Transformations in Citizenship

Abstract

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.

Environmental Governance in Latin America

“…The emergence and spread of consultations in Latin America remains poorly studied. Studies addressing mining consultations/referenda have focused on the first four cases: Tambogrande, Esquel, Sipakapa and Majaz/Río Blanco (Muradian, Martinez-Alier and Correa, 2003;Subies et al, 2005;Haarstad and Floysand, 2007;De Echave et al, 2009;McGee, 2009;Walter and Martinez-Alier, 2010;Fulmer, 2011;Urkidi, 2011;; along with the wave of consultations in Guatemala (Holden and Jacobson, 2008;Rasch, 2012;Trentavizi and Cahuec, 2012). 287 Nevertheless, the cases that followed, their connections and the institutional features of consultations have received poor scholarly attention.…”

La Voz del Pueblo: Maya Consultas and the Challenge of Self-Determination for Socially Responsible Investment in the Mining Sector.

“…As an emergent and increasingly powerful movement in Guatemala, the consultas are now receiving scholarly attention (Fulmer et al 2008;Yagenova and Garcia 2009;Dougherty 2011;Urkidi 2011;Rasch 2012;Trentavizi and Cahuec 2012;0veraas 2013;Laplante and Nolin 2014), yet many questions remain about their meaning and significance. One of the key questions is how the consultas will influence relationships between communities, both indigenous and non-indigenous, and the Guatemalan government, the mining sector, and CSR actors such as the socially responsible investors, and whether each sector understands and respects the consulta as an exercise of the indigenous right to free, prior and informed consent.…”

“…Yet the protection and integration of indigenous rights into law and political representation remain a source of conflict in Guatemala (Handy 2008;van de Sandt 2010;Sieder 2011;Rasch 2012;Yagenova 2012;0veraas 2013). The promises of the Peace Accords, international treaties, and UNDRIP ring hollow within the country as governments since 1997 failed to respond to the rising aspirations of Guatemala's indigenous majority, highlighted by the State's failure to recognize indigenous land titles or introduce legislation that implements the 1995 Agreement on Identity and Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UN 1995;Sieder 2007;Yagenova 2012).…”

“…regional NGOs promoting the movement, and information exchanges between communities (van de Sandt 2009;Rasch 2012). Yet the consultas are not simply a regional phenomenon.…”

“…In many of the municipios, local municipal-level governance structures such as COCODES (Community Development Councils), indigenous mayors and councils, and ad-hoc citizens committees are the primary organizational driving forces of the consultas (Rasch 2012;Trentavizi and Cahuec 2012;Overaas 2013). Due to the scale of the municipio, local organizing groups often bring together indigenous organizations to work alongside ladino neighbours.…”