Spring 2021 Conflict Series - Resource Radicals: Petro-Nationalism to Post-Extractivism in Ecuador

Spring 2021 Conflict Series - Resource Radicals: Petro-Nationalism to Post-Extractivism in Ecuador

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hello everyone uh very glad to virtually  see you all at the inaugural session of   the spring semester's Conflict  Security and Development series.   um we're incredibly excited to have Thea  Riofrancos here who I will introduce in a second,   just want to remind folks that while this week  the series is meeting at two o'clock uh next week   we'll return to our regular time of uh 12:30.  uh for the series I want to shout out to our   co-sponsors of course the series is hosted by the  Wagner Office of International Programs and we're   very thrilled to collaborate with the School of  Professional Studies, Center for Global Affairs,   the Center for Human Rights and Global Justice,  and the Bernstein Institute for Human Rights   both at NYU Law School and the Graduate School of  Arts and Sciences International Relations program.   um our speaker today and since this is  a webinar format just to remind people   um if people would like to use the chat to kind  of connect with people and so forth that's great   otherwise if you're gonna have questions  that you would like me to raise um with the   uh please put that into the q&a section or q&a  link rather than the chat that would be great.  

um so Thea Riofrancos is a professor at Providence  College. She is in addition to this book the   co-author of an excellent book on the Global Green  New Deal um today she's going to be talking about   uh resource ra-- her her most recent book  Resource Radicals: From Petro-nationalism   to Post-extractivism in Ecuador. um absolutely  thrilled to have her and without further ado   uh turn it over to Thea. thanks so much John  for that warm introduction and to Hannah for   initially inviting me, and just for everyone  for coming out today to this virtual event.  

so without further ado I will get started and  be sure to leave time for questions and answers over the past two decades two historic  processes transformed Latin America   my book resource radicals is about their  intersection and their combined implications   for left-wing projects that seek to transform  an economic model based on resource extraction   the first process was the recent commodity boom  from roughly 2000 to 2014 demand for primary   commodities such as copper soy and oil soared  driven in large part by rapid industrialization   in China as well as other emerging economies  during the boom the price of oil increased   almost 500 percent accompanied by historically  high prices for raw materials across the board   in Latin America high prices for key exports  offered the opportunity of massively increased   government revenues at the same time that they  dramatically intensified resource dependency This renewed economic dependency  on oil mineral gas and soy exports   coincided with a dramatic political development  what scholars call the Pink Tide during which   a spate of left-wing governments came to  power beginning with Hugo Chavez in 1999.   the coincidence of these two processes  transformed the political economy of the region   ballooning export revenues enabled pink  tied administrations to govern from the left   making good on campaign promises to reverse  austerity and significantly reduce poverty   and inequality increasing access to education and  health care and embarking on new infrastructural   projects but the price for improving millions of  citizens at socioeconomic well-being was further   fiscal dependency on natural resources and in many  cases the territorial expansion of the extractive   frontier subjecting indigenous communities  to displacement and fragile ecosystems to   contamination in other words economic development  threatened the well-being of some of these leftist   government's core constituencies the same  social groups who had mobilized against the   prior decades of neoliberal policies now faced  a new set of social and environmental ills   in this context resource extraction  and mega development projects emerge   as salient sites of conflict between pink  tide administrations and social movements   resource radicals traces these dynamics in Ecuador  the decade in which leftist rafael correa served   as president was marked by protracted dispute over  new mining and oil projects the conflict split the   Ecuadorian left in two on one side indigenous  and environmental movements claim that resource   dependency pollutes the environment violates  its collective rights and undermines democracy   they called this model of development extractivism  or extractivism in spanish and fought for what   they called a post-extractive future this  stance represented a historic shift just   years earlier some of these same social  movements had fought for the nationalization   of natural resources they now resisted all forms  of resource extraction no matter who the owner   on the other side the korea administration  defended a pro-extraction stance   asserting that oil and mining are vital for  equitable economic development they argued that   this development would benefit the majority  strengthen the state and bolster democracy   benefits that an interview far outweighed the  socio-environmental costs of mining or oil   and I just want to turn to these photographs  on the screen right now so you have sort of   two different stances on extraction in the same  exact site and landscape which is actually one of   my field sites on the left you have correa uh with  um some of his cabinet members and and the media   looking at a