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- Convenors:
-
Diego Checa Hidalgo
(University of Granada)
Claudia Leal (Universidad de los Andes)
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- Chair:
-
Diego Checa Hidalgo
(University of Granada)
- Discussant:
-
Antonio Ortega Santos
(University of Granada Spain)
- Formats:
- Panel
- Streams:
- Envisaging A Global South
- Location:
- Room 12
- Sessions:
- Thursday 22 August, -, -
Time zone: Europe/Helsinki
Short Abstract:
An intense process of biological and material extraction from Global South to the Global North developed in the last 400 years. The advance of material extractivism created a cycle of decolonial disputes. This panel aims to discuss research on those decolonial disputes.
Long Abstract:
This panel aims to discuss new forms of socio-environmental struggle against the advance of energy and material extractivism in a contexts of civilizational crisis and growing scarcity of fuel and mineral reserves. These new sacrifice zones have a historical matrix rooted in capitalist modernity which has implemented a development model based on the intensive use of fossil fuels and minerals. At the beginning of the 21st century, this model faces an abyss of energy and material availability that generates new energy frontiers, a search for new deposits to generate a Green Transition that is sustained by expanding the search for new material deposits. This frontier extends over new ecosystems of greater vulnerability: deserts, coasts, oceans converted into this new green frontier in order to maintain global energy consumption, within the framework of a green economy and greenwashing strategies.
This panel invites scholars across different disciplines to submit paper proposals that explore from various conceptual, empirical and methodological perspectives especially the following core topics:
a. Cases of Environmental Injustice in the face of New Material and Energy Frontiers. Decolonial Resistances
b. Sacrifice Zones in the Global North. Ontological and Territorial Violence on Oppressed Peoples. Extraction of Rare Earths, Lithium and Energy Resources.
c. Coastal and Marine Extractivism as an Energy Frontier: Destruction of Dune Systems, Offshore Wind Fields, Underwater Mining, Biopiracy, etc.
d. Climate Change and Environmental Refugees
e. Socio-environmental Movements in Defence of Territories from a decolonial praxis.
Accepted papers:
Session 1 Thursday 22 August, 2024, -Paper short abstract:
Based on Chris Pearson's review of the concept of militarized environments, and a historiographical analysis of military environmental history, I propose the idea of insurgent environments, which seeks to analyze the territorial appropriation strategies of guerrillas in the Global South.
Paper long abstract:
Environmental war history is a field that has been developing for some years in the Anglophone world and focuses its efforts on understanding socio-environmental relations in violent contexts, particularly in periods of “traditional” warfare. Another element of study is what Chris Pearson calls “the militarization of the environment”, a process in which various actors configure the environment for war purposes. However, Latin America remains far from this debate with some exceptions.
In this sense, the present proposal is based on a historiographical balance on the historical environmental production of war, where the land factor is essential to understand the origin and development of armed conflicts. One of the conclusions of this exercise is that, although there are important conceptual proposals such as the militarization of Pearson's environment, there are still horizons to explore and different contexts to problematize.
For this reason, the objective of this research is to propose a theoretical apparatus that responds to the needs of war environmental history in contexts of the Global South, specifically Latin America. In this sense, three concepts that have a power relationship with each other are presented: insurgent environments, counterinsurgent environments, narco environments. I will focus on insurgent environments, an idea that can be summarized in the relationship that subaltern groups -many of them leftist guerrillas- have with the environments they inhabit, such as combat strategies, construction of bases of support and other counter-hegemonic forms of life.
Paper short abstract:
The colonial governance and vision of nature of the Chinese mining company Las Bambas leads resistant communities to a behaviour resulting from the intersectionality between practices of good living and the imposition of modernity.
Paper long abstract:
The energy transition requires enormous amounts of materials; an electric car needs at least four times more copper than a fossil fuel car. Peru is heavily dependent on mineral exports and the world's second largest copper extractor. China is the main buyer of Peruvian copper, either through its own mining companies or by purchasing it from other companies. Governments deploy mining extraction projects to respond to the demands of the global social metabolism and impose the projects with an arsenal of laws above popular decisions or without any prior consultation or with incomplete information. In the case of Las Bambas, owned by the Chinese mining company MMG, there are disputes over territory. The company's colonial governance seeks monetary compensation for the environmental and territorial claims of the affected populations. Although the social cohesion of the communities and their culture are threatened and many are criminalized, resistance continues unabated. In this proposal we will evaluate how companies and government act from a colonial vision of nature, and how the behaviors of resistance reflect the intersectionality resulting from centuries of coloniality of knowledge and power in which the search for the good life is confused with chrematistic claims determined by modernity and material needs.
Paper short abstract:
In response to environmental injustice related to extractivism in territories of Argentina, Bolivia, and Chile, various-scale civil resistance campaigns have emerged as a strategy to achieve environmental justice. In this study, some of these civil resistance campaigns are analyzed as case studies.
