paper thumbnail of Abordando la Justicia Ambiental desde la Transformación de Conflictos: experiencias en América Latina con Pueblos Indígenas

Revista de Paz y Conflictos, 2015

Esta obra está bajo una licencia de Creative Commons Reconocimiento-NoComercial 3.0 Unported.

Research paper thumbnail of Engaging with environmental justice through conflict transformation: experiences in Latin America with Indigenous peoples

Revista de Paz y Conflictos, 2015

Research paper thumbnail of Conflictividad socioambiental en Latinoamérica:Aportes de la transformación de conflictos socioambientales a la transformación ecológica

atencion al rol que juegan los conflictos socio ambientales y su transformacion en la necesaria t... more atencion al rol que juegan los conflictos socio ambientales y su transformacion en la necesaria transformacion socio-ecologica. Los conflictos socio ambientales son una parte inherente de la crisis del sistema ecomomico actual. Hacen visibles las injusticias y las asimetrias de poder que se configuran en el orden politico y mundial y por lo tanto tienen mucho que aportar sobre las transformaciones necesarias desde la perspectiva de quienes viven mas de cerca y de forma directa los avatares de nuestra crisis socio-ambiental planetaria. Mas importante aun, los conflictos socio-ambientales tambien motorizan y catalizan la transformacion al confrontar y producir cambios sobre las asimetrias de poder que generan injusticias e inequidad en el uso del ambiente y los territorios. En este sentido hay tres temas que pueden brindar importantes elementos a las discusiones sobre la transformacion socio-ecologica de America Latina desde las ciudadanias. En primer lugar, ?Que son y que nos dicen l...

Research paper thumbnail of Abordando la Justicia Ambiental desde la transformación de conflictos: experiencias con Pueblos Indígenas en América Latina

Revista de Paz y Conflictos, 2015

Although environmental justice and conflict transformation have many common goals, they rarely ta... more Although environmental justice and conflict transformation have many common goals, they rarely talk to each other. In this article we try to bring these two bodies of knowledge closer with a discussion of the contributions that the theory and practice of conflict transformation offer to the field of environmental justice. In order to do so, it draws on an Environmental Conflict Transformation framework developed by Grupo Confluencias , a consortium of professionals from Latin America, who have been working since 2005 as a platform for deliberation, joint research and capacity building on this topic. Central to this framework is the focus on understanding the role that power dynamics and culture play in environmental conflicts and their transformation. We discuss this framework and its practical use in the light of ongoing experiences with indigenous peoples in Latin America, where Grupo Confluencias has been developing conflict transformation processes that seek to impact on hegemon...

Research paper thumbnail of Challenges to intercultural democracy in the Plurinational State of Bolivia:case study of the Monkoxɨ peoples of Lomerío

The adoption of Bolivia's new political Constitution in 2009 marked the birth of a new plurin... more The adoption of Bolivia's new political Constitution in 2009 marked the birth of a new plurinational state. One of the most important constitutional changes was a new state system of territorial division that recognises departmental, municipal, regional and indigenous autonomies as new plural forms of political organisation seeking to decentralise decision-making power and the management of public funds, wresting them away from central government. Whereas departmental, municipal and regional autonomy can apply within the pre-2009 territorial division of the state, simply being juxtaposed over former departments, municipalities or regions, indigenous autonomies pose a greater challenge, as they often overlap with more than one municipality or department and therefore necessitate greater institutional and legal changes

Research paper thumbnail of Un análisis a partir de la experiencia del Corredor Norte. Plataformas, redes y megaproyectos

The launch of megaprojects in the Bolivian Amazon region threatens the sustainability of the Madi... more The launch of megaprojects in the Bolivian Amazon region threatens the sustainability of the Madidi and Pilon Lajas protected areas, recognized worldwide for...

Research paper thumbnail of Conservationists' perspectives on poverty: An empirical study

People and Nature

This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which... more This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

Research paper thumbnail of Fair ways to share benefits from community forests? How commodification is associated with reduced preference for equality and poverty alleviation

Environmental Research Letters

This research is concerned with the trend towards commodification of forestry, in the context of ... more This research is concerned with the trend towards commodification of forestry, in the context of community forest governance for sustainable development in the tropics. In these contexts, commodification takes different forms, including sales of certified timbers and sales of carbon credits. In addition to the general aim to enhance income, these market-based forestry interventions typically aim to align with sustainable development agendas, including (a) safeguarding ecological integrity and (b) promoting poverty alleviation. Our concern here is that the process of forest commodification might lead to a shift in local norms of benefit-sharing, in ways that can hinder these key components of sustainable development goals. We report the results of a survey (N=519) conducted across sites in Bolivia, China and Tanzania that shows that switching from non-monetary to monetary benefits is associated with changes in preferences for distributional fairness in ways that may be detrimental to the poor. In particular, we show that forest commodification is associated with a lower likelihood of selecting pro-poor or egalitarian approaches to benefit sharing and higher likelihood of selecting to distribute benefits in a way that rewards individual contributions or compensates losses.

