Citizens, Criminalization and Violence in Natural Resource Conflicts in Latin America

Abstract

In Latin America grassroots organizing against megaprojects such as open pit mining, oil extraction, hydro dams and large plantations goes hand in hand with increased criminalization of social protest and violations of the human rights of activists. This results in numerous communities demanding a clean environment, participation, and justice -all at the same time. They not only face foreign companies, but are also caught in the middle of armed and non-armed actors that contest the same territory and its natural resources. Their resistance is considered as a threat to internal security; citizens are increasingly viewed as criminals. This paper suggests new avenues for research that is located at the nexus of local resistance towards megaprojects and the increase of human rights violations and criminalization in natural resource conflicts. It proposes, first, to approach natural resource conflicts as hybrid spaces where citizenship is constructed in relation to multiple actors that engage in processes of providing, protecting and violating citizenship rights, and second, to study such processes by way of slow ethnography. Such an approach to natural resource conflicts paves the way not only for understanding how citizens engage in acts of resistance and experience violations of human rights, but also how such processes shape new subject-positions. Keywords: Latin America, extraction, citizenship, human rights, violence, engaged ethnography.Resumen: Ciudadanos como criminales: Ciudadanía, criminalización y violencia en conflictos sobre recursos naturales En América Latina la resistencia a mega proyectos como la minería a cielo abierto, la extracción de petróleo, la construcción de hidroeléctricas y el monocultivo de grandes extensiones va de la mano con la criminalización de la protesta social y violaciones de los derechos humanos de los activistas. Eso resulta en comunidades que demandan un ambiente sano, participación y justicia social al mismo tiempo. Estas comunidades no solamente enfrentan las compañías extranjeras, sino también se encuentran atrapadas entre actores armados y no armados que compiten por el control de sus territorios y los recursos naturales asociados. La resistencia de las comunidades es considerado como una amenaza a la seguridad interna; los ciudadanos son vistos cada vez más como criminales. Este artículo sugiere nuevas vías para investigar el nexo de la resistencia local a los megaproyectos por un lado, y el aumento de las violaciones de los derechos humanos y la criminalización de actores sociales

Violence in environmental conflicts: the need for a multidimensional approach

“…Grassroot organizations and individuals protest and denounce situations of social and environmental damages leading to environmental conflicts (or ecological distribution conflicts) (Martinez-Alier 1995, 2002. In their struggles to save water and land, their livelihoods, their future, and the future of the next generations, many of them are threatened, wounded, killed, criminalized, and forced to leave their communities (Edelman and León 2013;Aguilar-Støen 2015;Mingorría 2017;Rasch 2017). Global Witness, an international organization working on environmental abuses and human rights since 1993, has highlighted that during 2015, more than three environmental defenders were assassinated every week around the world (Global Witness 2016).…”

¿La Corte Constitucional como referente del buen vivir?

“…La crítica a la ideología del ‗progreso' -crecimiento económico o desarrolloestablece que el sistema impulsado en Latinoamérica a finales del siglo XX es limitado y tiene unas consecuencias determinadas, no solo humanas y sociales, sino con daños irreversibles a la biósfera terrestre que solo son analizados desde la perspectiva de ‗costes' (Castoriadis, 1991). A su vez, Rasch (2012Rasch ( , 2017 considera que la lucha contra los megaproyectos minero-energéticos, a través de los cuales ha tomado forma el desarrollo económico en Latinoamérica, es una continuación de la resistencia al colonialismo, el genocidio y el neocolonialismo.…”

Resistance to hydropower developments in contexts of violence and organised crime in Mexico

“…They also spur micropolitical processes within and between communities (Porto-Gonçalves 2006). Such processes might include the constitution of a specific sort of hybrid space (Rasch 2017) that we call narco-environments in this paper, for being inhabited by multiple violent actors and governed through codes of conduct that are shaped by drugs related violence and illegality. This often results in disputes over access to, and control over, natural resources, as well as in new ways of governing the territory based on illegality and violence.…”

“…Insurgence, counterinsurgency, and violence have become part of everyday life. These developments produce new hybrid spaces that are made up of different (violent) actors that compete for the same territories (Rasch 2017). Because of the impactful presence of actors related to drug production and traffic, and the specific explosive dynamics that their presence produces, we call these hybrid space 'narco environments'.…”

“…Third, we look into how, within this context, everyday practices are transformed into acts of resistance and shape micropolitics in the context of hydropower developments. In doing so, we aim to contribute to literature that brings together violence, illicit actors, and violence specialists in natural resource conflicts in Latin America (Rasch 2017;Ballvé 2018;Middeldorp & Le Billion 2019). Whereas this literature provides for growing insights in how residents are criminalised and what sorts of violence they face, and more macro perspectives on the environmental changes of the narco corridor, there is still little literature about how these transformations work out on the local level, and how violence shapes the responses of communities towards hydropower developments.…”