Abstract
Indigenous organisations have put forth unique proposals for plural economies in Bolivia and Ecuador that have later been constitutionally recognised in 2008/2009. Their proposals aim to strengthen diverse indigenous-campesino livelihoods and re/productive activities. They could be considered an extractive bargain that aspires to reconcile extractivism and postcolonial pluralism. Drawing on Latin American debates on plurinationalism, we trace indigenous organisations’ proposals for plural economies since the 1990s and then focus on indigenous movements’ struggles to defend their re/productive diversity in the context of mining in Huanuni (Bolivia) and Intag (Ecuador). We find that mining operations result in the violation of fundamental rights of affected communities to physical and psychological integrity, water and food security. And yet, they are protected by a series of mechanisms that “shield” mining companies. These mechanisms backed by the states’ executive forces make partaking in decision-making and social control of mining activities almost impossible. If extractive bargains in postcolonial contexts are to deliver on their promises, they need to dismantle the power structures built up since colonial times. Plural economies have the potential to create more equality between different forms of re/production, and they can contribute to crisis resilience.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Notes
- 1.
Since the mid-2000s, both countries took a sharp turn to the left, in the wake of an intense cycle of mobilisations sparked by years of dismal socio-economic conditions caused by neoliberal governments. Since 2006, Evo Morales’s Movement to Socialism (MAS) party has been in power in Bolivia, interrupted by the conservative Añez government between November 2019 and the end of 2020; it is now in its fourth mandate, with President Luis Arce. In Ecuador, Rafael Correa’s progressive party Alianza PAIS was in power between 2007 and 2017, followed by a return to conservative neoliberalism; at the time of writing, the conservative and extreme right Movement CREO party of Guillermo Lasso holds the presidency.
- 2.
All interviews, unless explicitly stated otherwise, were conducted by Isabella Radhuber.
- 3.
The Spanish original is:
“La coexistencia no se traduce en automática funcionalización y modernización hacia el capitalismo, sino que se da una coexistencia larga de carácter colonial en la que hay un conjunto de instituciones económicas, sociales y políticas y culturales que reclaman superioridad sobre el resto y a partir de esto exigen tributo para financiar la reproducción de ese tipo de formación y dominación.”
- 4.
These are small-scale urban/rural production inspired by communitarian principles and the community economy, which includes peasant, indigenous and native economic organisations and other associations (Garcés, 2010).
- 5.
The term “cooperative” in Bolivia usually refers to small, self-organised mining companies. The creation of cooperatives was a survival strategy for unemployed miners after massive dismissals from the state company occurred during the 1980s (for further details, see, e.g., Andreucci & Radhuber, 2017).
- 6.
The communitarian economic forms fall into what Polanyi termed “substantive economies,” that is, an “institutionalised interaction between humans and their natural surroundings in satisfaction of their material wants (…) in other words, the way people go about securing their livelihood” (Holmes, 2014, p.532).
- 7.
Community-managed projects have also been defended in the tourist sector, in this case against agricultural projects (Colloredo-Mansfeld et al., 2018).
- 8.
The Superintendent of Popular and Solidary Economy states that, apart from diversifying economic sectors such as empowering agriculture, the economic organisational forms through which such diversification can be achieved play a crucial role (Interview, Quito/Ecuador, 10/2012).
- 9.
Ethnic diversity is also high in the region: In the municipalities of Huanuni and Antequera, 73% of the population belong to Quechua, Uru and Aymara indigenous nations in the department, and the poverty rates amount to over 64%.
- 10.
In Huanuni, only about 6% of the extracted materials are tin concentrates, whilst the rest are waste and emissions (López et al., 2010, p. 46). 20,000 tons of sulphate and two tons of arsenic and lead are discharged every year into the waters of the Huanuni sub-basin (ending in Lake Poopó). The Vice Ministry of the Environment proved that the levels of zinc and cadmium in the waters are above the permitted level. This contamination is due to the presence of 300 mines. The Bolivian Programme for Strategic Research (PIEB) has furthermore studied genotoxic harm to children and mothers exposed to polymetallic contamination (close to the San José mine in Oruro) and neurotoxic effects of heavy metals, as well as a reduced intellectual coefficient and mental functions. In addition, atmospheric contamination provokes disorders, especially in children and adolescents (Ribera, 2010, p. 191-207, cf. Andreucci & Gruberg Cazón, 2015).
