Book review, Extractivism: A Review Essay

:::::: Book Review ::::::

Extractivism: A Review Essay
by Bret Gustafson


Natural Resources: Neither Curse Nor Destiny
Daniel Lederman & William F. Malone (eds.) Natural Resources: Neither Curse Nor Destiny. Washington, DC: World Bank, 2007.

New Political Spaces in Latin American Resource Governance
Håvard Haarstad (ed.) New Political Spaces in Latin American Resource Governance. New York: Palgrave, 2012.

Unearthing Conflict: Corporate Mining, Activism, and Expertise in Peru
Fabiana Li Unearthing Conflict: Corporate Mining, Activism, and Expertise in Peru. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2015.

Mining for the Nation: The Politics of Chile’s Coal Communities from the Popular Front to the Cold War
Jody Pavilack Mining for the Nation: The Politics of Chile’s Coal Communities from the Popular Front to the Cold War. University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2011.

Abstract, Indigenous Peoples and the New Extraction: From Territorial Rights to Hydrocarbon Citizenship in the Bolivian Chaco

:::::: Abstract ::::::

Indigenous Peoples and the New Extraction: From Territorial Rights to Hydrocarbon Citizenship in the Bolivian Chaco
by Penelope Anthias 


A growing body of literature examines how the rise of “neo-extractivist” states in Latin America is reconfiguring the relationship between resources, nation, territory, and citizenship. However, the implications for indigenous territorial projects remain underexplored. Ethnographic research in the Bolivian Chaco reveals the ways in which indigenous territorial projects are becoming implicated in and being reimagined amidst the spatializing struggles of a hydrocarbon state. The tension between indigenous peoples’ desire for inclusion in a hydrocarbon-based national development project and their experiences of dispossession by an expanding hydrocarbon frontier has given rise to competing modes of “hydrocarbon citizenship” in the Guaraní territory Itika Guasu, where a vision of corporate-sponsored indigenous autonomy is pitted against new forms of state-funded development patronage. These dynamics challenge resistance narratives and resource-curse theories, revealing how resources act as conduits for deeper postcolonial struggles over territory, sovereignty, and citizenship.

Political Report # 1286 In Puerto Rico, Disconnection and Chaos, but Grace Under Pressure

By Ed Morales,  The Nation

San Juan-As Donald Trump’s rule-by-disinformation strategy intensifies, three weeks after Hurricane Maria, a reeling Puerto Rico is becoming more of a sideshow for his callous stereotyping and ruthlessness. He is subjecting the island’s citizens to layers of anguish, at once revealing the resourcefulness of a sturdy rural culture and the banality of government by public relations. Puerto Ricans, meanwhile, are suffering that all-too-human affliction, the desperate need to connect. One of the enduring images from Puerto Rico in the wake of Maria is people crowded together near outposts of cable or wireless companies, trying to get a signal so they can communicate. By now most people know that their friends and loved ones have survived; that they may in some cases have water but almost never electricity; that they may need precious medications, or may have stood online at their local pharmacy for hours to get them; that they may have lost all or part of the roof to their home. Survivors have seen their neighborhoods strewn with the carcasses of dead trees, discarded mattresses, and refrigerators; have spent hours trying to get cash out of the few working ATMs in their area or-now a less common complaint-waiting in a gas line. Hurricane Maria Sustaining contact on an island littered with fallen power lines and cell-phone towers is difficult, and it contributes to a pervasive feeling of disconnection and chaos. This island is full of people suffering from some form of post-traumatic stress disorder. Imagine finally reaching the remote mountaintop home of a close friend or relative, who sits there with a municipal government-issued packet of crackers, applesauce, and bottled water, looking up at you watery-eyed and saying, “I was wondering whether you even wanted to talk to me anymore.” The disconnection has exposed the inadequate response of the federal government as well as Puerto Rico’s executive branch, led by Governor Ricky Rosselló. “The problem is that Hurricane Irma allowed the local government to exploit public relations and say ‘Look how well we responded to the storm; this has been a success,’” said Heriberto Martínez, an economist, radio host, and occasional political consultant, in a packed San Juan cafe. “Apparently they wanted to maintain the same standard after Hurricane Maria, and when they realized it was unmanageable, they started to look for help outside, but they wasted a week already. What has happened in that week was the self-efforting of the people, who went out on the streets with tools and small cranes to clear streets and roads.” So it was with Melvin Encarnación, a neighbor of my mother’s in Barrio Barcelona, a remote community near the El Yunque Rain Forest. Just a day after Maria hit, he organized a brigade of local residents to clear with machetes the road that connected with 191, the artery that leads to the entrance of the rain forest park. After hours of work in hot, humid conditions, they trekked up 191 to a well that was operated by barrio residents, cutting through an intense tangle of flayed foliage. Within days of the hurricane, water was restored, just as it was in the days following Irma.

