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An Ecofeminist Contribution to the Debates on the Neoextractivist Development Model in Latin America

Year 2024, Volume: 21 Issue: 82, 135 - 152, 12.06.2024
https://doi.org/10.33458/uidergisi.1470392

Abstract

This article presents a materialist ecofeminist critique of neoextractivism by highlighting its historical origins and elaborating its economic policy implications in Latin America. Three questions addressed are as follows: 1) How can materialist ecofeminism contribute to understanding the current dynamics of capitalist development in the Global South, 2) why (neo)extractivism hits women hardest, and 3) to what extent and how ecofeminist movements can shape a post-extractivist transition to a just and sustainable future. The article’s main argument is that exploitation and oppression in Latin America can be understood in terms of gender, race, and class and, therefore, require an intersectional analysis framework. Within this framework, post-extractivist alternatives in this region must incorporate an ecofeminist analysis to understand better how social expression systems (including sexism, white supremacy, and ecological crises) intersect and reinforce each other. In this framework, this study is intended to contribute to the growing literature and debate on the development and resistance dynamics of neoextractivism in Latin America, where long-standing racial and gender inequalities intersect with class inequalities.

References

  • Agosin, Manuel. 2012. Ten Theses on New Developmentalism. Brazilian Journal of Political Economy 32, 2: 336-339.
  • Akgemci, Esra. 2022. Authoritarian Populism as a Response to Crisis: The Case of Brazil. Uluslararası İlişkiler 19, 74: 37-51.
  • Arruzza, Cinzia, Tithi Bhattacharya, and Nancy Fraser. 2019. Feminism for the 99% A Manifesto. London, Verso.
  • Barca, Stefania. 2020. Forces of Reproduction: Notes for a Counter-hegemonic Anthropocene. Cambridge University Press.
  • Bruna, Natacha. 2022. A Climate-smart World and the Rise of Green Extractivism. The Journal of Peasant Studies, 1-26.
  • Cabnal, Lorena. 2010. Acercamiento a la Construcción de la Propuesta de Pensamiento Epistémico de las Mujeres Indígenas Feministas Comunitarias de Abya Yala [English]. In Momento de paro Tiempo de Rebelión: Miradas Feministas para Reinventar la Lucha [English]. Minervas Ediciones: 116-134.
  • Campbell, Connie. 1996. Out on the Front Lines, But Still Struggling for Voice: Women in the Rubber Tappers’ Defense of the Forest in Xapuri, Acre, Brazil. In Feminist Political Ecology: Global Issues and Local Experiences, eds. Dianna Rocheleau, Barbara Thomas-Slayter, and Esther Wangari. New York, Routledge: 27-61.
  • Corral, Thais. 2010. Gender Perspectives in Adaptation Strategies: The Case of Pintadas Solar in the Semi-arid Region of Brazil. In Gender and Climate Change: An Introduction, ed. Irene Dankelman. New York, Routledge: 138-144.
  • Fairhead, James, Melissa Leach and Ian Scoones. 2012. Green Grabbing: A New Appropriation of Nature. Journal of Peasant Studies 39, 2: 237-261.
  • Federici, Silvia. 2004. Caliban and the Witch: Women, the Body, and Primitive Accumulation, New York, Autonomedia.
  • Federici, Silvia. 2018. Witches, Witch-hunting, and Women. Oakland, PM Press.
  • Federici, Silvia. 2022. Eco-feminism and the Commons: The Feminization of Resistance in Latin America. In Handbook of Critical Environmental Politics, eds. Luigi Pellizzoni, Emanuele Leonardi and Viviana Asara. Northampton, Edward Elgar Publishing: 554-563.
  • Feitosa, Cíntya and Marina Yamaoka. 2020. Strengthening Climate Resilience and Women’s Networks: Brazilian Inspiration from Agroecology. Gender & Development 28, 3: 459-478.
  • Féliz, Mariano. 2012. Neo-developmentalism: Beyond Neoliberalism? Capitalist Crisis and Argentina’s Development since the 1990s. Historical Materialism 20, 2: 105-123.
  • Foster, John Bellamy. 2000. Marx’s Ecology: Materialism and Nature. NYU Press.
  • Foster, John Bellamy. 2022. Extractivism in the Anthropocene: Late Imperialism and the Expropriation of the Earth. Science for The People 25, 2.
  • Fraser, Nancy. 2016. Capitalism’s Crisis of Care. Dissent 63, 4: 30-37.
  • Fraser, Nancy. 2022. Cannibal Capitalism: How our System is Devouring Democracy, care, and the Planet and What We Can Do About it. Verso Books. Gaard, Greta. 2011. Ecofeminism Revisited: Rejecting Essentialism and Re-placing Species in a Material Feminist Environmentalism. Feminist Formations 23, 2: 26–53. An Ecofeminist Contribution to the Debates on the Neoextractivist Development Model in Latin America