Paper long abstract:
The research aims to identify variables that determine the initiation, development, and outcomes of civil resistance campaigns in the Global South related to extractivism, specifically in Argentina, Bolivia, and Chile since 1990. The methodology used is the case study, for which three cases with heterogeneous characteristics in the three study countries have been chosen. Data collection has involved documentary techniques and interviews with key civil actors in civil resistance processes, as well as on-site observation.
Preliminary findings indicate the significance of civil resistance in achieving objectives, as it serves as a strategy to highlight conflicts and demands, gather supporters, and exert pressure on institutions making environmental decisions. Furthermore, the variables influencing the commencement of campaigns, the outlined demands, institutional and non-institutional strategies employed by civil society, and the outcomes of the processes in terms of project execution or remediation of damages resisted are elaborated upon. This also includes social, cultural, economic, and/or political consequences at various scales.
Paper short abstract:
Faced with the prospect of global climate crisis, humanity responds with an intense debate between "colapso" perspectives and energy transitions. Addressing processes of ecosystemic vulnerability is an urgency in the context of the global environmental crisis that affects the Earth.
Paper long abstract:
As a place of reference, we are going to take two vulnerability laboratories, two of the most biologically complex seas and with a longer history of the process of extraction of matter and energy: the Gulf of California in Mexico and the Mediterranean Sea in Europe (taking into account the coast of Andalusia). Both have in common bioclimatic similarities but with different historical paths that converge in a current reality of intense extractivism processes (sociometabolism fractures).
To this end, we are going to propose the elaboration of a research work.
a) Time line on the extractivism process in which the transfer of knowledge of land, sand and water (irrigation ditch systems, etc) has been implemented.
b) Deserts and Vulnerable Coasts and Dunes. In this section we will address the process of historical disarticulation of coastal and/or desert systems through the extension of agriculture models that result in diverse historical trends in terms of resilience in the face of vulnerability.
c) Marine Mammals (Non-Human Beings): For the case of Baja California Sur (México) we propose a study on the history of marine mammals and their interaction processes with human life in the last centuries, from hunting and the cultural representation of marine life to the current ecotourism process of whale watching that pretends to be a community strategy in the face of current vulnerability.
Paper short abstract:
Life stories of women in defense and care of the environment in southwestern Colombia, as windows into their political exercise as leaders, their motivations, dreams, fears and uncertainties more than their exploits or deeds.
Paper long abstract:
In less than a decade, Colombia has become a lethal place for social and environmental leaders. According to the Institute for Development and Peace Studies (INDEPAZ), 1,536 leaders and human rights defenders have been killed between September 26, 2016 and September 17, 2023. In 2019, INDEPAZ recorded that about 81% of these homicides were associated with agrarian conflicts over land, territory and natural resources. In light of political ecology, my text reflects on how environmental commitment and territorial defense are presented in the daily lives of six women leaders in southwestern Colombia since the 1990s through their life stories. From the fieldwork developed in 2022 in some municipalities of the Cauca, Nariño and Putumayo regions, in the framework of my doctoral dissertation, I explore their narratives in relation to environmental suffering, those non-quantifiable affectations of environmental conflicts, their subjective and collective recognitions for their degraded environment. Their life stories condense myths, omissions, fragmented memories that allow us to become sensitive to the pain of others, but also to imagine horizons of hope. They are windows into their political exercise as leaders, their motivations, dreams, fears and uncertainties more than their exploits or deeds. Narrating the lives of these women leaders is an invitation to dignify their lives, their efforts in the various daily struggles and their political commitments. And, above all, an exercise of memory to protect the fragility of their lives.
Paper short abstract:
Between 1882 and 1902, the coastline of Veracruz and especially the nearby dunes were deeply modified during the modernization of the port. I will use engineers' reports, which include the cubic meters of sand extracted during the said works, to reflect on the environmental impact on these dunes.
Paper long abstract:
The modernization of the port of Veracruz (Mexico), carried out between 1882 and 1902, implied an intense modification of the coastline and, in particular, of the dunes surrounding the city. The reports of these works mention the extraction of thousands of cubic meters of sand from these coastal dunes for diverse purposes. Although the mining and extraction of sand in Veracruz dates back to the colonial period, for the aforementioned dates we have various sources, such as reports of engineers with detailed quantities and uses of this sand, which help us to get a more accurate idea of the magnitude of this process during the said works. In this paper, I will use these data to reflect on the environmental impact of this modernization project on this particular coastal ecosystem. The expansion of the Port of Veracruz, which included the construction of new structures and the reclamation of approximately 100 hectares of land, has been studied from an economic, political, and social historical perspective, and more recently its impact on coral reefs has been evaluated. Nevertheless, a study from the environmental history vision about the coastal dunes in this case does not exist, which will be the contribution of this paper. Today, the coastal dunes have almost disappeared in the city of Veracruz, their destruction continues in the southern and northern territories along the same littoral, and the sand as an endless resource is still the underlying idea in this process.
