Extractive Imperialism In The Americas

Recent changes in the global economy, which include a growing demand for energy and natural resources such as industrial minerals and agro-food products, have brought about a massive devastating pillage of resources in the developing world by multinational corporations as well as states with energy and food security concerns—and concerns about a system (global capitalism) in the throes of a global crisis. These developments have also brought about a major change in the form taken by imperialism (actions taken by the state to advance the interests of the dominant capitalist class). This book explores the changing face of US imperialism in the regional context of the Americas, a major stage in the unfolding drama of a system in crisis.

"Rooted in thousands of pages of Access to Information documents and dozens of interviews carried out throughout Latin America over the last four years, Blood of Extraction is a critical study of contemporary Canadian intervention in Latin America. It integrates political economy with theories of development and social movements to interrogate the insertion of Canadian multinational corporations (MNCs) into Latin America, the role of the Canadian state in facilitating this process, and the impact of these interconnected dynamics on the region's people and ecology. Canadian-based MNCs, backed by the Canadian state through a coherent strategic framework of trade, diplomacy, development aid, and security policy, have developed extensive economic interests in Latin America over the last two decades. While Canadian investment is occurring across a broad range of sectors, it is most extensive, and controversial, in the resource sector. Canada has the largest mining industry in the world, while Latin America has become the most important regional destination for Canadian resource investment abroad. We demonstrate how resource extraction is a poor source of job creation and typically associated with increased inequality, environmental damage, and the proliferation of human rights abuses. Latin American communities affected by Canadian resource extraction are now organized into hundreds of movements of opposition, from Mexico in the north to Argentina in the south. Blood of Extraction is organized around detailed case studies of Canadian geopolitical engagement with a number of countries in Central America and the Andes. Within each chapter we track the growth of Canadian investment, the human rights and ecological conflicts that attend that investment, and the different strategies mobilized by the Canadian state and embassies to advance the interests of Canadian MNCs in the face of social movement, and occasionally governmental, opposition."--

In a primary commodities boom spurred on by the rise of China, countries the world over are turning to the extraction of natural resources and the export of primary commodities as an antidote to the global recession. The New Extractivism addresses a fundamental dilemma faced by these governments: to pursue, or not, a development strategy based on resource extraction in the face of immense social and environmental costs, not to mention mass resistance from the people negatively affected by it. With fresh insight and analysis from Argentina, Bolivia, Colombia, Ecuador, Mexico and Peru, this book looks at the political dynamics of capitalist development in a region where the neoliberal model is collapsing under the weight of a resistance movement lead by peasant farmers and indigenous communities. It calls for us to understand the new extractivism not as a viable development model for the post-neoliberal world, but as the dangerous emergence of a new form of imperialism.

This book focuses on US imperialism today in Latin America. It concerns the projection of state power as a means of advancing the economic interests of the US capitalist class and maintaining its hegemony over the world capitalist system.

Rooted in thousands of pages of Access to Information documents and dozens of interviews carried out throughout Latin America, Blood of Extraction examines the increasing presence of Canadian mining companies in Latin America and the environmental and human rights abuses that have occurred as a result. By following the money, Gordon and Webber illustrate the myriad ways Canadian-based multinational corporations, backed by the Canadian state, have developed extensive economic interests in Latin America over the last two decades at the expense of Latin American people and the environment. Latin American communities affected by Canadian resource extraction are now organized into hundreds of opposition movements, from Mexico to Argentina, and the authors illustrate the strategies used by the Canadian state to silence this resistance and advance corporate interests.

The last two decades have witnessed a dramatic expansion and intensification of mineral resource exploitation and development across the global south, especially in Latin America. This shift has brought mining more visibly into global public debates and spurred a great deal of controversy and conflict. This volume assembles new scholarship that provides critical perspectives on these issues. The book marshals original, empirical work from leading social scientists in a variety of disciplines to address a range of questions about the practices of mining companies on the ground, the impacts of mining on host communities, and the responses to mining from communities, civil society and states. The book further explores the global and international causes, consequences and innovations of this new era of mining activity in Latin America. Key issues include the role of Canadian mining companies and their investment in the region, and, to a lesser extent, the role of Chinese mining capital. Several chapters take a regional perspective, while others are based on empirical data from specific countries including Bolivia, Brazil, El Salvador, Guatemala and Peru.

In The Extractive Zone Macarena Gómez-Barris traces the political, aesthetic, and performative practices that emerge in opposition to the ruinous effects of extractive capital. The work of Indigenous activists, intellectuals, and artists in spaces Gómez-Barris labels extractive zones—majority indigenous regions in South America noted for their biodiversity and long history of exploitative natural resource extraction—resist and refuse the terms of racial capital and the continued legacies of colonialism. Extending decolonial theory with race, sexuality, and critical Indigenous studies, Gómez-Barris develops new vocabularies for alternative forms of social and political life. She shows how from Colombia to southern Chile artists like filmmaker Huichaqueo Perez and visual artist Carolina Caycedo formulate decolonial aesthetics. She also examines the decolonizing politics of a Bolivian anarcho-feminist collective and a coalition in eastern Ecuador that protects the region from oil drilling. In so doing, Gómez-Barris reveals the continued presence of colonial logics and locates emergent modes of living beyond the boundaries of destructive extractive capital.

The Class Struggle in Latin America: Making History Today analyses the political and economic dynamics of development in Latin America through the lens of class struggle. Focusing in particular on Peru, Paraguay, Chile, Colombia, Argentina, Brazil and Venezuela, the book identifies how the shifts and changing dynamics of the class struggle have impacted on the rise, demise and resurgence of neo-liberal regimes in Latin America. This innovative book offers a unique perspective on the evolving dynamics of class struggle, engaging both the destructive forces of capitalist development and those seeking to consolidate the system and preserve the status quo, alongside the efforts of popular resistance concerned with the destructive ravages of capitalism on humankind, society and the global environment. Using theoretical observations based on empirical and historical case studies, this book argues that the class struggle remains intrinsically linked to the march of capitalist development. At a time when post-neo-liberal regimes in Latin America are faltering, this supplementary text provides a guide to the economic and political dynamics of capitalist development in the region, which will be invaluable to students and researchers of international development, anthropology and sociology, as well as those with an interest in Latin American politics and development.