  • Gaard, Greta. 2016. Ecofeminism. In Keywords for Environmental Studies Vol. 3, eds. Joni Adamson,
  • William A. Gleason, and David Pellow. New York, NYU Press: 68-71.
  • Gebara, Ivone. 2003. Ecofeminism: A Latin American Perspective. CrossCurrents, 93-103.
  • Gudynas, Eduardo. 2015. Extractivismos: Ecología, Economía y Política de un modo de Entender el Desarrollo y la Naturaleza [English]. Cochabamba, CEDIB.
  • Isla, Ana. 2022. “Greening,” the Highest Stage of Extractivism in Latin America. In The Routledge Handbook on Ecosocialism. eds. Leigh Brownhill et al. New York, Routledge: 67-80.
  • Jenkins, Katy. 2015. Unearthing Women’s Anti‐Mining Activism in the Andes: Pachamama and the “Mad Old Women”. Antipode 47, 2: 442-460.
  • Mellor, Mary. 1993. Sınırları Yıkmak: Feminist, Yeşil Bir Sosyalizme Doğru, çev. Osman Akınhay, İstanbul, Ayrıntı. In English: Mellor, Mary. 1992. Breaking the Boundaries: Towards a Feminist Green Socialism, Virago Press.
  • Mellor, Mary. 1997. Feminism and Ecology, Cambridge, Polity Press.
  • Merchant, Carolyn. 1980. The Death of Nature: Women, Ecology, and the Scientific Revolution. San Francisco, Harper & Row.
  • Merchant, Carolyn. 1996. Earthcare: Women and the Environment, New York, Routledge.
  • Mies, Maria. 1986. Patriarchy and Accumulation: Women in the International Division of Labor. London, Zed Books.
  • Mies, Maria and Vandana Shiva. 1993. Ecofeminism. London, Zed Books.
  • Morais, Lecio and Alfredo Saad-Filho. 2012. Neo-developmentalism and the Challenges of Economic Policy-making under Dilma Rousseff. Critical Sociology 38, 6: 789-798.
  • Patel, Raj, and James W. Moore. 2017. A History of the World in Seven Cheap Things: A Guide to Capitalism, Nature, and the Future of the Planet. University of California Press.
  • Petras, James. 2013. Brazil: Extractive Capitalism and the Great Leap Backward. World Review of Political Economy 4, 4: 469-483.
  • Rocheleau, Dianne, and Padini Nirmal. 2015. Feminist Political Ecologies: Grounded, Networked and Rooted on Earth. In The Oxford Handbook of Transnational Feminist Movements, eds. Rawwida Baksh-Soodeen and Wendy Harcourt. Oxford Handbooks: 793-814.
  • Rodriguez Fernandez, Gisela V. 2020. Neo-extractivism, the Bolivian State, and Indigenous Peasant Women’s Struggles for Water in the Altiplano. Human Geography 13, 1: 27-39.
  • Salleh, Ariel. 1997. Ecofeminism as Politics: Nature, Marx and the Postmodern. London, Zed Books.
  • Salleh, Ariel. 2009. Ecological Debt: Embodied Debt. In Eco-sufficiency & Global Justice: Women Write Political Ecology, ed. Ariel Salleh. London, Pluto Press: 1–41.
  • Salleh, Ariel. 2010. From Metabolic Rift to “Metabolic Value”: Reflections on Environmental Sociology and the Alternative Globalization Movement. Organization & Environment 23, 2: 205-219.
  • Shiva, Vandana. 1988. Staying Alive: Women, Ecology, and Survival in India. New Delhi, Kali for Women.
  • Shiva, Vandana. 1997. Foreword. In Ecofeminism as Politics: Nature, Marx and the Postmodern. Ariel Salleh. London, Zed Books.
  • Sempértegui, Andrea. 2021. Indigenous Women’s Activism, Ecofeminism, and Extractivism: Partial Connections in the Ecuadorian Amazon. Politics & Gender 17, 1: 197-224.
  • Sianipar, Imelda Masni Juniaty and Arthuur Jeverson Maya. 2020. Pink Tide: Neo-developmentalism in Brazil and Argentina. In Proceedings of the 3rd International Conference on Social and Political Development. SCITEPRESS–Science and Technology Publications: 23-32.
  • Svampa, Maristella. 2013. Consenso de los Commodities y Lenguajes de Valoración en América Latina [English]. Nueva Sociedad, 244: 30-46.
  • Svampa, Maristella. 2019. Neo-extractivism in Latin America: Socio-environmental Conflicts, the Territorial Turn, and New Political Narratives. Cambridge University Press.
  • Terreblanche, Christelle. 2019. Ecofeminism. In Pluriverse: A Post-Development Dictionary, eds. Ashish Kothari et al. New Delhi, Tulika Books: 163-166.
  • Tickner, J. Ann. 1991. On the Fringes of the World Economy: A Feminist Perspective. In The New International Political Economy, eds. Craig N. Murphy and Roger Tooze. Palgrave Macmillan: 191-206.
  • Tovar-Restrepo, Marcela. 2010. Climate Change and Indigenous Women in Colombia. Gender and Climate Change: An Introduction, ed. Irene Dankelman. New York, Routledge: 145-151.
  • Veltmeyer, Henry. 2012. The Natural Resource Dynamics of Postneoliberalism in Latin America: New Developmentalism or Extractivist Imperialism?. Studies in Political Economy 90, 1: 57-85.
  • Veltmeyer, Henry, and James Petras. 2014. The New Extractivism: A Post-Neoliberal Development Model or Imperialism of the 21st Century. New York, Zed Books.