site that was slated uh for for  for a mining project and on the right a couple   of years prior to that you have protests at that  same site against that particular mining project   and also against the mining law that had just been  passed which I'll refer to later um later on in   in the talk but just to kind of give you a visual  of what these different stances look like who was   promoting them and also the landscapes that were  at stake this dispute over resource extraction in   Ecuador was a dispute between competing models  of development that were articulated and then   consolidated on the fly echoing historic debates  while also forging new interests and identities   resulting in a novel kind of political conflict  this dispute speaks to a key challenge of our   global moment the urgent need for development  models that are both socially and environmentally   sustainable and for political strategies to  mobilize for this aspiration as I'll discuss   at the end of this talk this challenge is only  intensified by the accelerating climate crisis   leftist administrations in Latin America  are ideal sites to explore these challenges   since both policymakers and movements politicized  and radicalized the relationship between   development and extraction in the process they  raised deep questions about the state democracy   and the ecological foundations of global  capitalism within this broad regional context   Ecuador is a particularly interesting site it is  one of the most commodity dependent economies on   the continent and saw intense conflict between  a leftist government committed to extractive   development and an array of movements opposed to  extraction in all forms in this talk I'll delve a   bit into my book's arguments and I'll also offer a  critique of how the politics of extraction tend to   be depicted in social science research policy  conversations as well as the mainstream media   so on to my book my book is animated by two  questions first why did activists in Ecuador   begin to resist what they called the extractive  model or extractivism and what were the political   effects of anti-extractive protest and I just  want to pause again and turn your attention to the   photograph on the right which is during a protest  that I did participant observation during and   protesters are holding a banner that says fuera  mineras which in in spanish and in english that   means mining companies get out like get out of the  country get out of our territory get out of this   landscape and the image I think is quite important  it's a skull uh with um two crossbones and the   skull has a cap on that says a helmet on I should  say a mining helmet that says kinross which was   the name of a mining company that was interested  in developing a project in Ecuador at the time a   canadian mining company and then the two bones are  a mining pick uh and shovel right so there's this   equation symbolic equation of mining and death  which gives you a sense of the militancy of of   these environmental and indigenous movements I  argue that in answer to these questions I argue   that the militant discourse of anti-extractivism  was the product of a critical juncture   this critical juncture was marked by leftist  president correa's inauguration his his ascension   to power the constituent assembly that rewrote the  constitution and the administration's promotion of   large-scale mining which was a new extractive  sector in an already oil dependent country   anti-extractivism a product of these specific  historic circumstances fractured the leftist   coalition it drove a wedge between correa  and his erstwhile movement allies and caused   conflict within the state itself among state  bureaucrats with different visions of extraction   in what follows I'll walk us through this  argument and and specifically through some   of the history that led to this dramatic dispute  between different leftists between the leftist   government and then leftist social movement  activists um I will situate Ecuador a bit in   global context drawing out some of the motivations  for my book and connecting it with maybe other   examples that that people are are already aware  of if they're not familiar with Ecuador I'll   say a bit about my research methods um and the  the interviews and ethnography that I conducted   and then with that in place I'll walk us through  my book's argument and also my critique of what   scholars refer to as the resource curse so  I'll critique some of the predominant ways   that resource extraction is studied in the social  sciences to conclude I'll bring us a bit up to   the president and mention a little bit about my  current research which which dovetails a bit with   this project but takes it to a new attractive  sector so first the motivations and the global   context what does protest against extraction in  Ecuador tell us about broader global dynamics   so first around the world the extractive frontier  is expanding to new territories in Latin America   between 2000 and 2014 during that commodity  boom there was an intensification of extraction   especially in the andes that the mountain range  that sort of cuts through the middle of the   continent and the amazon one of the most important  tropical forests in the world in terms of its its   um it's it's uh its biodiversity and also its  role in in um in maintaining uh the climate   so closer to home uh here in the u.s the advent of  fracking for oil and natural gas has transformed   the landscapes of the norTheast and great  plains so we are actually quite familiar   with this expanding attractive frontier uh here  in the united states several recent studies have   noted an important shift in the