Political Report # 1260 Dying and Drying: The Case of Bolivia's Lake Poopó

By Clayton Whitt | NACLA

I have never seen Lake Poopó from up close. The last time I tried to reach the lakeshore, I could not find it. I made my last attempt in June 2014 while carrying out anthropological field research in the municipality of El Choro, in Bolivia's Altiplano region, the high plain of the central Andes. Lake Poopó, the principal body of water in the region, is the terminus of the Desaguadero River, which drains Lake Titicaca and much of the northern high plain. El Choro's municipal territory is located between the Desaguadero's two main channels and stretches down to the northern shores of the shallow, salty lake. After 15 kilometers on improvised cross-country tracks, I was surrounded by an almost otherworldly parched and plantless landscape.So I thought it was simple: just head south on my bicycle from the capital village of El Choro until reaching the lakeshore. After 15 kilometers on improvised cross-country tracks, I was surrounded by an almost otherworldly parched and plantless landscape. Five kilometers later, there was still no water in sight. Disheartened by the sight of dusty whirlwinds yet ahead, I turned back. The presence - and lack thereof- of this disappeared lake loomed over my research. In meetings and casual conversations, people in El Choro expressed great concern over the health of the lake and the impact of pollution and falling water levels on the local fishing industry. But it was not until just after I left, in November 2014, that the lake made headlines with two pieces of startling news. First, Lake Poopó suffered a massive fauna die-off in November 2014. Then, a year later, it was reported to be completely dry. The lake had suffered a potentially fatal one-two punch. Why did this happen? Will Lake Poopó ever come back? The Lake Dies, Then Dries What happened to Lake Poopó in 2014 and 2015 was probably not a surprise to anyone who had been attentive to its deteriorating condition. As the La Paz-based newspaper Página Siete wrote in an editorial following the December 2015 drying event, "Although it has caused great impact and alarm, the disappearance of Lake Poopó...was not unexpected news." I heard warning after warning in 2014 from people in El Choro that the lake and its watershed were in bad condition, mostly due to discharges from upstream mines.

Exclusive, El proyecto de Ley General de Bodiversidad y su insensible afrenta al México Profundo

El proyecto de Ley General de Bodiversidad y su insensible afrenta al México Profundo

Nemer E. Narchi
El Colegio de Michoacán, A.C. / Red Temática sobre Patrimonio Biocultural, CONACyT

México, además de ser un país mega-biodiverso, es la cuna de 63 culturas originarias y una multi-tud de comunidades rurales mestizas igualmente importantes.  Al convivir por largos tiempos, la riqueza biológica y el ingenio cultural, que se mezclan en una constante relación etnobiológica , han forjado una síntesis biocultural. La expresión más significativa de esta síntesis bien puede verse representada por la vasta agrodiversidad mesoamericana. No obstante, la síntesis biocultu-ral apreciada en México no está limitada a los cultivos que se han generado en el continente y su importancia radica en la constante generación de: modos de vida, identidades étnicas, tradiciones culinarias, cosmovisiones, sistemas de creencias, sistemas medicinales y de salud, estrategias de manejo de recursos naturales y, por último, la generación de numerosos agroecosistemas. En suma, la síntesis biocultural que por miles de años ha ocurrido en el territorio mexicano, como en muchos otros, genera un diverso e invaluable patrimonio.

La existencia de este patrimonio es en extremo importante, no solo para sus directos poseedores y salvaguardas, sino para todo aquel que goce y disfrute de los servicios ambientales y de calidad de vida que los paisajes bioculturales generan.  Lamentablemente, el derecho de las comunidades rurales e indígenas a gozar y manejar la naturaleza se ha visto amenazado en últimas fechas. La amenaza es producto de una nueva iniciativa de ley: “El proyecto de Ley General de Biodiversi-dad”, impulsada por la senadora Ninfa Salinas a finales de 2016.

Aunque la senadora afirma que la iniciativa intenta proteger la biodiversidad con un enfoque mo-derno, distintos organismos académicos y de la sociedad civil ven en esta ley un retroceso en el manejo de los bienes comunes y un intento de despojo hacia las sociedades originarias y campe-sinas. Por principio, la iniciativa, con sus 237 numerales  y 11 artículos transitorios, se enfoca en distribuir la competencia en materia ambiental ente distintas instituciones gubernamentales, de-jando de lado lo tocante al reconocimiento de los derechos de los ciudadanos para gozar y explo-tar la biodiversidad. Otro problema es que omite los derechos humanos de los pueblos indígenas, y en general de los ciudadanos, ya antes establecidos en acuerdos y tratados internacionales, en-tre los que rescato el Artículo 2 constitucional y el Convenio 169 de la Organización Internacional del Trabajo. Por último, representa una afrenta a la propiedad intelectual asociada con el manejo local de la biodiversidad.

Dejo al calce la opinión de la Red Temática sobre Patrimonio Biocultural del Consejo Nacional de Ciencia y Tecnología, de la cual soy orgulloso miembro. Invito a los lectores a recoger otras opi-niones acerca de esta iniciativa, principalmente las de la Red Nacional de Áreas Naturales Prote-gidas (RENANP) , El Centro Mexicano de Derecho Ambiental (CEMDA)  y la opinión del Dr. Eduardo Corona del Centro INAH-Morelos

Abstract, Drug War as Neoliberal Trojan Horse by Dawn Paley

:::::: Abstract ::::::

Abstract:  Drug War as Neoliberal Trojan Horse 

by Dawn Paley

Examination of the U.S.-backed wars on drugs in Colombia and Mexico reveals that, apart from the hegemonic discourse about narcotics control, these wars reinforce the power of transnational corporations over resource-rich areas owned and used by indigenous people, peasants, and the urban poor. Case studies in Mexico demonstrate that recent assassinations of activists and intimidation of communities that are organizing against large-scale mining must be understood within the framework of militarization justified in terms of an antinarcotics discourse. Drug war politics may thus be understood as a mechanism for promoting business-friendly policies and militarizing resource-rich areas. This politics is enshrined in the Mérida Initiative, which includes a national U.S.- style legal reform, modernization of the prison system, and the militarization and training of the federal police and other security forces, equipment transfers, and development funding designed to encourage foreign investment and further transnationalize the national economy.