An Ecofeminist Contribution to the Debates on the Neoextractivist Development Model in Latin America

Year 2024, Volume: 21 Issue: 82, 135 - 152, 12.06.2024
https://doi.org/10.33458/uidergisi.1470392

Abstract

This article presents a materialist ecofeminist critique of neoextractivism by highlighting its historical origins and elaborating its economic policy implications in Latin America. Three questions addressed are as follows: 1) How can materialist ecofeminism contribute to understanding the current dynamics of capitalist development in the Global South, 2) why (neo)extractivism hits women hardest, and 3) to what extent and how ecofeminist movements can shape a post-extractivist transition to a just and sustainable future. The article’s main argument is that exploitation and oppression in Latin America can be understood in terms of gender, race, and class and, therefore, require an intersectional analysis framework. Within this framework, post-extractivist alternatives in this region must incorporate an ecofeminist analysis to understand better how social expression systems (including sexism, white supremacy, and ecological crises) intersect and reinforce each other. In this framework, this study is intended to contribute to the growing literature and debate on the development and resistance dynamics of neoextractivism in Latin America, where long-standing racial and gender inequalities intersect with class inequalities.

References

  • Agosin, Manuel. 2012. Ten Theses on New Developmentalism. Brazilian Journal of Political Economy 32, 2: 336-339.
  • Akgemci, Esra. 2022. Authoritarian Populism as a Response to Crisis: The Case of Brazil. Uluslararası İlişkiler 19, 74: 37-51.
  • Arruzza, Cinzia, Tithi Bhattacharya, and Nancy Fraser. 2019. Feminism for the 99% A Manifesto. London, Verso.
  • Barca, Stefania. 2020. Forces of Reproduction: Notes for a Counter-hegemonic Anthropocene. Cambridge University Press.
  • Bruna, Natacha. 2022. A Climate-smart World and the Rise of Green Extractivism. The Journal of Peasant Studies, 1-26.
  • Cabnal, Lorena. 2010. Acercamiento a la Construcción de la Propuesta de Pensamiento Epistémico de las Mujeres Indígenas Feministas Comunitarias de Abya Yala [English]. In Momento de paro Tiempo de Rebelión: Miradas Feministas para Reinventar la Lucha [English]. Minervas Ediciones: 116-134.
  • Campbell, Connie. 1996. Out on the Front Lines, But Still Struggling for Voice: Women in the Rubber Tappers’ Defense of the Forest in Xapuri, Acre, Brazil. In Feminist Political Ecology: Global Issues and Local Experiences, eds. Dianna Rocheleau, Barbara Thomas-Slayter, and Esther Wangari. New York, Routledge: 27-61.
  • Corral, Thais. 2010. Gender Perspectives in Adaptation Strategies: The Case of Pintadas Solar in the Semi-arid Region of Brazil. In Gender and Climate Change: An Introduction, ed. Irene Dankelman. New York, Routledge: 138-144.
  • Fairhead, James, Melissa Leach and Ian Scoones. 2012. Green Grabbing: A New Appropriation of Nature. Journal of Peasant Studies 39, 2: 237-261.