contention that  surrounds the exploitation of these resources   historically a lot of conflict would focus  on issues such as labor or ownership but more   recently resistance to extraction has centered  increasingly on environmental or cultural concerns   and invokes new international rights and  legal norms that protect local communities   anti-extractive protests in Ecuador is emblematic  of this broader shift what's really important is   that an emerging response to the government and  corporate attempt to develop a new attractive   sector so it's very much in response to the  expansion territorial expansion of extractive   activity and in particular I'm talking about  large-scale mining which has a really large   land footprint and environmental consequences the  eruption of militant protest against the expansion   of extraction highlights dramatic changes in  the political economy of extraction across the   region so I was just kind of reviewing some of the  global context now I'm going to go to the regional   context the global commodity boom as I mentioned  resulted in a substantial economic reorientation   in Latin America but even within this regional  context Ecuador stood out as one of the most   resource dependent economies on the continent so  this graph which is from 2010 or uh 2009 sorry or   2010 yeah from sort of the height of the commodity  boom though it lasted for a few more years gives   you a sense of how much of Latin America's export  basket was composed of primary commodities those   are commodities that don't require uh processing  or industrialization it can be anything from oil   to fruit to farm shrimp uh to mining minerals  right so Latin America is very resource dependent   south america within Latin America so excluding  central america and the caribbean is even more   resource dependent and Ecuador is one of the most  resource dependent um in terms of its exports um   in in the whole region and in particular the  korea government which governed for a decade   from 2007 to 2017 benefited more from oil price  increases than any other prior administration   since the country was democratized in 1979 while  korea was in in power oil revenues financed over   a third of the state budget but even before  the 2014 crash in oil prices social spending   already outpaced these revenues meanwhile  most of Ecuador's mineral its gold and copper   reserves remained unexploited and the prices  for metals were historically high so it was in   this context that the korea administration pursued  large-scale mining as a new source of state income   and in his view as a means of bringing development  to local communities in the amazon and southern   seattle where the metals are located underground  with two such contracts for large-scale mining uh   in effect the era of large-scale mining has now  been inaugurated in Ecuador social movements   however consistently resisted korea's attempts  to expand extraction these movements included   the national and regional indigenous federations  which in the 1990s were considered by scholars   to be among those highly mobilized movements  in the entire hemisphere and indeed indigenous   mobilization was key in the trajectory that  brought a leftist government to power in the first   place but once his extractive commitments became  clear korea became a target of indigenous protests   often times in alliance with local anti-mining and  anti-oil groups and community water associations   militant environmental organizations  based in urban areas were also part   of the anti-extractive coalition and they helped  radicalize environ the environmental discourse of   of Ecuadorian activists um so before presenting  that that historic narrative and and my sort of   argument that I that I gave you a little snapshot  of at the at the beginning let me just say a few   words about my methodology my methods are  qualitative I spent 15 months in Ecuador   conducting a multi-sided ethnography I'll show  you the science in a moment I conducted lots of   interviews with activists but also with people  in the corporate sector and in different state   agencies I um did participant observation of lots  of events and one of the most important of those   uh was a 700 kilometer long protest that started  in the southern amazon and marched all the way to   the capitol um and that that took two weeks and  and so that was like a really interesting kind   of ethnographic uh a period of observation but I  observed lots of other types of events including   state and industry events my field work took  place primarily in three research sites so   that's a little map of Ecuador which is by the way  roughly about the size of colorado which I think   kind of underlines how amazing the biodiversity  and the landscape diversity is given what a small   geographic area it is so in the northern highlands  in the northern andean region is is the capital   quito that's obviously a center of policy  making and corporate headquarters but also the   headquarters for national social movements then  we have these two different sites at the bottom   um at in the province of assway and the province  of zamora chinchipe uh which were sites of planned   mining projects what's interesting is that these  two sites show you the whole range of possible   outcomes on the the little box on on the left  which shows you a protest against a mine and sy   that's actually the same mine that I uh planned  mine that I showed you photographs of earlier   that mine still hasn't been developed that  landscape looks exactly the same as the one   that I showed you earlier um whereas on the right  um the the province that borders peru in the   southern amazon that mine is