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WS: Logics of Extractive Occupation and Collective Action in Latin America

When

Jun 26, 2018 10:00 to Jun 28, 2018 07:00 (Europe/Berlin / UTC200)

Where

Phil I, GCSC, R.001 // Phil I, Building B, R.029

Contact Name

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26.06. // 10 a.m. - 01 p.m. // Phil I, Building I, R.029

27.-28.06. // 10 a.m. - 01 p.m. // Phil I, Building I, R.029

27.-28.06. // 02 p.m. - 07 p.m. // Phil I, GCSC, R.001

 

Territorial conquest was crucial to the project of subordination and domination of regions pertaining to the “Global South” by colonial powers. In the Americas, European colonization led to a massive territorial reorganization, all the while displacing whole communities from their territories and shifting native people's cultural, social and political relations with nature. While this process transformed territories and enslaved bodies into objects of appropriation and domination, the modern representation of territory as an “object” for occupation also facilitated processes of colonial extraction of raw materials crucial for capital accumulation at the local and global levels. The colonial imprint in the logics of extraction, exploitation and objectification of territories and bodies is central to understanding the present conjuncture of neoliberalism and the recent expansion of the extractive frontier in Latin American countries. This recent extractive period has been able to link in unprecedented ways vast territories and populations to the production of commodities for the global market. What matters about extractive concessions is not only their size and expansion, but also the ways in which they trigger tensions in communities related to territorial claims, water resources, and existing livelihoods. Historically, peoples who have been affected by territorial dispossession and who served as racialized and sexualized laborers for the different stages of extraction of raw materials, have always constituted important powers of active and passive resistance. In conclusion, even though forms of organized resistance against the different colonial and modern strategies of territorial occupation have been located in the "blind spots" of most urban citizens, territorial struggles for survival and re-existence continue to strongly shape Latin American politics.

 

The aim of the upcoming 2-days workshop, organized by the AG “Global South” in cooperation with RA6, RA7 and ETRG Migration and (De)coloniality, is to develop an understanding of extractivism from a combined historical and current perspective in order to trace the influence of long-term processes on this concept. The participation of scholars land activists from Colombia and Ecuador provides a multifaceted and innovative approach to the discussion of extractivism in Latin America. The event is organized into three interconnected thematic areas: “Historical perspectives on extractivism and territorial resistance”, “Extractivism in relation to state and society in contemporary Latin America” and “Current strategies of resistance to extractive occupation”.

 

Invited scholars and activists:

Colectivo Feminismo y Territorios, Ecuador

Armando Wouriyu: Colombian Indigenous Organisation (ONIC)

Marino Cordoba: Organisation for Afro-Colombian Refugees (AFRODES)

Alejandra Llanos: Cumbre Agraria Campesina étnica y popular, Colombia

Mallu Muniz: MINKA Urbana collective, Ecuador

Kati Betancourt: Ecuadorian Indigenous Organisation (CONAIE)

Dr. Antje Gunsenheimer: Institute Archeology and Cultural Anthropology, University of Bonn

Dr. Alke Jenss: Arnold Bergstraesser Institut, Freiburg

Prof. Ernst Halbmayer: Institut Für Vergleichende Kulturforschung, University Marburg

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