  • Federici, Silvia. 2004. Caliban and the Witch: Women, the Body, and Primitive Accumulation, New York, Autonomedia.
  • Federici, Silvia. 2018. Witches, Witch-hunting, and Women. Oakland, PM Press.
  • Federici, Silvia. 2022. Eco-feminism and the Commons: The Feminization of Resistance in Latin America. In Handbook of Critical Environmental Politics, eds. Luigi Pellizzoni, Emanuele Leonardi and Viviana Asara. Northampton, Edward Elgar Publishing: 554-563.
  • Feitosa, Cíntya and Marina Yamaoka. 2020. Strengthening Climate Resilience and Women’s Networks: Brazilian Inspiration from Agroecology. Gender & Development 28, 3: 459-478.
  • Féliz, Mariano. 2012. Neo-developmentalism: Beyond Neoliberalism? Capitalist Crisis and Argentina’s Development since the 1990s. Historical Materialism 20, 2: 105-123.
  • Foster, John Bellamy. 2000. Marx’s Ecology: Materialism and Nature. NYU Press.
  • Foster, John Bellamy. 2022. Extractivism in the Anthropocene: Late Imperialism and the Expropriation of the Earth. Science for The People 25, 2.
  • Fraser, Nancy. 2016. Capitalism’s Crisis of Care. Dissent 63, 4: 30-37.
  • Fraser, Nancy. 2022. Cannibal Capitalism: How our System is Devouring Democracy, care, and the Planet and What We Can Do About it. Verso Books. Gaard, Greta. 2011. Ecofeminism Revisited: Rejecting Essentialism and Re-placing Species in a Material Feminist Environmentalism. Feminist Formations 23, 2: 26–53. An Ecofeminist Contribution to the Debates on the Neoextractivist Development Model in Latin America
  • Gaard, Greta. 2016. Ecofeminism. In Keywords for Environmental Studies Vol. 3, eds. Joni Adamson,
  • William A. Gleason, and David Pellow. New York, NYU Press: 68-71.
  • Gebara, Ivone. 2003. Ecofeminism: A Latin American Perspective. CrossCurrents, 93-103.
  • Gudynas, Eduardo. 2015. Extractivismos: Ecología, Economía y Política de un modo de Entender el Desarrollo y la Naturaleza [English]. Cochabamba, CEDIB.
  • Isla, Ana. 2022. “Greening,” the Highest Stage of Extractivism in Latin America. In The Routledge Handbook on Ecosocialism. eds. Leigh Brownhill et al. New York, Routledge: 67-80.
  • Jenkins, Katy. 2015. Unearthing Women’s Anti‐Mining Activism in the Andes: Pachamama and the “Mad Old Women”. Antipode 47, 2: 442-460.
  • Mellor, Mary. 1993. Sınırları Yıkmak: Feminist, Yeşil Bir Sosyalizme Doğru, çev. Osman Akınhay, İstanbul, Ayrıntı. In English: Mellor, Mary. 1992. Breaking the Boundaries: Towards a Feminist Green Socialism, Virago Press.
  • Mellor, Mary. 1997. Feminism and Ecology, Cambridge, Polity Press.
  • Merchant, Carolyn. 1980. The Death of Nature: Women, Ecology, and the Scientific Revolution. San Francisco, Harper & Row.
  • Merchant, Carolyn. 1996. Earthcare: Women and the Environment, New York, Routledge.
  • Mies, Maria. 1986. Patriarchy and Accumulation: Women in the International Division of Labor. London, Zed Books.
  • Mies, Maria and Vandana Shiva. 1993. Ecofeminism. London, Zed Books.
  • Morais, Lecio and Alfredo Saad-Filho. 2012. Neo-developmentalism and the Challenges of Economic Policy-making under Dilma Rousseff. Critical Sociology 38, 6: 789-798.
