Syllabus: Environmentalism of the Poor (original) (raw)
Related papers
Arturo Escobar has recently proposed that we take stock of the modernity/coloniality project, singling out its general lines of argument based on a critique of modernity which shows its inherently colonial character (Escobar, 2003: 77). Escobar proposes a broadening of the horizons of this project on the basis of the inclusion of three subjects which offer a fruitful field for discussion: the perspective of gender, alternative economies and the perspective of political ecology. The modernity/ coloniality project thus would need a new arena of discussion: the pattern of the colonial power over nature. To further this aim, I would like to show how the modern/ colonial discourses not only produce subjectivities and territorialities, but also "natures", that is, it is possible to find evidences of a "coloniality of natures". I thus propose an interpretation of nature which, on the one hand, shows the post-colonial devices present in current disputes about the definition of biodiversity and, on the other, avoids the positions which reify and essentialize the local populations involved in this dispute. That is why I think it is important to broaden Aníbal Quijano´s notion of the "coloniality of power", which is only based on the production of colonial subjectivities linked to racial and epistemic hierarchies. I will employ the notion of the bio-coloniality of power to discuss the current production of nature in the framework of post-Fordian capitalism.
Transcending the Coloniality of Development: Moving Beyond Human/Nature Hierarchies
American Behavioral Scientist, 2014
At this particular historical conjuncture, human-made crises—from ecological disasters such as the BP oil spill or the Fukushima nuclear accident, to food shortages and national economic calamities—have rightly gained attention, and the prospect of real limits to consumption seem ever present on the horizon. According to David Harvey, such “[c]rises are moments of paradox and possibility out of which all manner of alternatives . . . can spring.” It is these moments, or encounters, of paradox and possibility that I address in this article. I specifically consider novel ecological political articulations that have emerged out of indigenous movements that unmask the material foundations of world history and demonstrate cracks in a dominant ideology that commoditizes all matter—living and otherwise.
Antipode, 2024
Indigenous Peoples are gaining renewed attention within both policy and academia, as examples of "resilience" and of non-humanist, non-modern ways of relating to nature, which might, it is hoped, provide tools to withstand the socio-ecological crises associated with "the Anthropocene". This paper argues that such representations obscure both their own colonial foundations and the ongoing forms of racialised dispossession and ecocide faced by Indigenous Peoples today. Instead, we conceptualise indigeneity and nature as deeply entangled categories that are co-produced with capitalist modernity. Engaging anti-colonial and Marxist scholarship, and drawing on our long-term research with Indigenous movements in Bolivia and Colombia, we highlight how discursive and material assemblages of indigeneity and nature are dialectically linked to capitalist processes of dispossession and subaltern efforts to contest these. We further highlight how romanticised accounts of non-modern nature-cultures are unsettled by the violent world-making of colonial capitalism and the unequal burdens placed on Indigenous territories and bodies. We use an ethnographic vignette from the Bolivian Chaco to illustrate the messy everyday ways in which real Indigenous people navigate, contest, endure, and make do amidst the contradictory processes of racialisation, dispossession, and conditional recognition that characterise their positioning within colonial capitalism. In doing so, we show how thinking from the sacrifice zones of extractive capitalism unsettles contemporary debates on decolonising nature in the Anthropocene.
Struggles for Dignity in the Web of Life: Capital, Waste & the Violence of Cheap Nature
Power Struggles: Dignity, Value, & the Renewable Energy Frontier in Spain, 2022
When I grow up, I hope to write a book half as good as Power Struggles. Its narrative is elegant, engaging, accessible. Its insights will keep you thinking long after you read the last page. Power Struggles is that rare book: scholarly without being scholastic; intimately ethnographic without losing sight of the Big Picture; politically committed without succumbing to dogma. In my original book endorsement, I wrote that Power Struggles is “indispensable reading for energy justice in the age of climate crisis.” This is true. But Jaume Franquesa has given us something far more significant than an ethnographic masterpiece of renewable energy and its brutal inequalities. His vision refused the dominant fetish energy, piercing its ideological veil, laying bare the contradictions of capitalist power in the web of life. Power Struggles reads as a searing indictment of capitalist power as a Promethean drive to dominate humans by dominating the rest of life (and vice versa). For Franquesa, that Prometheanism does float in the philosophical ether; it is a class project of ideological domination and cultural devaluation, one that seeks to mystify capitalism’s real movements of accumulation, inequality, and laying waste to life, labor and landscapes. Preface to the Spanish translation of Jaume Franquesa, Power Struggles: Dignity, Value, & the Renewable Energy Frontier in Spain (Madrid: Errata Naturae, forthcoming late 2022; 2018 original, Indiana University Press).
