Neoextractivism and Territorial Disputes in Latin America by Anthias, Penelope; López Flores, Pabel C.;

Short description:

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 and will interest those in the fields of international development, ecology, anthropology and geography.

Long description:

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 forms of place-based resistance, negotiation and struggle in which competing territorial projects and claims are at stake. This book uncovers the underlying trends and dynamics of these ‘territorialities in dispute’, and the socio- ecological resistance movements that are emerging as marginalized 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 – as well as the challenges to their realisation.

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.

Table of Contents:

Introduction PART I The territorial dynamics of (neo)extractivism in Latin America: the characteristics and scope of the current phase 1: Extractivism: from the roots and scope of a concept to the political horizons of its struggles 2. Resistance to dispossession and environmental suffering in territories sacrificed by neoextractivism: the example of Chile 3. The Amazon exposed in the Venezuelan Great Crisis (2013-2021): the rise of an extractivism of hybrid governances PART II Territorialities in dispute and the dialectic of re-/de-colonializacion 4. The expansion of agribusiness and territorial conflicts in the Cerrado of Central-North Brazil: the pillaging of land, water and native vegetation 5. Mapuche resistances and alternatives to fracking in Vaca Muerta, (Neuquen, Argentina) 6. Neoextractivism, agribusiness and water scarcity in contemporary Chile 7. Disputed territories, institutions and autonomies: perspectives from three decades of contemporary extractivism in Peru PART III Societal movements, territorial re-existences and alternative horizons 8: Politicizing prior public consultations: notes on the re-existence of the Munduruku people and riverside communities against the construction of hydro-electrical plants in the Middle Tapajós region, Amazonia 9. In defense of life: the existential politics of relating body and territory 10: Sovereignty against extractivism: re-centring decolonisation on Indigenous territorial struggles in Bolivia