  • Patel, Raj, and James W. Moore. 2017. A History of the World in Seven Cheap Things: A Guide to Capitalism, Nature, and the Future of the Planet. University of California Press.
  • Petras, James. 2013. Brazil: Extractive Capitalism and the Great Leap Backward. World Review of Political Economy 4, 4: 469-483.
  • Rocheleau, Dianne, and Padini Nirmal. 2015. Feminist Political Ecologies: Grounded, Networked and Rooted on Earth. In The Oxford Handbook of Transnational Feminist Movements, eds. Rawwida Baksh-Soodeen and Wendy Harcourt. Oxford Handbooks: 793-814.
  • Rodriguez Fernandez, Gisela V. 2020. Neo-extractivism, the Bolivian State, and Indigenous Peasant Women’s Struggles for Water in the Altiplano. Human Geography 13, 1: 27-39.
  • Salleh, Ariel. 1997. Ecofeminism as Politics: Nature, Marx and the Postmodern. London, Zed Books.
  • Salleh, Ariel. 2009. Ecological Debt: Embodied Debt. In Eco-sufficiency & Global Justice: Women Write Political Ecology, ed. Ariel Salleh. London, Pluto Press: 1–41.
  • Salleh, Ariel. 2010. From Metabolic Rift to “Metabolic Value”: Reflections on Environmental Sociology and the Alternative Globalization Movement. Organization & Environment 23, 2: 205-219.
  • Shiva, Vandana. 1988. Staying Alive: Women, Ecology, and Survival in India. New Delhi, Kali for Women.
  • Shiva, Vandana. 1997. Foreword. In Ecofeminism as Politics: Nature, Marx and the Postmodern. Ariel Salleh. London, Zed Books.
  • Sempértegui, Andrea. 2021. Indigenous Women’s Activism, Ecofeminism, and Extractivism: Partial Connections in the Ecuadorian Amazon. Politics & Gender 17, 1: 197-224.
  • Sianipar, Imelda Masni Juniaty and Arthuur Jeverson Maya. 2020. Pink Tide: Neo-developmentalism in Brazil and Argentina. In Proceedings of the 3rd International Conference on Social and Political Development. SCITEPRESS–Science and Technology Publications: 23-32.
  • Svampa, Maristella. 2013. Consenso de los Commodities y Lenguajes de Valoración en América Latina [English]. Nueva Sociedad, 244: 30-46.
  • Svampa, Maristella. 2019. Neo-extractivism in Latin America: Socio-environmental Conflicts, the Territorial Turn, and New Political Narratives. Cambridge University Press.
  • Terreblanche, Christelle. 2019. Ecofeminism. In Pluriverse: A Post-Development Dictionary, eds. Ashish Kothari et al. New Delhi, Tulika Books: 163-166.
  • Tickner, J. Ann. 1991. On the Fringes of the World Economy: A Feminist Perspective. In The New International Political Economy, eds. Craig N. Murphy and Roger Tooze. Palgrave Macmillan: 191-206.
  • Tovar-Restrepo, Marcela. 2010. Climate Change and Indigenous Women in Colombia. Gender and Climate Change: An Introduction, ed. Irene Dankelman. New York, Routledge: 145-151.
  • Veltmeyer, Henry. 2012. The Natural Resource Dynamics of Postneoliberalism in Latin America: New Developmentalism or Extractivist Imperialism?. Studies in Political Economy 90, 1: 57-85.
  • Veltmeyer, Henry, and James Petras. 2014. The New Extractivism: A Post-Neoliberal Development Model or Imperialism of the 21st Century. New York, Zed Books.
There are 49 citations in total.