now in production  that has a large-scale contract with a um   chinese-owned uh consortium of state companies so  that that gives you kind of a range of of where   different projects are at in the country so to  understand the historic roots and the novelty of   anti-extractive movements my narrative in my book  begins in the prior political period so before the   emergence of this anti-extractive you know fully  consolidated anti-attractive movements for the   decade and a half of social mobilization that  began with Ecuador's first national indigenous   uprising in 1990 indigenous activists often  in coalition with other popular sector groups   identified neoliberalism as the target of their  resistance in their struggle against neoliberalism   these groups asserted that natural resources  such as oil were the collective property of the   people they claimed to defend lot sovereignty  and life itself against the private and often   foreign appropriation of national wealth so  for example during massive protests against   neoliberal reforms in 1994 the national indigenous  federation the konai called for non-renewable   and sub-soil resources in other words oil and  minerals to be the property of the pluri national   state that they wanted to bring into existence  four years later in their proposal for the 1998   constitution the same federation stated that oil  and mining should be national property thus during   these years of intense protests against cuts to  public spending privatization and other neoliberal   reforms the national indigenous federation  which was a key protagonist in a broader protest   movement demanded the nationalization of natural  resources for the collective benefit of the people   this is what I call radical resource  nationalism this vision of resources   has a long history in Latin America throughout  the 20th century and to the present leftist   movements have seen extraction the problems with  extraction through the lens of anti-imperialism   and concomitantly rejected foreign ownership  and demanded national resource sovereignty   correa entered the 2006 presidential race  riding the coattails of these mass mobilizations   capitalizing on his already established antenna  liberal credentials correa had served as a   finance minister in a previous government and was  well known as as a prominent leftist economist   but with his rise to power indigenous movements  and their allies abandoned their prior resource   nationalist stance they re-articulated  their position as the total opposition   to resource extraction away from their earlier  nationalist rhetoric of resources for the people   so I'm going to give you a little bit of a  taste of what this anti-extractive discourse   and tactics kind of look like so first in July  of 2010 I spoke to a prominent member of a human   rights organization that focuses on environmental  conflict she told me that quote extractivism extra   activism was to blame for a wide range of problems  in Ecuador she discussed how the sale of land to   oil and mineral companies and the construction  of infrastructure results in what she called a   new colonization of the countryside but she also  observed that the expansion of extractive front   activity opened up new possibilities for  collective action such as emerging alliances   between indigenous groups and small farmers who  may not be indigenous necessarily mestizo farmers   um in the southern amazon who saw a common  enemy in the advancing extractive frontier   I want to note right away though that this  discourse though it originated from social   movements was not restricted to social movements  it also circulated among actors that I call in my   book quote critical bureaucrats these were members  of the administration who were hesitant critical   or even opposition to more resource extraction so  a week after I spoke to that human rights activist   I sat down with a legislative advisor talians  pais korea's own political party who was later   appointed to the ministry of economic policy  so pretty high-ranking official in the party   and in the state this um uh this advisor spoke  to me of two grand projects in contradiction   on one side is the development model that was  promoted by the government and in particular   by correa based on what this advisor called  quote the super exploitation of nature and   extractivism he explicitly contrasted this model  with buen vivir the indigenous concept of living   well now enshrined in the constitution a model  he saw is not so much economic as civilizational   that envisions a total reordering of the  relationships between individual community and   nature so I want to repose my research questions  now that we have a taste of this discourse   and how it represented a shift from the prior  resource nationalist stance why did activists   resist resource policy in these new terms and  what were the political consequences so as I   mentioned earlier there was a critical juncture  a context in which a lot of things were changing   um first was the inauguration of Ecuador's first  democratically elected leftist president and then   the rewriting of the constitution these two  provided a political opening for the emergence   of anti-extractive movements in a national  referendum in 2007 Ecuador's vote Ecuadorians   voted overwhelmingly in favor of convening an  assembly to rewrite the constitution korea's party   alianza pais won almost two-thirds of the seats  during the assembly some alianza pais delegates   members of other left-wing parties including  the indigenous party and their movement allies   began to craft a vision of anti-extractivism this  framing drew on radical environmentalist proposals   