A Toxic Development: Pollution and Change in an Amazonian Oil Frontier (original) (raw)
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Negotiating Place: Petroleum Extraction in the Ecuadorian Amazon
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Existen pocos objetos que provocan tanta discusión de finales radicales que el petróleo, la materia prima industrial más importante del mundo. En este artículo, examino la pérdida asociada con el petróleo a través de una exploración de la medida en la que su extracción llega a ser "desastrosa" para las vidas y las tierras de los pueblos que habitan las regiones productoras de petróleo. En Ecuador, país miembro de la OPEP, el símbolo más visible del poder destructivo del petróleo es el pueblo cofán. Varios artículos, documentales, sitios web y juicios representan al territorio cofán como una tierra ecológica y socioculturalmente devastada. Para contrarrestar el espíritu derrotista y el cierre analítico de las narrativas de la asolación, propongo un marco conceptual alternativo que reconozca la presencia indeterminada del petróleo en el discurso y la práctica del pueblo cofán. Mucho más que una historia sencilla de pérdida, una fenomenología cofán del petróleo combina la realidad de la destrucción con una serie de elipsis, contradicciones y oportunidades que permiten que los cofanes nieguen su destrucción mientras que también la prevengan. [ecología/medio ambiente, desarrollo, pueblos indígenas, política, antropología social] A b s t r a c t Few objects elicit more talk of radical endings than oil, the world's most important industrial commodity. In this article, I examine oil-associated loss by exploring the extent to which its extraction becomes "disastrous" for the lives and lands of peoples who inhabit oil-producing regions. In the OPEC nation Ecuador, the most visible symbols of oil's destructive power are indigenous Cofán people. Numerous articles, documentaries, websites, and lawsuits portray Cofán territory as an ecological and sociocultural wasteland. In order to counteract the defeatist spirit and analytic closure of narratives
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Why do some residents of the Ecuadorian Amazon support the expansion of oil extraction in their communities even when they believe that the impact of extractive industries on their communities and families has been negative, environmentally as well as economically? Building on nearly a decade of participatory research in the region, this chapter contextualizes this paradoxical choice within Ecuador’s encounter with oil extraction, which has not only failed to deliver the anticipated economic miracle but also resulted in a variety of immiserizing effects, be they economic, cultural, or ecological. Caught between the state whose functions are governed by an ‘extractive imperative’ and the oil sector whose presence is overwhelming, indigenous and peasant communities have not scored meaningful gains either by protesting against these dominant actors or by engaging with the much vaunted but ultimately ineffective concept of buen vivir (living well). The chapter argues that immiserization...
The Entanglements of Oil Extraction and Sustainability in the Ecuadorian Amazon
Environment and Sustainability in a Globalizing World, Routledge, 2019
Oil extraction is a useful optic for thinking and writing about the future of sustainable resource use. While concerns over the burdens of oil extraction tend to be of a planetary scale (e.g. discussions around fossil-fuel addiction, energy security, and climate change), in this chapter we zoom in to the case of the Ecuadorian Amazon, where indigenous peoples have raised profound questions about oil extraction practices and outcomes. Amazonian peoples’ refusal to oil extraction, in particular, has received significant global attention and is considered emblematic of indigenous peoples’ sustainability thinking. At the same time, this common narrative about indigenous political action hides the complex ways that Amazonian peoples relate to oil extraction. We focus on the case of Playas del Cuyabeno (Playas hereafter), a Kichwa community located in the northern Ecuadorian Amazon to illustrate how “sustainability” is not an abstract concept that can be applied worldwide seamlessly, but that thinking and acting sustainably emerges from locally-rooted visions of the past, present and future. In this chapter, we introduce the dominant ways in which sustainability and oil extraction are currently discussed in Ecuador, and how debates around oil extraction tend to reproduce a particular way of thinking about sustainability. Next, we lay out our conceptual framework for examining sustainability in Playas. Then, we briefly trace the experiences that shaped how Playas residents see themselves in relation to oil, first resisting and then acquiescing to oil extraction within their territory. In the subsequent section, we examine the conditions and subjectivities through which people of Playas came to position themselves not only as supporters of oil extraction, but as potential oil producers themselves, despite popular narratives that associate indigenous peoples with anti-oil politics. We interrogate concepts of sustainability by tracing the conditions that made it possible for Playas’ population to imagine an indigenous oil company as a vehicle of sustainability, noting that sustainable development planning is not the exclusive practice of elite state, non-governmental, and multilateral institutions. We highlight the intersectional dimensions of the decisions of indigenous leaders to embrace oil extraction in the name of social and environmental sustainability. There is no single relation that explains positioning vis-à-vis oil in local contexts, but multiple relations and complex histories that construct ways of seeing and acting.