Research paper thumbnail of The Type of Land We Want: Exploring the Limits of Community Forestry in Tanzania and Bolivia

Sustainability

We explore local people’s perspectives of community forest (CF) on their land in Tanzania and Bol... more We explore local people’s perspectives of community forest (CF) on their land in Tanzania and Bolivia. Community forest management is known to improve ecological conditions of forests, but is more variable in its social outcomes. Understanding communities’ experience of community forestry and the potential benefits and burdens its formation may place on a community will likely help in predicting its sustainability as a forest and land management model. Six villages, two in Tanzania and four in Bolivia, were selected based on the presence of community forestry in varying stages. We found that communities were generally supportive of existing community forests but cautious of their expansion. Deeper explorations of this response using ethnographic research methods reveal that an increase in community forest area is associated with increasing opportunity costs and constraints on agricultural land use, but not an increase in benefits. Furthermore, community forests give rise to a series...

Research paper thumbnail of Territorios, justicias y autonomías:Un diálogo desde los gobiernos autónomos indígenas de Bolivia

Research paper thumbnail of Conflict transformation in indigenous peoples’ territories: doing environmental justice with a ‘decolonial turn’

Development studies research, 2018

One of the distinctive features of environmental justice theory in Latin America is its influence... more One of the distinctive features of environmental justice theory in Latin America is its influence by decolonial thought, which explains social and environmental injustices as arising from the project of modernity and the ongoing expansion of a European cultural imaginary. The decolonization of knowledge and social relations is highlighted as one of the key challenges for overcoming the history of violent oppression and marginalization in development and conservation practice in the region. In this paper we discuss how conflict transformation theory and practice has a role to play in this process. In doing so, we draw on the Socio-environmental Conflict Transformation (SCT) framework elaborated by Grupo Confluencias, which puts a focus on building community capacity to impact different spheres of power: people and networks, structures and cultural power. We discuss this framework and its practical use in the light of ongoing experiences with indigenous peoples in Latin America. We propose that by strengthening the power of agency of indigenous peoples to impact each of these spheres it is possible to build constructive intra and intercultural relations that can help increase social and environmental justice in their territories and thus contribute to decolonizing structures, relations and ways of being.

Research paper thumbnail of Challenges to intercultural democracy in the Plurinational State of Bolivia: case study of the Monkoxɨ peoples of Lomerío

The adoption of Bolivia's new political Constitution in 2009 marked the birth of a new plurin... more The adoption of Bolivia's new political Constitution in 2009 marked the birth of a new plurinational state. One of the most important constitutional changes was a new state system of territorial division that recognises departmental, municipal, regional and indigenous autonomies as new plural forms of political organisation seeking to decentralise decision-making power and the management of public funds, wresting them away from central government. Whereas departmental, municipal and regional autonomy can apply within the pre-2009 territorial division of the state, simply being juxtaposed over former departments, municipalities or regions, indigenous autonomies pose a greater challenge, as they often overlap with more than one municipality or department and therefore necessitate greater institutional and legal changes

Research paper thumbnail of Cameras to the people: Reclaiming local histories and restoring environmental justice in community based forest management through participatory video

Research paper thumbnail of Bolivia: contribution of indigenous people to fighting climate change is hanging by a thread

Research paper thumbnail of Decolonizing wildfire risk management: indigenous responses to fire criminalization policies and increasingly flammable forest landscapes in Lomerío, Bolivia

Environmental Science & Policy

Research paper thumbnail of Motley territories in a plurinational state: forest fires in the Bolivian Chiquitanía

Third World Thematics: A TWQ Journal

In August and September 2019, wildfires destroyed over 3 million hectares of forest in the Bolivi... more In August and September 2019, wildfires destroyed over 3 million hectares of forest in the Bolivian Chiquitanía. They were caused by slash-and-burn land clearance techniques used to prepare land for agriculture. In this article, we examine how the forest fires constitute a way of making territory, paying particular attention to how underlying relations of power have historically shaped territories in the region. We trace the actors and social relations of power that have historically developed in the region from the 17th century to today, putting an emphasis on the necessity to expand the temporal lens through which we analyse struggles over territory in Latin America. The Chiquitanía region is an illustrative case study, as it reflects Bolivia’s highly diverse society, revealing multiple, simultaneously existing territorialised social relations, which we conceptually grasp as motley territories. We define motley territories as diverse territorialised social relations that were established in different epochs but continue to coexist in often unarticulated ways. We argue that the state-sanctioned appropriation of slash-and-burn practices by landowners is a mechanism to integrate more land into the agricultural frontier while rendering other forms of inhabiting those motley territories more difficult.