Inter-American Journal of Philosophy 6:1 (Spring 2015), 2015
In this article, I am critical of decolonial theory’s negligence of the issues of nature and the environment. I work to remedy this problem by providing a decolonial analysis of the operative colonial conception nature. I argue that one of the reasons that efforts to curb human-caused environmental devastation have been ineffective is that the two popular approaches to environmentalist activism — the global warming and sustainability approaches — do not necessarily pose a challenge to the way in which we currently conceptualize nature, nor do they entail a robust ethical view. Then, I propose one potential avenue for developing an alternative, decolonial approach to nature, drawing from environmental philosopher Ricardo Rozzi’s notion of the biocultural perspective, which emphasizes the dynamic relationship between human ways of life and the diversity of non-human life. I conclude by analyzing two concrete instantiations of the biocultural perspective in a Latin American context.
The article discusses conceptual and methodological issues related to environmental risks and health problems, in the context of environmental injustice and conflicts. In doing so, we use the conceptual frameworks of political ecology and what we call political epistemology. We propose a comprehensive vision of health that relates not only to illness and death, but also to life, nature, culture and fundamental human rights. We summarize this as health and dignity, echoing the voices of countless people who have been fighting for the right to life and the commons, and against the impacts of mining, agribusiness and the oil industry. Therefore our concept of health is intrinsically related to the capacity of affected communities and their democratic allies to face environmental conflicts (the exploitation of natural resources and the workforce with the systematic violation of rights related to work, land, environment and health). Mobilizations for environmental justice also struggle for the autonomy of communities, their cultures, and the right to maintain indigenous or peasant livelihoods. The way knowledge is produced plays a fundamental role in environmental justice mobilizations since issues of power are related to epistemological disputes and counter-hegemonic alternatives. Political epistemology is an alternative way of confronting crucial questions related to knowledge production, uncertainties and the manipulations of those who generate environmental injustices. Finally, we point to some strategies for strengthening the shared production of knowledge and the mobilization of communities that organize to confront environmental injustices. L'article traite des questions conceptuelles et méthodologiques liées aux risques environnementaux et aux problèmes de santé, dans le contexte de l'injustice environnementale et des conflits. Ce faisant, nous utilisons les cadres conceptuels de l'écologie politique et ce que nous appelons «épistémologie politique». Nous proposons une vision globale de la santé qui concerne non seulement la maladie et la mort, mais aussi la vie, la nature, la culture et les droits humains fondamentaux. Nous résumons ceci comme «la santé et la dignité», faisant écho aux voix d'innombrables personnes qui ont lutté pour le droit à la vie et les biens communs, et contre les impacts de l'industrie minière, l'agroalimentaire et l'industrie pétrolière. Par conséquent, notre concept de santé est intrinsèquement lié à la capacité des communautés touchées et de leurs alliés démocratiques de faire face à des conflits environnementaux (exploitation des ressources naturelles et de la main-d'oeuvre avec violation systématique des droits liés au travail, à la terre, à l'environnement et à la santé). Les mobilisations pour la justice environnementale luttent également pour l'autonomie des communautés, leurs cultures et le droit de maintenir des moyens de subsistance indigènes ou paysans. La façon dont la connaissance est produite joue un rôle fondamental dans la mobilisation de la justice environnementale puisque les questions de pouvoir sont liées à des conflits épistémologiques et à des alternatives contre-hégémoniques. L'épistémologie politique est un moyen alternatif de confronter les questions cruciales liées à la production des connaissances, les incertitudes et les manipulations de ceux qui génèrent des injustices environnementales. Enfin, nous soulignons certaines stratégies pour renforcer la production partagée de connaissances et la mobilisation des communautés qui s'organisent pour faire face aux injustices environnementales. El artículo discute temas conceptuales y metodológicos sobre los riesgos ambientales y problemas de salud en contextos de injusticias y conflictos ambientales utilizando como referencia la ecología política y lo que llamamos epistemología política. Proponemos una visión integral de la salud que se relaciona no sólo con la enfermedad y la muerte, pero con la vida, la naturaleza, la cultura y los derechos fundamentales. Resumimos esto en la expresión "Salud y Dignidad", haciéndose eco de las voces de innumerables personas que han estado luchando por el derecho a la vida y los bienes comunes, y en contra de los impactos de los sectores económicos como la minería, la agroindustria y la industria petrolera. Por lo tanto nuestro concepto de salud está intrínsecamente relacionado con la capacidad de las comunidades afectadas y sus alianzas democráticas para hacer frente a los conflictos ambientales. Estos revelan la explotación de los recursos naturales y dos trabajadores con la violación sistemática de los derechos relacionados con diferentes aspectos: el trabajo, la tierra, el medio ambiente y la salud. Movilizaciones por la justicia ambiental también luchan por la autonomía de las comunidades, sus culturas, el derecho a mantener sus medios de vida como indígenas o campesinos, entre otros. La forma en cómo el conocimiento se basa y es producido juega un papel fundamental para la movilización de justicia ambiental ya que las cuestiones de poder están relacionadas con disputas epistemológicas y alternativas contra hegemónicas de sociedad. Utilizamos la epistemología política como una forma alternativa de hacer frente a cuestiones cruciales relacionadas con la producción de conocimiento, así como las incertidumbres y sus manipulaciones de parte de los que generan injusticias ambientales. Señalamos a las estrategias para el fortalecimiento de la producción compartida de conocimientos y el protagonismo de las comunidades que se movilizan para hacer frente a las injusticias ambientales.
