“…These incursions typically coincide with refusals by states and corporations to fulfil their duty to consult and seek consent through culturally safe processes of community engagement (Anaya & Puig, 2017). The deleterious ecological and social upshots of such development schemes, which are often minimized as "externalities" (Acosta, 2013), include but are not limited to: landlessness (Kapoor & Jordan, 2019); forced displacement (Berman-Arévalo & Ojeda, 2020); abject poverty (Raftopoulos, 2017); the decimation of biodiversity and ecosystems Ødegaard & Rivera Andía, 2019); illhealth due to contamination (Cielo & Coba, 2018); increases in gender-based violence and sexual exploitation (Muñoz and Villarreal, 2019); the destruction and desecration of heritage sites (Apaydin, 2020); loss of cultural identity and native languages (McCarty & Coronel-Molina, 2016); targeted smear campaigns; and assassinations (Méndez, 2018). In the face of a sobering reality that the region remains one of the deadliest in the world for environmental defenders (Menton & Le Billon, 2021), Indigenous and Afrodescendant autonomous movements and grassroots activists across Latin America and the Caribbean continue to demonstrate their political agency by organizing collective resistance; protecting land, water, and ecosystems; and defending their homes, communities, relations, and ways of being.…”