Research paper thumbnail of Territorios, justicias y autonomías:Un diálogo desde los gobiernos autónomos indígenas de Bolivia

Research paper thumbnail of Conservationists' perspectives on poverty: An empirical study

People and Nature, 2020

This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which... more This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

Research paper thumbnail of Fair ways to share benefits from community forests? How commodification is associated with reduced preference for equality and poverty alleviation

Environmental Research Letters, 2019

This research is concerned with the trend towards commodification of forestry, in the context of ... more This research is concerned with the trend towards commodification of forestry, in the context of community forest governance for sustainable development in the tropics. In these contexts, commodification takes different forms, including sales of certified timbers and sales of carbon credits. In addition to the general aim to enhance income, these market-based forestry interventions typically aim to align with sustainable development agendas, including (a) safeguarding ecological integrity and (b) promoting poverty alleviation. Our concern here is that the process of forest commodification might lead to a shift in local norms of benefit-sharing, in ways that can hinder these key components of sustainable development goals. We report the results of a survey (N = 519) conducted across sites in Bolivia, China and Tanzania that shows that switching from non-monetary to monetary benefits is associated with changes in preferences for distributional fairness in ways that may be detrimental ...

Research paper thumbnail of Cameras to the people: Reclaiming local histories and restoring environmental justice in community based forest management through participatory video

Alternautas, 2016

Alternautas is a peer reviewed academic blog that publishes content related to Latin American Cri... more Alternautas is a peer reviewed academic blog that publishes content related to Latin American Critical Development thinking. 1 Gilberto Gil. It was sung for the first time by Gal Costa in a music festival of Record, a Brazilian TV channel, in 1968 and became one of the most representative songs from the Tropicalia movement. The movement arose in the late 1960s, combining a fusion of traditional Brazilian culture with foreign influences and offered strong political criticism, in particular of the dictatorship that followed the 1964 Brazi tat. Preface | 8 Finally, the last contribution of this first section is a compelling study by Juliette Roguet that analyses the phenomenon of bricherismo in the highly touristic district of Cuzco, Peru. The article discusses the amorous encounters between bricheros, of seduction and a romantic expert in conquering and female Western travellers that perceive them as authentic and exotic Roguet describes the complexity of the power relations that emerge with bricherismo, since its intersection of gender, sexuality, class and race constantly shifts dominated and dominant positions. The second part of this issue comprises a special dossier dedicated to discuss the of the progressive cycle in Latin Edited by Gerardo Muñoz and including articles from

Research paper thumbnail of Abordando la Justicia Ambiental desde la Transformación de Conflictos: experiencias en América Latina con Pueblos Indígenas

Revista de Paz y Conflictos, 2015

Esta obra está bajo una licencia de Creative Commons Reconocimiento-NoComercial 3.0 Unported.

Research paper thumbnail of Engaging with environmental justice through conflict transformation: experiences in Latin America with Indigenous peoples

Revista de Paz y Conflictos, 2015

Research paper thumbnail of Conflictividad socioambiental en Latinoamérica:Aportes de la transformación de conflictos socioambientales a la transformación ecológica

atencion al rol que juegan los conflictos socio ambientales y su transformacion en la necesaria t... more atencion al rol que juegan los conflictos socio ambientales y su transformacion en la necesaria transformacion socio-ecologica. Los conflictos socio ambientales son una parte inherente de la crisis del sistema ecomomico actual. Hacen visibles las injusticias y las asimetrias de poder que se configuran en el orden politico y mundial y por lo tanto tienen mucho que aportar sobre las transformaciones necesarias desde la perspectiva de quienes viven mas de cerca y de forma directa los avatares de nuestra crisis socio-ambiental planetaria. Mas importante aun, los conflictos socio-ambientales tambien motorizan y catalizan la transformacion al confrontar y producir cambios sobre las asimetrias de poder que generan injusticias e inequidad en el uso del ambiente y los territorios. En este sentido hay tres temas que pueden brindar importantes elementos a las discusiones sobre la transformacion socio-ecologica de America Latina desde las ciudadanias. En primer lugar, ?Que son y que nos dicen l...