stating to the 1990s indigenous discourses about  territorial sovereignty and collective rights   and emerging environmentalist critiques of Latin  America's pink tied governments the definition   that these activists of uh use to define  extractivism varies but to put it simply a common   thread is an export-led model of accumulation  an export-led model of development based on the   intensive extraction and harvesting of natural  resources with little or no industrialization   anti-extractive activists claim that this  model contaminates ecosystems centralizes   political power undermines democracy and  violates its constitutional rights but   correa's rise to power and the rewriting  of the constitution were not sufficient   conditions to consolidate anti-extractivism as the  critical discourse something else was important   I argued that it was the promotion of a  new extractive sector of large-scale mining   large-scale mining was a centerpiece of  korea's economic agenda in the context   of booming international prices for largely  untapped national reserves of gold and copper   korea looked to this new sector to boost state  revenue and underwrite the public investment in   social services and infrastructure that already  outpaced oil revenues substantial as they were   but despite these potential benefits large-scale  mining and especially open pit mining in sensitive   ecosystems such as the amazon entails dire  consequences for directly affected communities   and the environment moreover the energy  and transportation infrastructure that   mining requires contributes to deforestation  and in turn climate change as a result both   promoters and detractors saw mining as a  path to be taken or avoided at all costs   from the administration's perspective mining  would help alleviate poverty for anti-extractive   activists it would further entrench economic  dependency territorial dispossession   and environmental degradation for both sides  then an entire model of development was at stake   the 2009 mining law was the first  in a series of pro-mining reforms   the protests that it occasioned organized by a  nascent coalition of the national and regional   indigenous federations radical environmentalists  and local anti-mining groups were the first   inkling of the coming political realignment during  these protests a press release circulated by the   highland indigenous federation which had played  a key role in mobilizing against neoliberalism   in the 1990s and calling for resource nationalism  highlighted the new salience of an anti-extractive   framing so I'm going to put this quote up  and also read it overcoming the neoliberal   model cannot be achieved with the policies of  a developmentalist and extractivist model that   promotes the extraction of economic resources at  whatever cost and reproduces the socioeconomic   structure of inequality injustice discrimination  and the exploitation of human beings in nature   in the context of a leftist administration anti-neoliberal discourse which had been  completely salient in the prior period among   activists lost some of its critical traction the  government itself identified as post or antenna   liberal activists in this context crafted a new  language of contention focused on what they began   to call the extractive model so throughout my  fieldwork I saw that this new anti-extractive   discourse circulated widely in activist  networks at events in meetings and in media   in these venues activists crafted strikingly  similar narratives so for example at an event   organized by anti-mining activists in the province  of asshoai one of my field sites alberto acosta   who had served as minister of energy and minds and  the president of the constituent assembly under   the korea government so again another high-ranking  official in the government but left the government   due to disagreements over extraction called  extractivism the quote essence of development   which he understood as a 500 year long  history of the imposition of western modernity   from his perspective overcoming extraction  entails an entirely new model of accumulation a member of a radical environmental group acciona  kalohika presented a very similar account during   a public debate over mining in the northern  highland province of imbabura she used the   opportunity to delve into a sweeping history of  extractivism dating it to 1534 the year of the   spanish conquest of quito and what she called  the moment of insertion into the world market   but even within these sweeping 500 year-long  accounts for anti-extractive activists the korea   administration stood out as the most extractivist  regime in Ecuador's history in large part due to   the promotion of large-scale mining as conflict  over extraction intensified anti-extractivism   became the language of contention guiding  movement and state strategy it circulated in   symbiotic relationship with the administration's  unrelenting push for new extractive projects   each node in the attractive model constituted  a potential target of mobilization   so protest was as likely to erupt in the  streets of quito at a state ministry or   corporate headquarters as it was in the  immediate sites of mineral and oil extraction   anti-extractive movements forced the kore  administration to explicitly defend extraction   and here are just some quotes a kind of a sense of  how correa would defend it and this often happened   in his weekly presidential addresses which  were several hours long and broadcast on tv   and on the radio so throughout his  administration and often in direct   response to episodes of protests korea asserted  that resource extraction is good for development   and