- 11.
The region counts a population of 13,102 (2010), of which 82.3% identify as mestizos, 6.6% as afro, black and mulata (6.6%) and 5.7% as indigenous (Latorre et al., 2015, p. 26).
References
Amnesty International. (2013). Ecuador: Temor por la seguridad de activistas medioambientales. . Retrieved from http://bit.ly/1Nb0rg6.
Andreucci, D., & Gruberg Cazón, H. (2015). Evaluación de la gestión socio-ambiental del sector minero en Bolivia. El caso de la Cuenca del Lago Poopó. CENDA. Retrieved from http://ambiental.net/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/AndreucciGruberGestionSocioAmbientalMineraBolivia16.pdf
Andreucci, D., & Radhuber, I. M. (2017). Limits to “counter-neoliberal” reform: Mining expansion and the marginalisation of post-extractivist forces in Evo Morales’s Bolivia. Geoforum, vol. 84, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.geoforum.2015.09.002
Anthias, P. (2018). Limits to decolonization: Indigeneity, territory, and hydrocarbon politics in the Bolivian Chaco. Cornell University Press.
Arellano, A. (2022, February 10). Ecuador: comunidades de Íntag demandan al Estado para proteger a la naturaleza de la minería. Mongabay. Retrieved from https://es.mongabay.com/2022/02/ecuador-comunidades-de-intag-demandan-al-estado-para-proteger-a-la-naturaleza-de-la-mineria/
Arias, C. J. (2015). Coridup. Una organización social en defensa de la Madre tierra. CEPA/ Red Umavida.
Augsburger, A. (2021). The plurinational state and Bolivia’s formación abigarrada. Third World Quarterly, 42(7), 1566–1582. https://doi.org/10.1080/01436597.2021.1899803
Avcı, D. (2017). Mining conflicts and transformative politics: A comparison of Intag (Ecuador) and Mount Ida (Turkey) environmental struggles. Geoforum, 84, 316–325.
Billo, E. (2020). Patriarchy and progressive politics: gendered resistance to mining through everyday social relations of state formation in Intag, Ecuador. Human Geography, 13(1), 16–26.
Bolivia. (2009). Constitución Política del Estado: promulgada el 7 de febrero de 2009. Congreso de Bolivia.
CEPA. (2022, April 11). Empresa del Estado trabaja al margen de la normativa ambiental. CEPA. Retrieved from https://cepaoruro.org/empresa-del-estado-trabaja-al-margen-de-la-normativa-ambiental/
Chavez, M. & López, C. (2018). Women Rebel in Tariquía. NACLA Report on the Americas, 50(4):408–410. CEDIB (2013). Retrieved June 27, 2017, from https://www.cedib.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/Tabla-Poblacion-Indigena1.pdf
Chávez, P., Mokrani, D., & Tapia, L. (2008). Coloquio Poder y Cambio en Bolivia 2003- 2007. PIEB.
CODELCO. (2011). Firma de acuerdo Codelco-Enami EP de Ecuador, 28.11.2017. Retrieved June 27, 2017, from https://www.codelco.com/firma-de-acuerdo-codelco-enami-ep-de-ecuador/prontus_codelco/2011-11-28/122201.html
Colloredo-Mansfeld, R., Ordoñez, A., Paltán, L. H., Quick, J., Quiroga, D. & Williams, J. (2018). Conflicts, Territories, and the Institutionalization of Post-Agrarian Economies on an Expanding Tourist Frontier in Quilotoa, Ecuador. World Development 101. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.worlddev.2016.11.001
CONAIE. (1994). Proyecto Político de la CONAIE. CONAIE.
CONAIE. (2001). Aprobado en el I Congreso Nacional de las Nacionalidades y Pueblos Indígenas del Ecuador. REDCI.
CONAIE. (2012). Proyecto Político de la CONAIE. CONAIE.
