Extractivism, Gender, and Disease: An Intersectional Approach to Inequalities

Abstract

Social inequalities can only be understood through the interaction of their multiple dimensions. In this essay, we show that the economic and environmental impacts of natural resource extraction exacerbate gendered disparities through the intensification and devaluation of care work. A chikungunya epidemic in the refinery city of Esmeraldas, Ecuador, serves to highlight the embodied and structural violence of unhealthy conditions. Despite its promises of development, the extraction-based economy in Esmeraldas has not increased its vulnerable populations’ opportunities. It has, instead, deepened class and gendered hierarchies. In this context, the most severe effects of chikungunya are experienced by women, who bear the burden of social reproduction and sustaining lives under constant threat.

Analysis of inpatient data on dengue fever, malaria and leishmaniasis in Ecuador: A cross-sectional national study, 2015–2022

“…The results of this study are consistent with those of previous studies that reported a high burden of VBD in South America, especially in areas with limited access to healthcare and poor living conditions [ 33 ]. Moreover, as exposure to vectors is an essential factor in relative gendered risks for contracting infectious diseases, and as gender-differentiated activities and spaces determine this exposure and given that susceptibility to VBD has social relations, especially under extractive contexts such as Ecuadorian one, policies must consider the gender, race, and class determinants of health [ 34 ].…”

Decolonizar los estudios urbanos desde la Amazonía: prácticas indígenas para disputar la urbanización planetaria

“…2. Cuando las lógicas de urbanización más remota llegan hasta los territorios indígenas, hay procesos de oposición y negociación a los diferentes proyectos que tienen una amplia literatura (Cielo y Coba, 2018). Nos centraremos aquí en aquellas negociaciones respecto al extractivismo donde las comunidades logran una inversión en forma de urbanización.…”

Global Inequalities in the Bioeconomy: Thinking Continuity and Change in View of the Global Soy Complex

“…A similar argument is made by Landívar García [58] analysing the gendered structure of agrarian extractivism concerning sugarcane in Ecuador. Looking at the chikungunya epidemic in the refinery city of Esmeraldas in Ecuador, a recent study concludes: "Extractivism exacerbates the already heavy burden of women's care work, thus forming a central mechanism of the 'illness-poverty trap' by which ill health is both a consequence of and a contributor to inequalities" [59] (p. 169).…”