Paper short abstract:
This paper analyzes nonviolent responses to colonial violence in Palestine in socio-environmental conflict processes. It explores the colonial dynamics of domination/subordination and appropriation/dispossession, together with indigenous resistance to them from the environmental justice approach.
Paper long abstract:
This paper analyzes nonviolent responses to colonial violence in Palestine in socio-environmental conflict processes. It explores the colonial dynamics of domination/subordination and appropriation/dispossession in the case of Palestine, together with the indigenous resistance to them from the environmental justice approach. First, this paper will map the main socio-environmental conflict trends in the region. Second, it will determine how colonial violence contributes to environmental injustice in Palestinian communities. Finally, it will present some indigenous nonviolent responses to the struggle against colonization, land dispossession, and displacement. This research is based on a theoretical framework informed by environmental justice, settler colonialism, and civil resistance studies. It focuses on socio-environmental conflicts mapped after the Oslo Agreements (1993) in the territory of historical Palestine (West Bank, Gaza Strip, East Jerusalem, and Israel) dealing with resistance processes using nonviolent methods in their campaigns.
Paper short abstract:
This paper analyses the local resistances towards green energy transition in Thar and examines them with a political ecology lens. It reveals that multiple layers of power, class and creation of alliances horizontally and vertically determines the negotiations and outcomes.
Paper long abstract:
Drylands have been understood by the state as empty homogeneous spaces, waiting to be “civilized”, and home to “unproductive” livelihoods like pastoralism. Such understandings have put these landscapes at the helm of state efforts aimed at controlling these landscapes and transitions that marginalize them and their inhabitants.
India aims to produce 50 percent of its energy from non-fossil fuel sources by 2030. This transition is shifting the energy map of the country from eastern coal belts to the drylands in the western part, i.e. the Thar desert. The landscape was situated as unruly, under the colonial state in India. This along with narratives of desertification, climate change and conservation have put the landscape as a point of amalgamation of multiple simplifications and discourses, which is visible in the efforts of transition that have come up in the landscape. These interventions range from canals, defense projects, sanctuaries, and the contemporary green energy transition.
These interventions have had widespread impacts on the commons in the landscape and the livelihoods dependent on them. In response to the perceived long-term impacts of these interventions, there have been local responses. This paper explores these responses and examines them with a political ecology lens. Contrary to the discourses of 'empty', the local resistances are informed by narratives of conservation and saving local culture. These resistances not only inform about the local agency but further elaborate over the history of the region as a sacrificial zone for developmental goals along with multiple positionalities within the local communities.
Paper short abstract:
This paper offers a diachronic approach to the implications of maritime extractivism on Colombian Caribbean maritime peasant, Afro-descendant and indigenous communities, analyzing how different activities promote dispossession and blue grabbing, but also considering communities resistances.
Paper long abstract:
This paper offers an approach to the implications of maritime extractivism on Colombian Caribbean maritime peasant, Afro-descendant and indigenous communities. Through a general look at what has been happening on the region during the last century (and what is currently happening), and some localized examples, it shows the increasing processes of dispossession and blue grabbing experienced by these communities. Different extractivist economical activities such as port infrastructure, oil, mining, industrial fishing and mass tourism, many of them aggravated by previous situations of war and violence, are analysed, considering also how they currently worsen with the gradual entry into national public policy, of notions such as growth and blue economy. The paper finishes with a reflection on the various forms of resistance that these communities use today to face the dispossession of their places of life associated with the sea and the coast.
Paper short abstract:
Mar Menor has become the first european ecosystem to be granted legal status as a person thanks to people's initiative. This law learns from the Global South towards ecological justice and environmental peace. Thus, International Public Law should discuss both humans and nature as rights-holders.
Paper long abstract:
The nature rights movement is relatively young in Europe. However, thanks to people's initiative the Mar Menor lagoon and its basin (Spain) has become the first ecosystem in Europe to be granted legal status as a person.
It is not only recognised to have its own rights but also the capacity to exercise them through representation - by the "Mar Menor Defense Office" or any entitled citizen -, that also limits the exercise of others who may deteriorate the ecosystem.
This new law is adopted to address the inefficiency of current environmental regulations and management (local, national, european and international) that refer to nature both as a resource and an object that can be owned. In order to do so, it learns from the Global South's (Latin America's) experiences and joins other local efforts to shift the global paradigm towards ecological justice and environmental peace.
Recognising nature as a rights-holder means reconsidering fundamental law concepts. To this end, International Public Law can be discussed through social justice and ecological justice approaches. As a result of combining both perspectives, not only do nature's rights get to be recognised, but also their interdependency with human rights.