In 2007, the left came to power in Ecuador. In the years that followed, the “twenty-first-century socialist” government and a coalition of grassroots activists came to blows over the extraction of natural resources. Each side declared the other a perversion of leftism and the principles of socioeconomic equality, popular empowerment, and anti-imperialism. In Resource Radicals, Thea Riofrancos unpacks the conflict between these two leftisms: on the one hand, the administration's resource nationalism and focus on economic development; and on the other, the anti-extractivism of grassroots activists who condemned the government's disregard for nature and indigenous communities. In this archival and ethnographic study, Riofrancos expands the study of resource politics by decentering state resource policy and locating it in a field of political struggle populated by actors with conflicting visions of resource extraction. She demonstrates how Ecuador's commodity-dependent economy and history of indigenous uprisings offer a unique opportunity to understand development, democracy, and the ecological foundations of global capitalism.
- Cover
- Contents
- Acknowledgments
- Introduction: Resource Radicalisms
- 1. From Neoliberalismo to Extractivismo: The Dialectic of Governance and Critique
- 2. Extractivismo as Grand Narrative of Resistance
- 3. Consulta Previa: The Political Life of a Constitutional Right
- 4. The Demos in Dispute
- 5. Governing the Future: “Information,” Counter-Knowledge, and the Futuro Minero
- Conclusion:
The Dilemmas of the Pink Tide
- Notes
- Bibliography
- Index
Text
Audio
Adobe DRM
Login to your account