democracy because the revenues it generates  benefit the majority of the population   including the communities most affected  by its socio-environmental consequences   interestingly he in effect redeployed social  movements prior resource nationalism framing by   arguing that resource extraction should benefit  the people and his administration put this into   practice directing the proceeds from royalties  and taxes to fund infrastructure and social   services during his time in office poverty  dropped dramatically from 37 to 23 percent   but in Ecuador from the moment they emerged  anti-attractive movements also caused conflict   within the state so korea's position wasn't  necessarily the position of all state officials   official resource policy became a field of  contention between bureaucrats with distinct   political visions after the constituent assembly  officials with anti-extractivist sympathies such   as alberto acosta who I mentioned left the regime  and opposition politicians began to identify as   anti-mining and anti-oil so extractivism had  really polarized the political landscape and so   by the time I conducted field work this discourse  circulated beyond social movement activists   bureaucrats tasked with long-term economic  planning that were still employed by the   state um and working for the state claimed to mean  in interviews that a post-extractive economy an   imagined future in which Ecuador was no longer  economically dependent on primary commodities   provided a solution to persistent underdevelopment  and ongoing socio-environmental conflict   somewhat counter-intuitively they justify the  expansion of extraction in the present in terms of   the revenues that would generate to transform the  economy in the future large-scale mining a sector   still then in its early stages of construction was  to be the beginning of an end a quote post-doil   vision as one bureaucrat told me or was another  official phrased it the last moment of extraction   at the same time bureaucrats more directly  involved with negotiating with foreign firms   and attracting foreign investment were forced  to respond to both anti-extractive activists   and their more skeptical colleagues while still  attracting that investment in the mining sector   correa as I mentioned was one of  the foremost defenders of extraction   he branded activists as infants and traitors  accused them of terrorism and this resulted in   legal action against nearly 200 indigenous and  environmental activists at the very end of his   last term in office he deployed military and  police force against indigenous communities   who protested their displacement by  another chinese-owned mining project   so at this juncture I want to highlight a little  bit the differences between my approach to   extraction and the prevailing approach which is  this idea of a resource curse which prevails not   only in social science and the academy but also  in public policy work and in media conversations   according to the quote resource course states  that depend on oil or mining for their revenues   are likely to be authoritarian and economically  unstable or underdeveloped from this perspective   oil or mining rents which are taxes and royalties  charged to extractive firms are the glue that   holds elite coalitions together enabling them to  buy off or repress civil society thus insulating   them from popular pressure the result is either  low quality democracies or stable autocracies   in contrast to resource gross arguments my  book demonstrates that oil and mining don't   homogeneously or unilaterally determine political  outcomes instead the consequences of extraction   are highly context dependent and the interests of  different actors shouldn't be assumed in advance   in Ecuador as another commodity dependent  left populist governments in the region   resource revenues were a double-edged sword in the  short term they enabled administrations like the   korea government to govern from the left buoying  high approval ratings and electoral victories and   resulting in important reductions in poverty and  inequality but in the longer term by locking in   an extractive model of development they undermine  broader social and economic transformations and   also drove a wedge between the government  and some of their former political allies   also in sharp contrast to the depiction of civil  society in this scholarship in my view indigenous   labor peasant and environmental activists are not  just passive recipients of oil spending or victims   of state repression instead they are protagonists  they articulated novel critiques of extraction   and opened up new arenas of conflict  both between movements and the state   and even within the state itself as a result  activists and even some bureaucrats rejected   an attractive model of development altogether  an outcome that would be actually inexplicable   within the resource curse framework which  assumes that especially elite actors will   always want to continue extractive activity  because of the ways that they benefit from it   defying simplistic analyses of civil  society and oil and mining dependent states   anti-extractive movements in Ecuador  were creative working through and against   institutions to achieve their goals they elected  anti-extractive leaders to local government   they marched from the amazon to the capital they  organized nature walks through the still verdant   sites slated for extractive ruin and occupied  mining camps erected on their dispossessed land   they monitored environmental impacts and  frustrated with the legal system they took the   enforcement of constitutional rights into their  own hands organizing the very