The politics of extractive governance: Indigenous peoples and socio-environmental conflicts (original) (raw)
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Extractive Relations: Natural Resource Use, Indigenous Peoples and Environmental Protection in Peru
Bulletin of Latin American Research, 2020
Through ethnography of Ashaninka communities' involvement in timber extraction in Peruvian Amazonia and an engagement with recent discussions around Buen Vivir the article interrogates the common association between indigenous notions of 'living well' and environmental protection. A key insight is that Ashaninka individuals emphasise everyday well-being and equality over the preservation of their surroundings. Older critiques of extractivism are used to show the recent advent of environmentalist discourses and highlight issues connected with emphasising ontological difference. The article concludes that Buen Vivir would be better framed as a desire, and right, to self-determination rather than being associated with specific behaviours.
The Devil's Curve: Indigenous Rights and Resource Extraction in Peru
"Indigenous people and their communities have a vital role in environmental management and development because of their knowledge and traditional practices. States should recognize and duly support their identity, culture, and interests and enable their effective participation in the achievement of sustainable development." The soft language of Principle 22 of the Rio Declaration above doesn't provide much in the way of concrete and actionable rights for indigenous peoples vis-à-vis mining, oil, and other encroaching extractive corporations. A body of law articulating indigenous rights and giving them force is working its way up the slow climb of state practice and opinio juris towards codification in customary international law. This paper surveys that law, focusing specifically on Peru.
The Politics of Extractive Industries in the Andes - Isabel Crabtree-Condor and John Crabtree
An idea that is central to this chapter is that not only does the legacy of extractive industries affect institutional development in the Andean countries, but that the success (or otherwise) of extractive industries hinges crucially on the historical and institutional context. In particular, we argue that the state plays a fundamental role in this regard. It is not the size or scope of the state that matters, but the efficacy with which it is able to reconcile competing claims and demands in such a way as to maintain its legitimacy in the eyes of citizens. As we shall see, the record of the three Andean republics under review – Peru, Bolivia and Ecuador – is hardly encouraging in this respect, although it is arguable that recent conflicts are producing institutional developments that may in the future prove conducive to the peaceful resolution of disputes.
Bulletin of Latin American Research, 2018
This article explores the dynamics of natural resource conflicts and local government in the Peruvian Andes. Recent publications have found that efficiency and democratic accountability in local government are key variables for mitigating conflict. By focusing on the ethnographies of two conflicts and as participant observers within local government, we argue that by re-framing the analytical focus within local histories and current practices of natural resource conflicts, we can better make sense of the dynamics of current land politics. The article presents a sequential framework that explores key moments of the relations between the state and peasant communities during natural resource conflicts. Through this framework, we argue that natural resource conflicts are negotiated in a sphere of politics that transcends the state's institutional and legal limits.
Geoforum, 2023
This paper examines the relationships between extractive infrastructure, changing territorial strategies, and contemporary processes of subject formation among the Urarina, an indigenous people in the Peruvian Amazon. We first introduce the uneven and combined character of oil extraction in the Loreto region in north-eastern Peru, and how its racialised spatial contradictions are expressed in the ethnopolitical field that gives political form to regional extractive operations. The paper goes on to analyse the case of the Urarina people in the Chambira river basin, their particular place in the geography of extraction, and the case of the community of Nueva Union. We examine contemporary processes of subject formation in the community, which combine radical transformations in the role of money, territorial strategies, use and valuation of the environment, and changes in political structure, in non-linear ways. The paper closes by examining how the case of the community of Nueva Union sheds light on broader dynamics of subject formation, localised relations to the environment, and extraction as they play out in contemporary indigenous Amazonia.