Research paper thumbnail of Abordando la Justicia Ambiental desde la transformación de conflictos: experiencias con Pueblos Indígenas en América Latina

Revista de Paz y Conflictos, 2015

Although environmental justice and conflict transformation have many common goals, they rarely ta... more Although environmental justice and conflict transformation have many common goals, they rarely talk to each other. In this article we try to bring these two bodies of knowledge closer with a discussion of the contributions that the theory and practice of conflict transformation offer to the field of environmental justice. In order to do so, it draws on an Environmental Conflict Transformation framework developed by Grupo Confluencias , a consortium of professionals from Latin America, who have been working since 2005 as a platform for deliberation, joint research and capacity building on this topic. Central to this framework is the focus on understanding the role that power dynamics and culture play in environmental conflicts and their transformation. We discuss this framework and its practical use in the light of ongoing experiences with indigenous peoples in Latin America, where Grupo Confluencias has been developing conflict transformation processes that seek to impact on hegemon...

Research paper thumbnail of Challenges to intercultural democracy in the Plurinational State of Bolivia:case study of the Monkoxɨ peoples of Lomerío

The adoption of Bolivia's new political Constitution in 2009 marked the birth of a new plurin... more The adoption of Bolivia's new political Constitution in 2009 marked the birth of a new plurinational state. One of the most important constitutional changes was a new state system of territorial division that recognises departmental, municipal, regional and indigenous autonomies as new plural forms of political organisation seeking to decentralise decision-making power and the management of public funds, wresting them away from central government. Whereas departmental, municipal and regional autonomy can apply within the pre-2009 territorial division of the state, simply being juxtaposed over former departments, municipalities or regions, indigenous autonomies pose a greater challenge, as they often overlap with more than one municipality or department and therefore necessitate greater institutional and legal changes

Research paper thumbnail of Un análisis a partir de la experiencia del Corredor Norte. Plataformas, redes y megaproyectos

The launch of megaprojects in the Bolivian Amazon region threatens the sustainability of the Madi... more The launch of megaprojects in the Bolivian Amazon region threatens the sustainability of the Madidi and Pilon Lajas protected areas, recognized worldwide for...

Research paper thumbnail of Conservationists' perspectives on poverty: An empirical study

People and Nature

This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which... more This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

Research paper thumbnail of Fair ways to share benefits from community forests? How commodification is associated with reduced preference for equality and poverty alleviation

Environmental Research Letters

This research is concerned with the trend towards commodification of forestry, in the context of ... more This research is concerned with the trend towards commodification of forestry, in the context of community forest governance for sustainable development in the tropics. In these contexts, commodification takes different forms, including sales of certified timbers and sales of carbon credits. In addition to the general aim to enhance income, these market-based forestry interventions typically aim to align with sustainable development agendas, including (a) safeguarding ecological integrity and (b) promoting poverty alleviation. Our concern here is that the process of forest commodification might lead to a shift in local norms of benefit-sharing, in ways that can hinder these key components of sustainable development goals. We report the results of a survey (N=519) conducted across sites in Bolivia, China and Tanzania that shows that switching from non-monetary to monetary benefits is associated with changes in preferences for distributional fairness in ways that may be detrimental to the poor. In particular, we show that forest commodification is associated with a lower likelihood of selecting pro-poor or egalitarian approaches to benefit sharing and higher likelihood of selecting to distribute benefits in a way that rewards individual contributions or compensates losses.

Research paper thumbnail of The Type of Land We Want: Exploring the Limits of Community Forestry in Tanzania and Bolivia

Sustainability

We explore local people’s perspectives of community forest (CF) on their land in Tanzania and Bol... more We explore local people’s perspectives of community forest (CF) on their land in Tanzania and Bolivia. Community forest management is known to improve ecological conditions of forests, but is more variable in its social outcomes. Understanding communities’ experience of community forestry and the potential benefits and burdens its formation may place on a community will likely help in predicting its sustainability as a forest and land management model. Six villages, two in Tanzania and four in Bolivia, were selected based on the presence of community forestry in varying stages. We found that communities were generally supportive of existing community forests but cautious of their expansion. Deeper explorations of this response using ethnographic research methods reveal that an increase in community forest area is associated with increasing opportunity costs and constraints on agricultural land use, but not an increase in benefits. Furthermore, community forests give rise to a series...