CONAIE. (2022, June 22). Demandas de la movilización nacional, popular y plurinacional. Retrieved from https://conaie.org/2022/06/20/demandas-de-la-movilizacion-nacional-popular-y-plurinacional/
Davidov, V. (2014). Land, copper, flora: Dominant materialities and the making of Ecuadorian resource environments. Anthropological Quarterly, 87(1), 31–58.
DECOIN. (2017). Breve historia de la resistencia a la minería. Decoin. Retrieved June 27th 2017 from http://www.decoin.org/breve-historia-de-la-resistencia-a-la-mineria/
Decreto Supremo 335. (2009). Bolivia: Decreto Supremo N° 335, 21 de octubre de 2009. Lexivox. Retrieved on June 28, 2017 from: http://www.lexivox.org/norms/BO-DS-N335.xhtml.
Delgado, A. C. (2017). The TIPNIS Conflict in Bolivia. Contexto Internacional, 39(2), 373–392. https://doi.org/10.1590/s0102-8529.2017390200009
Dossier Estadísticas. (2015). Dossier Estadísticas del Sector Minero Metalúrgico 1980-2014. Ministerio de Minería y Metalurgia & Estado Plurinacional de Bolivia.
Ecuador. (2008). Constitución de la República del Ecuador. Registro Oficial 449.
Farthing, L. (2019). An Opportunity Squandered? Elites, Social Movements, and the Government of Evo Morales. Latin American Perspectives, 46(1), 212–229. https://doi.org/10.1177/0094582X18798797g
Gago, V., & Gutiérrez, R. (2018). Women Rising in Defense of Life. NACLA Report on the Americas, 50(4), 364–368. https://doi.org/10.1080/10714839.2018.1550978
Garcés, F. (2010). El Pacto de Unidad y el Proceso de Construcción de una Propuesta de Constitución Política del Estado: Sistematización de la experiencia. Centro Cooperativo Sueco, retrieved from https://redunitas.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/04/PACTO_UNIDAD.pdf
Gargallo, F. (2021). Feminismos desde Abya Yala: ideas y proposiciones de las mujeres de 607 pueblos en nuestra América. Universidad Autónoma de la Ciudad de México.
Holmes, C. (2014). Introduction: A post-Polanyian political economy for our times. Economy and Society, 43(4), 1. https://doi.org/10.1080/03085147.2014.955700
Horowitz, L. S., Keeling, A., Lévesque, F., Rodon, T., Schott, S., & Thériault, S. (2018). Indigenous peoples’ relationships to large-scale mining in post/colonial contexts: Toward multidisciplinary comparative perspectives. The Extractive Industries and Society, 5(3), 404–414.
Human Rights Watch. (2015, August 27). Environmentalists Under Siege in Ecuador. Human Rights Watch. Retrieved from https://www.hrw.org/news/2015/08/27/environmentalists-under-siege-ecuador
Instituto Nacional de Estadística. (2017, February). 236 años Oruro. INE. Retrieved from https://siip.produccion.gob.bo/noticias/files/BI_170220171e8fc_FOLLETO_DE_ORURO_2017.pdf.
Jenkins, K. (2015). Unearthing Women’s Anti-Mining Activism in the Andes: Pachamama and the “Mad Old Women”. Antipode, 47(2), 442–460. https://doi.org/10.1111/anti.12126
Latorre, S., Walter, M., & Larrea, C. (2015). Íntag, un territorio en disputa. Evaluación De Escenarios Territoriales Extractivo Y No-extractivo. Universidad Andina Simón Bolívar-Abya-Yala.
López, E., Sempértegui, Á. C., Tito, S. L., Lara, E. M., & Molina, P. (2010). El costo ecológico de la política minera en Huanuni y Bolívar. PIEB.
