Neoextractivism And Territorial Disputes In Latin America

This book reflects on the continuing expansion of extractive forms of capitalist development into new territories in Latin America, and the resistance movements that are trying to combat the ecological and social destruction that follows. This book uncovers the underlying trends and dynamics of these territorialities in dispute, and the socio-ecological resistance movements that are emerging as marginalised communities struggle to reclaim their territorial rights and defend and protect their right of access to the global commons. This book will be of interest to both students and researchers in the fields of international development, political ecology, critical geography, social anthropology, as well as to activists engaged in socio-ecological/eco-territorial movements.

This Element analyses the political dynamics of neo-extractivism in Latin America. It discusses the critical concepts of neo-extractivism and the commodity consensus and the various phases of socio-environmental conflict, proposing an eco-territorial approach that uncovers the escalation of extractive violence. It also presents horizontal concepts and debates theories that explore the language of Latin American socio-environmental movements, such as Buen Vivir and Derechos de la Naturaleza. In concluding, it proposes an explanation for the end of the progressive era, analyzing its ambiguities and limitations in the dawn of a new political cycle marked by the strengthening of the political rights.

This book reflects on the continuing expansion of extractive forms of capitalist development into new territories in Latin America, and the resistance movements that are trying to combat the ecological and social destruction that follows. Latin American development models continue to prioritise extractivism: the intensive exploitation and exportation of nature in its primary commodity form. This constant expansion of the extractive frontier into new territories leads to a continuing process and dialectic of colonization, de-colonization and re-colonization which the authors describe as ‘territorialities in dispute’. This book uncovers the underlying trends and dynamics of these territorialities in dispute, and the socio-ecological resistance movements that are emerging as marginalised communities struggle to reclaim their territorial rights and defend and protect their right of access to the global commons. A focus on territorialities in dispute renders visible the unsustainable expansion of extractivist territories and opens up new horizons to learn from these processes and to consider post-extractivist/post-development imaginings of another world and alternate futures. This book will be of interest to both students and researchers in the fields of international development, political ecology, critical geography, social anthropology, as well as to activists engaged in socio-ecological/eco-territorial movements.

Penelope Anthias’s Limits to Decolonization addresses one of the most important issues in contemporary indigenous politics: struggles for territory. Based on the experience of thirty-six Guaraní communities in the Bolivian Chaco, Anthias reveals how two decades of indigenous mapping and land titling have failed to reverse a historical trajectory of indigenous dispossession in the Bolivian lowlands. Through an ethnographic account of the "limits" the Guaraní have encountered over the course of their territorial claim—from state boundaries to landowner opposition to hydrocarbon development—Anthias raises critical questions about the role of maps and land titles in indigenous struggles for self-determination. Anthias argues that these unresolved territorial claims are shaping the contours of an era of "post-neoliberal" politics in Bolivia. Limits to Decolonization reveals the surprising ways in which indigenous peoples are reframing their territorial projects in the context of this hydrocarbon state and drawing on their experiences of the limits of state recognition. The tensions of Bolivia’s "process of change" are revealed, as Limits to Decolonization rethinks current debates on cultural rights, resource politics, and Latin American leftist states. In sum, Anthias reveals the creative and pragmatic ways in which indigenous peoples contest and work within the limits of postcolonial rule in pursuit of their own visions of territorial autonomy.

This book investigates the cross-border trade in illicit drug crops in the global south. It exposes an important paradox: despite all the dangers and negative consequences of these criminal networks, in many cases, they also provide marginalised and excluded communities with important private sources of protection, investment, and employment. This book reconstructs and compares socioeconomic contexts, criminal careers, and changes in farmgate prices of illicit coca and opium poppy crops in Afghanistan, Myanmar, Colombia, and Bolivia. It investigates the politics of strange bedfellows; informal bankers-without-suits providing cross-border financial services to the undocumented and the unbanked; the criminals without borders; and the mystery of illicit crop prices. The book challenges commonly held assumptions and casts new light on how relationships of conflict and accommodation are arranged and re-arranged in fluid, ever-changing contexts, producing often paradoxical outcomes. It then suggests policy reforms and alternative approaches to drug policy, development aid, and peacebuilding work. Researchers and students across development, peacebuilding, illicit economies, and conflict studies will find this book an important source of original research and analysis. It will also be useful for politicians, commentators and public officials considering what to do differently in tackling illicit drug economies.