In this article, I analyze how Guatemalan indigenous citizens claim their rights to be citizens and agents of their own development through local resistance to large-scale mining projects. These indigenous communities face massive resource extraction by multinational mining companies that endangers the quality of land and water, adversely affects community relations, and impedes indigenous self-determination. At the same time, the political recognition of indigenous peoples allows them to negotiate the regulation of natural resources on the basis of their ethnic identity, as neoliberal reforms have led to decentralization and greater responsibilities for development at the municipal level. I argue that narratives of "alternative development and citizenship" are not only shaped within the multi-scalar character of the anti-mining movement but also constructed within the different ways the resistance is framed, that is, as an indigenous struggle, as a class-based resistance, or as resistance against neoliberal development policies in general. To understand the complex ways that citizenship is constructed from below, we need to take these two dimensions of analysis into account.
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
Is 'activist' a dirty word? Place identity, activism and unconventional gas development across three continents Abstract: Communities respond to unconventional gas in a variety of ways. In some communities, industry has held a social license, while in other areas, industrial development has been slowed, halted, or prevented by social resistance. Repeatedly, across multiple nations and communities, we have observed that social identities that either incorporate or eschew activism intersect with perceptions of this development's effect on place identity to either foster or discourage opposition. Particularly interesting are cases in which fracking is perceived to threaten local place identity, but where activism conflicts with social identity. To mobilise different sectors of the population, it often appears important for local residents to be perceived as 'regular citizens' and not as activists. We explore how intersection of social identities and place identity shaped the different ways in which communities in Australia, Canada, the Netherlands, and the United States have responded to unconventional gas development. Communities resisting development often see 'activism' as something that 'outsiders' do and that must be rejected as insufficiently objective and neutral. This view of activism and activists produces specific forms of resistance that differ from typical 'activist' actions, in which 'knowledge', 'information', neutrality, and objectivity are particularly important.
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