Presentation short abstract

This paper examines Colombia's ecosocialist transition under Petro (2022–present) through fieldwork with territorial movements, officials, and party actors. It analyses tensions between post-extractivist demands and fiscal imperatives, revealing contradictions in state-led metabolic transformation.

Presentation long abstract

This paper examines Colombia's nascent ecosocialist transition under the Petro government through multi-sited ethnographic fieldwork conducted in Bogotá, Medellín, and Cali between 2024 and 2026. The research analyzes how the Pacto Histórico coalition attempts to operationalize post-extractivist politics within a peripheral capitalist state still embedded in extractive accumulation regimes during its first-ever left-wing government.

Using a four-actor typology of territorial movement leaders, government officials, academic experts, and party lawmakers, the study maps alliance dynamics and contradictions within Colombia's ecological transition agenda. Interviews reveal persistent tensions between movement demands for territorial autonomy and institutional imperatives to maintain fiscal stability through continued hydrocarbon exploitation. These tensions illuminate broader theoretical debates about the metabolic transformation required for ecosocialist transition beyond core capitalist nations.

Drawing on Gramscian concepts of hegemonic articulation alongside recent work on metabolic rift and degrowth in the semi-periphery, the paper argues that Colombia represents a critical case for understanding how ecosocialist transitions might unfold under conditions of peripheral dependency and active armed conflict. Fieldwork exposes fractures within the governing coalition between technocratic reformism and radical demands for territorial sovereignty, particularly around carbon frontiers in the Amazon and Pacific coast regions.

Findings suggest Colombia's experience offers insights into three dimensions of ecosocialist transition theory: the necessity of articulating anti-extractive politics within concrete class alliances capable of challenging accumulation regimes; contradictions inherent in attempting metabolic transformation through existing state apparatuses shaped by colonial extraction; and the emergence of new political subjectivities that refuse both liberal environmentalism and traditional party structures.