African Studies Review, 2022
Cajetan Iheka's monograph Naturalizing Africa: Ecological Violence, Agency, and Postcolonial Resistance in African Literature is a critical contribution to the discourse on African ecocritical thought and scholarship. Historically, works of literature that focus on the environment have often focused on the impacts of environmental degradation, oil pollution, natural disasters, and desert encroachment from the human perspective, with little to no account of the effects of these disasters on other biotic components of the environment. Through this crucial contribution, Iheka emphasizes the need to explore and appreciate the complex relationship that exists or that should exist between human and nonhuman elements of the ecosystem. In investigating, problematizing, complicating, and analyzing the relationship between humans and nonhuman agents as represented in African literature, Iheka hopes to "extend the domain of African literary studies from one primarily focused on humans to one that explores the complexities of human-nonhuman relations in the different sites under consideration; rethink the dominant notion of agency based on intentionality and propose ways of conceiving distributed agency or varieties of agency functioning between human beings and other environmental actors" (3). Considering the paucity of scholarship on the effects of environmental degradation on nonhuman components, Iheka's book is a welcome and timely intervention and contribution to that discourse. Written partly in response to Neil Lazarus's call in The Postcolonial Unconscious for a postcolonial study that aligns with relevant contemporary issues, including questions of land, geography, and the environment, Iheka references and expands on different theories from a variety of disciplines. He not only highlights the human effects of environmental degradation but also examines the nonhuman factors-effects on plants, animals, forests, soil, and water-and their interrelationships as a complex whole. The book's arguments unfold in four broad chapters.
2022
How the non-human turn challenges the social sciences The case of environmental struggles at Notre-Dame-des-Landes, France Sylvaine Bulle 0000-0002-4587-9093 In Territories, Environments, Politics; edited by Andrea Mubi Brighenti and Mattias Kärrholm, Routledge, 2022 The chapter reviews recent theoretical debates in the so-called 'ontological turn.' The new approach is important but it also runs the risk of missing important dimensions in the logic of political mobilisation, which both social movement studies and a pragmatically-inspired political sociology are better equipped to account for. The case study analyses the environmental struggles at Notre-Dame-des-Landes in France. Squatting started in 2014, and more intense debates took place after the eviction carried out in 2018. Mid-twentieth-century territoriology first offered a specific vision of the possible collaboration between the social and the natural sciences; today, in current times of climate crisis, it offers new topics for research and knowledge, spurring innovative work (Brighenti and Kärrholm 2020). Recent literature has explored the interweavings of different forms of territorial life, understood not only in terms of life environments, but as 'acting' environments. Territoriology thus joins the trajectory of other sciences, all of which appear transformed in the age of Anthropocene and Capitalocene. In similar research approaches, non-humans appear to be key players, capable of challenging the separation between nature and culture. 'Nature defending itself,' animals, even shamanism and spirituality, are all part, not only of life environments, but of a theoretical space that has expanded its domain of enquiry beyond social and normative criticism. The so-called environmental humanities question anthropocentrism and criticise the Western idea of Nature. They resonate widely across human geography and urban planning, science history and the arts, as well as in the public discourse. In environmental struggles, for instance, multiple living collectives are evoked, such as forests and animals, who appear as agents or 'actants' in the environment, and even actors in a series of struggles. New theories and ethnographic methods emphasise participation in the modes of existence so as to create new alliances and new controversies. By contrast, sociology, a classical science, has so far made limited use of the relation between humans and non-humans. Is this an oversight, or does it respond to a necessity to keep at a distance from a perhaps too enthusiastic relational ecology? Questions indeed arise about the