Mongabay. (2017). Décadas de contaminación: ríos cargados de metales pesados recorren las comunidades de Oruro en Bolivia. Mongabay. Retrieved June 28th 2017 from https://es.mongabay.com/2017/03/rios-contaminacion-relaves-medio_ambiente-pueblos_indigenas-recursos_naturales-bolivia/; http://www.lapatriaenlinea.com/?nota=256251
Muñoz, E., & Villareal, M. C. (2019). Women’s Struggles Against Extractivism in Latin America and the Caribbean. Contexto int, 41(2), 303–325. https://doi.org/10.1590/S0102-8529.2019410200004
Myers, N., Mittermeier, R. A., Mittermeier, C. G., Da Fonseca, G. A., & Kent, J. (2000). Biodiversity hotspots for conservation priorities. Nature, 403(6772), 853–858.
Perreault, T. (2013). Dispossession by accumulation? Mining, water and the nature of enclosure on the Bolivian Altiplano. Antipode, 45(5), 1050–1069.
Postero, N., & Fabricant, N. (2019). Indigenous sovereignty and the new developmentalism in plurinational Bolivia. Anthropological Theory, 19(1), 95–119.
Radcliffe, S. A., & Radhuber, I. M. (2020). The political geographies of D/decolonization: Variegation and decolonial challenges of/in geography. Political Geography, 78, 102–128.
Radhuber, I. M. & Radcliffe, S. A. (2022). Contested Sovereignties: Indigenous disputes over plurinational resource governance. Environment and Planning E: Nature and Space, DOI: 25148486211068476.
Radhuber, I. M., León, M. C., & Andreucci, D. (2021). Expansión extractivista, resistencia comunitaria y'despojo político'en Bolivia. Journal of Political Ecology, 28(1), 205–223.
Ribera, M. O. (2010). El sector minero: análisis crítico y problematicas socioambientales de: megaproyectos Mutún, Cuenca del Poopó, Cuenca del Pilcomayo, Megaproyecto San Cristobal Actualización 2009-2010. Serie de estudios de caso sobre problemáticas de socio ambientales en Bolivia (No. 2). LIDEMA.
Rodriguez Fernandez, G. V. (2020). Neo-extractivism, the Bolivian state, and indigenous peasant women’s struggles for water in the Altiplano. Human Geography, 13(1), 27–39. https://doi.org/10.1177/1942778620910896
Ruales, G., & Zaragocin, S. (2020). De-géneros y territorios ¿Tiene género la tierra? In D. T. Cruz & M. Bayón (Eds.), Cuerpos, territorios y feminismos: compilación latinoamericana de teorías, metodologías y prácticas políticas (pp. 303–313). Abya Yala.
Schavelzon, S. (2015). Plurinacionalidad y Vivir Bien/Buen Vivir: dos conceptos leídos desde Bolivia y Ecuador post-constituyentes. Abya Yala.
Simpson, L. B. (2014). Land as pedagogy: Nishnaabeg intelligence and rebellious transformation. Decolonization: Indigeneity, Education & Society, 3(3), 1–25.
Sotalin, K. (2022, February 14). Íntag apelará fallo que negó acción para consulta minera. El Comercio. https://www.elcomercio.com/actualidad/politica/intag-fallo-consulta-mineria-corte.html.
Tapia, L. (2019a). La ley del valor y América Latina. Autodeterminación.
Tapia, L. (2019b). History and Structure in the Thought of René Zavaleta. Historical Materialism, 27(3), 127–135.
Varela, M. (2010). Las actividades extractivas en Ecuador. Ecuador Debate, 79, 127–150.
Vela-Almeida, D., Zaragocín, S., Bayón, M., & Arrazola, I. (2020). Imaginando territorios plurales de vida: una lectura feminista de las resistencias en los movimientos socio-territoriales en el Ecuador. Journal of Latin American Geography, 19(2), 87–109.
Zavaleta, R. (2011). Obras completas. Plural Editores.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2023 The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Radhuber, I.M., Jasser, M., Andreucci, D. (2023). Extractive Bargains Reconciling Postcolonial Pluralism? Plural Economies in Bolivia and Ecuador. In: Bowles, P., Andrews, N. (eds) Extractive Bargains. Frontiers of Globalization. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-32172-6_13
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-32172-6_13
Published:
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-031-32171-9
Online ISBN: 978-3-031-32172-6
eBook Packages: Social SciencesSocial Sciences (R0)