consultations in   local communities affected by extractive projects  that the government had failed to implement   these tactics had a deep impact on politics  in Ecuador and beyond the national territory   and the resources it contains literally  constitute the foundation of the state   in resisting the extraction of resources  indigenous and environmental movements across   the americas called into question the taken  for granted relationship between state nation   territory and resources to conclude I'll note  that although my book stretches from 2007 to 2017   these topics have only grown in relevance as new  forms of extraction take hold around the planet   and climate change of course threatens communities  territories and ecosystems currently my research   focuses on the extractive frontiers of green  technologies specifically lithium batteries   and electric vehicles which I'm happy to discuss  I've done some field work on lithium extraction in   chile finally i'd like to pivot to the future of  radical and left politics in the region given the   fact that during the pink tide the Ecuadorian  left fractured pinning movements against a   government that they had initially if critically  supported I want to highlight the necessity of   both left governments and left movements for  the foreseeable future achieving socioeconomic   equality on a livable planet is the key  political task for the hemisphere and the globe   for all the limitations and contradictions of the  pink tide without progressives in power political   social and economic inequalities reinforce one  another and deny a dignified life to the vast   majority and for all the challenges sustaining  anti-extractive movements resistance against   extractive projects is vital in order to avert  the worst of climate chaos despite the potential   for conflict between them these two projects  of progressives and government and leftist   movements are fundamentally intertwined so what  is the possibility of Latin American leftists   reconstructing coalitions that can weave together  egalitarian and ecological demands the future it's   cliche to say is more unpredictable by the day but  there are new policy paradigms such as uh the call   for a new eco-social pact and the framework  of our green america which I can talk about   these are different policy frameworks articulate  an inspiring vision for green and socially just   regional economy thank you so much and I look  forward to your questions thank you so much Thea   um it's amazing how you were able to pull together  in a relatively short period of time the very   complex and nuanced arguments that you have in the  book I can you know quick book promo can't under   recommend this book uh or can't over recommend  this book in fact um so for people who have   questions please throw them up into the q a  um and uh wondering if I could just start off   at some level kind of where you ended um  one of the things that I really appreciated   um at the end of the book was your discussion  of kind of the existential dilemmas facing on   the one hand a kind of excuse me uh nationalist  extractivist resource uh radical approach versus   the anti-extractive particularly because korea  as you discuss came to power and part on the back   of social movements who subsequently were central  to the anti-extractivist agenda so I guess I was   curious if you could talk a little bit about um  I i felt kind of teased at the end of the book   where you're saying what would be great and  kind of the failures of the anti-extractivist   mobilization was that they were very strong on  kind of demands around democracy and community   participation and informed consent but kind  of lacked an alternative transformational   national economic vision right that there  was nothing so if you weren't going to get   growth versus from extractivism what was your  kind of alternative and anti-extractivists   as a whole didn't really seem to have that  so I'm wondering what are the pathways then   out of this dilemma um that would offer something  more substantial in terms of an alternative vision   that's not just in the fevered imaginations  of left intellectuals but actually is   aligned with actually existing social forces  that could bring it into being yeah that's   a great that's a great great question and a big  one um so I'm gonna try to restrain myself to not   sort of go in too many directions with it  um you know I i think that the the pandemic   the economic consequences of the pandemic and  also the neoliberal turn of the current government   who people thought was going to maybe be a  continuation of correa but actually went to his   right this is a former lenin moreno the current  president who's a former vice president of korea's   um so you have like a more neoliberal  government and then you have this extreme   public health and economic devastation in it  and it can't be overstated like how much Latin   America is probably the region of the world that  has suffered the most from from the pandemic and   and and the economic fallout of it so these are  our circumstances that I think in some ways help   create the conditions of a broader popular  coalition and in other ways make it hard right   and so I just want to speak a little bit to that  um and then I'll see if I've sort of answered your   questions so I think the ways that they create  those conditions is that it was in the 1990s   and early 2000s under neoliberal governments  whose policies harmed a really broad array   of constituencies right so working class and lower  class and poor people but also like lower middle   class middle class people really kind of all saw  like a common problem with um these