Current debates about the Anthropocene have sparked renewed interest in the relationship between ecology, technology, and coloniality. How do humans relate to one another, to the living environment, and to their material or technological artifacts; and how are these relations structured by coloniality, defined not only as a material process of appropriation and subjugation, but also as an exclusionary hierarchy of knowing and being that still pervades contemporary life? While these questions have of course received attention in decolonial theory, they have also captured the interest of scholars who self-identify with the field of political ecology. However, it can be argued that political ecology still primarily adheres to research practices and paradigms that have been developed in the West, regardless of its diversity and dynamism as a field of research. It is therefore suggested that a rapprochement between decolonial theory and political ecology can open up new perspectives on current debates that are emerging around the concept of the Anthropocene. In particular, the article takes the recent interest in the ontological implications of the Anthropocene as a point of departure to bring the decolonial notion of 'border thinking' into a conversation with the so-called 'new materialism' in political ecology. While both approaches are not necessarily opposed to values grounded in rationality, they can be seen as attempts to rethink ontological divisions such as human/nature or subject/object based on 'enchanted' ways of knowing and being-in-the-world. Yet, although enchantment has the potential to counter inherently colonial practices of appropriation, commodification and objectification, it is argued that keeping a moderately critical distance to enchanted narratives is still recommended, not because of the alleged naïveté of such narratives, but rather because enchantments may also function as and through technologies of power. Les débats récents sur l'anthropocène soulignent un nouveau intérêt scientifique pour les relations complexes entre la écologie, la technologie, et le colonialisme. Comment est-ce que l'humanité se rapportent les uns envers les autres, à leur milieu de vie et à leurs objets physiques et techniques, et comment ces relations sont-ils structurées par le colonialisme, non seulement définies comme un processus matériel de l'appropriation et de l'assujettissement, mais aussi comme une hiérarchie d'exclusion de la connaissance et de l'être, qui imprègne encore la vie contemporaine? Bien que ces questions étaient naturellement traitées dans la théorie de la décolonialisme, ils ont également suscité l'intérêt des scientifiques, qui se disent les écologistes politiques. Néanmoins, on peut affirmer que l'écologie politique suivie encore des pratiques et paradigmes de recherche occidentaux, mais il est un domaine diversifié de la recherche. Il est donc proposé qu'un rapprochement entre la théorie décolonial et l'écologie politique peut ouvrir une nouvelle perspective sur les débats autour de l'anthropocène. Avant tout, cet article prend l'intérêt récent pour les implications ontologiques de l'anthropocène comme point de départ pour amener la notion décolonial de la «pensée frontalière» dans une conversation avec le soi-disant «nouveau matérialisme» dans l'écologie politique. Bien que les deux approches ne sont pas nécessairement opposés à des valeurs fondées sur la rationalité, ce sont des tentatives de reconsidérer les divisions ontologiques entre l'homme et la nature ou entre sujet et objet basé sur les moyens «enchantés» de savoir et d'être-dans-le-monde. Pourtant, bien que l'enchantement a le potentiel pour contrer les pratiques coloniales d'appropriation, de la marchandisation et de l'objectivation, il est soutenu que garder une distance critique aux récits enchantées est recommandé, pas à cause de la naïveté présumée de ces récits, mais plutôt parce que enchantements peut également fonctionner comme et grâce à des technologies du pouvoir. Recientes debates académicos sobre el Antropoceno apuntan hacia un renovado interés académico en las complejas relaciones entre la ecología, la tecnología y la colonialidad. ¿De qué manera los seres humanos se relacionan entre sí, de las condiciones de vida y de sus materiales o tecnológicos artefactos, y cómo son estas relaciones estructuradas por la colonialidad, que se define no sólo como un proceso material de la apropiación y el sometimiento, sino también como una jerarquía de exclusión del conocimiento y ser, que todavía impregna la vida contemporánea? Si bien estas cuestiones fueron tratadas por supuesto en la teoría decolonial, sino que también han atraído el interés de los científicos que se llaman ecologistas políticos. Sin embargo, se puede argumentar que la ecología política siguió siendo prácticas de investigación y paradigmas occidentales, aunque hay un amplio campo de investigación. Por lo tanto, se sugiere que un acercamiento entre la teoría decolonial y la ecología política puede abrir nuevas perspectivas sobre los debates actuales que están surgiendo en torno al concepto del Antropoceno. En particular, el artículo toma el reciente interés en las implicaciones ontológicas del Antropoceno como un punto de partida para que la noción decolonial de 'pensamiento fronterizo' en una conversación con el llamado 'nuevo materialismo' en la ecología política. Si bien ambos enfoques no son necesariamente opuestos a los valores fundados en la racionalidad, que pueden verse como intentos de replantear divisiones ontológicas entre los humanos y la naturaleza o entre sujeto y objeto en función de maneras 'encantadas' de conocer y de ser-en-el-mundo. Sin embargo, a pesar de encantamiento puede servir como un medio útil para contrarrestar las prácticas destructivas de apropiación, la cosificación y mercantilización, se argumenta que una distancia moderadamente crítico para narrativas encantada es recomendable, no es principalmente debido a la supuesta ingenuidad de estas narrativas, sino más bien porque encantamientos también podría funcionar como tecnologías de poder, y por medio de tecnologías de poder.