Paper short abstract:

Focusing on a road connecting two cities in the Ecuadorian Amazon, this paper challenges the view that postneoliberalism is compatible with sustainable development. The 'left turn' is characterized not by its economic ideology but by its development imaginary based on Rostowian modernization theory.

Paper long abstract:

Much of the extensive literature concerning the momentous changes taking place in Latin America have been built around the implicit assumption that the processes of envisioning an alternative development paradigm under the rubric of 'buen vivir' and constructing a post-neoliberal state are inherently compatible as well as being mutually supportive and constitutive of each other. This paper challenges this assumption empirically and theoretically.

The necessary empirical evidence comes from a nearly 1000 kilometer road that has been newly paved in the Ecuadorian Amazon. The road connects two cities that are central to attempts to put nature to work for the 'Citizens Revolution': Lago Agrio, named after Texaco's home town in the United States and 'capital' of Ecuador's oil economy, and Zamora, the centre of an incipient mining boom fuelled by massive investment from a Chinese state-owned corporation. The paper analyzes the text and imagery of billboards placed by state planners alongside the road that seek to provide a retroactive justification for the road itself as well as legitimize further encroachment of extractive processes into the Amazon. It also critically interrogates development imaginaries undergirding the intensification of natural resource extraction and public infrastructure construction.

The paper argues that the incompatibility between 'buen vivir' and Latin American post-neoliberal political economy arises mainly from the ideological construction of the latter, which harks backs to 1960s modernization theory conceptualizations of development and progress. The tension between these two concepts is key to understanding deepening class-based conflicts in Ecuador.