In the Spirit of Oil: Unintended Flows and Leaky Lives in Northeastern Ecuador
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Throughout the Americas, agroindustry, oil, gas, and mining projects have pushed the extractive frontier deeper into indigenous territories, more often than not with devastating social and environmental effects (Sawyer 2004, 2015; Bebbington 2012; Bebbington and Bury 2013; Hindery 2013). In northeastern Ecuador, exploration for oil began more than 40 years ago, when Texaco initiated operations in what was represented by the Ecuadorian state as an uninhabited, empty hinterland (Whitten 1978, 1981; Wasserstrom and Southgate 2013). Nonetheless, these 'empty' lands and forests were the home of the Cofán, Siona, Secoya, and Huaorani indigenous peoples. The intended and unintended consequences of oil exploitation-from contamination to colonisation and deforestation-have unavoidably led indigenous communities in the area to seek out their own strategies for coping and living their lives with oil. The chapter asks: how does a community uphold a sense of control over their lives in the encounter with extractivist policies?
Divided We Fall: Oil Exploitation, Conservation, and Indigenous Organizing in the Amazon Basin
This article explores the failures of the current development paradigm through the case study of the Madre de Dios region of the Peruvian Amazon. I examine the complex relationships between the indigenous communities, the Federación Nativa de Madre de Dios y Afluentes (FENAMAD) that represents them, and the Peruvian Government in the southeastern region of the Amazon, to argue that the State’s conservationist discourse limits the indigenous organization’s struggle against oil extraction, preventing it from effectively representing the needs of the communities it claims to represent. Based on analysis of personal interviews with community members, published statements from FENAMAD, and legal complaints against Hunt Oil, this paper suggests that the divisions between these stakeholders are directly impeding progress towards defining and acting upon shared regional goals. I compare the desirable futures as defined by the Native Community Shintuya, FENAMAD, and the State to conclude that contrary to the federation’s stance, the community sees oil as a potential opportunity for community growth. Through examination of the current strategies of indigenous umbrella organizations and other actors in the face of natural resource extraction, my case study reveals the challenges confronting indigenous communities in their struggles to define their own development and suggests strategies for moving forward toward desirable futures.
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This article examines the Amazonian countries of Peru and Ecuador, their differing policy directions on petroleum extraction and the impact these continue to have on the environment and the Indians of the Amazon Basin. It begins by analysing the international laws in place to safeguard indigenous communities, followed by a discussion on Peru, which reveals how successive Lima governments have ridden roughshod over the legitimate rights of the native population. This has culminated in the gravest risk yet; a ‘mega concession’ for extraction that covers over 10 million acres of rainforest, threatening numerous communities. The environmental and societal repercussions this would have will be highlighted through a study of the Achuar tribe in the Corrientes River Basin, who have suffered thirty years of oil extraction on their land. This is followed by a critique of Ecuador, a country that trod a similar policy path to Peru, but isnow taking a bold environmental approach to petroleum extraction through the Yasuni ITT Initiative. This enterprise will be explored alongside the possible motives behind it leading to a theoretical argument; that the scheme could provide Peru with a credible alternative to petroleum extraction which would not only safeguard the indigenous tribes and their rights, but also protect the Peruvian Amazonian Basin from further damage.