Opportunities for transnational indigenous eco-politics: the changing landscape in the new millennium

Abstract

In the late 1980s, Amazonian indigenous peoples captured the imagination of northern policy circles and the larger public by strategically representing themselves as the solution to the environment‐development quandary. They accomplished this in part through linkages to northern environmental and human rights organizations. The formation of such transnational networks was made possible by a uniquely favourable cultural, political and economic climate that increased indigenous peoples’international visibility. Since that time, however, the landscape has changed and constricted earlier opportunities. Salient shifts include the ideological and financial polarization of the rainforest movement, a relative absence of Amazonian issues from international mass media and, overall, a devaluing of indigenous identity. The Amazon Alliance, a coalition formed out of a 1990 meeting between Amazonian indigenous groups and northern non‐governmental organizations, is the point of departure for a larger discussion of the changing landscape of opportunities for transnational indigenous eco‐politics.

Framed Encounters with Conservation and Mining Development: Indigenous Peoples' use of Strategic Framing in Suriname

“…In these instances, Indigenous groups fail to fulfill an environmental steward image, which has contributed to a fracturing of the global Indigenous -environmental alliance. As a result, Indigenous groups have increasingly used rights frames that prove more flexible, inclusive, and adaptable for achieving a mix of cultural, political, and economic goals (Pieck, 2006). In tandem, greater alliances and networks have been forged in recent years with international human rights organizations, rather than environmental organizations (Pieck, 2006).…”

“…One explanation for this growth was the political opportunity provided by the democratization of many Latin American countries (Pieck, 2006). In Suriname-a former Dutch colony in proximity to many Latin American countries-the Indigenous rights movement was precipitated by fears that Indigenous peoples would become more marginalized once the country became independent from the Netherlands in 1975.…”

Agency in international climate negotiations: the case of indigenous peoples and avoided deforestation

“…The transnational movement emerged from the symbolic and cultural power of the indigenous way of life and the sympathy and support of international audiences and NGOs to their cause in view of the destructive effects on them from globalization (Pieck 2006;Morgan 2007). These groups are now actively engaging in the REDD process in ways outlined previously.…”

The new politics of pastoralism: Identity, justice and global activism

“…Legitimacy, as recipients of procedural, cognitive and distributive justice, readily becomes intertwined with and premised on their capacity to deliver ecological justice; a precarious position given the instability of eco-political capital, in itself a potential misframing (Pieck, 2006). For example, other ways of knowing and valuing nature may be subsumed to mainstream conservation discourses in attempts to construct and deploy effective eco-political capital (Martin et al, 2013).…”

“…2 Strategic framings thus at once position indigenous activism within the remit of environmental justice concerns, highlight its socio-environmental dimensions, often through the deployment of rights-based discourses, and conflate indigenous identity with legitimacy in respect of resource access and conservation. To date, the indigenous peoples' movement remains one of the best known examples of global, identity-based struggles and activism, albeit rarely analysed specifically through an environmental justice framing (Pieck, 2006).…”