Details

Primary Language English
Subjects International Politics
Journal Section Articles
Authors

Esra Akgemci 0000-0003-4119-2443

Early Pub Date April 24, 2024
Publication Date June 12, 2024
Submission Date October 17, 2023
Acceptance Date April 22, 2024
Published in Issue Year 2024 Volume: 21 Issue: 82

Cite

APA Akgemci, E. (2024). An Ecofeminist Contribution to the Debates on the Neoextractivist Development Model in Latin America. Uluslararası İlişkiler Dergisi, 21(82), 135-152. https://doi.org/10.33458/uidergisi.1470392
AMA Akgemci E. An Ecofeminist Contribution to the Debates on the Neoextractivist Development Model in Latin America. uidergisi. June 2024;21(82):135-152. doi:10.33458/uidergisi.1470392
Chicago Akgemci, Esra. “An Ecofeminist Contribution to the Debates on the Neoextractivist Development Model in Latin America”. Uluslararası İlişkiler Dergisi 21, no. 82 (June 2024): 135-52. https://doi.org/10.33458/uidergisi.1470392.
EndNote Akgemci E (June 1, 2024) An Ecofeminist Contribution to the Debates on the Neoextractivist Development Model in Latin America. Uluslararası İlişkiler Dergisi 21 82 135–152.
IEEE E. Akgemci, “An Ecofeminist Contribution to the Debates on the Neoextractivist Development Model in Latin America”, uidergisi, vol. 21, no. 82, pp. 135–152, 2024, doi: 10.33458/uidergisi.1470392.
ISNAD Akgemci, Esra. “An Ecofeminist Contribution to the Debates on the Neoextractivist Development Model in Latin America”. Uluslararası İlişkiler Dergisi 21/82 (June 2024), 135-152. https://doi.org/10.33458/uidergisi.1470392.
JAMA Akgemci E. An Ecofeminist Contribution to the Debates on the Neoextractivist Development Model in Latin America. uidergisi. 2024;21:135–152.
MLA Akgemci, Esra. “An Ecofeminist Contribution to the Debates on the Neoextractivist Development Model in Latin America”. Uluslararası İlişkiler Dergisi, vol. 21, no. 82, 2024, pp. 135-52, doi:10.33458/uidergisi.1470392.
Vancouver Akgemci E. An Ecofeminist Contribution to the Debates on the Neoextractivist Development Model in Latin America. uidergisi. 2024;21(82):135-52.