neoliberal   policies that really reduced state spending um  had under investment in public infrastructure   just you know harmed lots of different folks  across the board and it was in that context   that the indigenous movement but with a lot of  different allies and other popular movements was   able to create this really broad social um protest  that eventually in a way you know resulted in in   korea's election um and in some ways those  conditions repeat a little bit now because   you have a sort of neoliberal those technically  left but really in policy practice neoliberal   government and we saw the implications of this  last year um in october of 2019 when there was   a massive massive social movement that erupted in  Ecuador again led with the indigenous movement but   with a really broad sector of society involved and  there were like 10 or 12 days of intense protest   against basically austerity policies um that that  the moreno government had put into place in order   to satisfy the imf because the moreno government  had an imf uh loan agreement um and they forced   them to walk back they forced this the government  to concede these popular demands so this   interesting moment of like the re-articulation of  a really broad protest movement around like sort   of bread and butter economic issues that that  harmed a lot of people on the other hand as we   know you know around the world it's challenging  to organize during a pandemic and when people   are experiencing a level of economic admiseration  that is just hard to express in in Latin America   um uh in some countries 40 50 60 percent of people  work in the informal economy which means they just   have zero social safety net um whenever you know  the economy goes into a downturn and it's just   really devastating we're seeing the return of  forms of hunger and malnutrition and chronic   poverty that some of these left governments had  actually done a lot to to to reduce when they   were in power so it's very challenging conditions  to organize but I do think that what the moment   has shown is like you know the deep inadequacy of  of neoliberal um or conservative approaches to the   pandemic and to the health system and to economic  support and so there is the potential for like   re-articulating that coalition I'll sort of leave  it there but it's a great question that's great I   mean perhaps we can pick up one of the themes from  that so Ecuador is going to be having an election   on sunday how do you see these kinds of issues  playing itself out in the context of the current   election yeah it's it's amazing I saw that  question in the chat and I was glad someone asked   it because like more than I would have predicted  what my the conflicts my book discusses are front   and center in the election and the re and like  really much more than I would have predicted them   to be um the reason I say that is that we have  two different leftists on the on the ballot so we   have a right wing or conservative person who's run  before and lost before guillermo lasso he's like   a banker and a businessman so that's him and then  we have a candidate that is associated with korea   and alianza pais though the party name has changed  um um andres and then we have a candidate that's   associated very deeply and actually makes  quite a number of appearances in my book   associated with the anti-attractive left jacob  perez um he was his name was carlos perez when I   spoke to him in in you know so just in case people  search for it in the book um but I talk a little   bit about why he changed his name to an indigenous  name anyhow so we have like the anti-extractive   left the kind of codeista or you know more like  uh progressive kind of technocratic kind of left   and then we have a right-wing person right so  it will be interesting I'm not sure I would   have to get into the weeds of like um you know uh  pulling data and stuff like that if the these two   leftisms that are in my book and on the ballot are  like splitting the left vote or possibly because   I this I've noticed in prior you know polling  and and voting trends and over the past several   years in Ecuador it's possible that jakub perez  the anti-extractivist running is getting votes   that are disaffected enough from kore ismo that  they wouldn't have voted for him at all right   so he's not really splitting the left maybe he's  expanding a little bit the you know who's turning   out I i don't know which way it goes and I think  there are other people more informed about this   current electoral dynamics to answer that but it  but basically anti-extractivism versus something   like you know resource nationalism or progressive  kind of uh but but but uh um development approach   to resource extraction are both on the ticket  right now so I'm curious to see how it turns out   great um I'm wondering if you could talk a little  bit you know we have a new administration in the   united states uh you know arguably one of the one  of the elements that contributed arguably to to   the success of uh the experiments of the pink tide  was that in the early part of this century the us   was like focused on the middle east and focused on  kind of the war on terror and was not as engaged   in this it's commonly historical intervention as  commonly engaged historically in its interventions   in Latin America um and so there was there seemed  to be a little bit more space for those kinds of   experiments than perhaps it existed certainly  in the 50s and 60s um what do you what do   you kind of see is the the role that the biden  administration might be taking towards um Latin   America kind of in general or efforts to kind  of pursue heterodox uh development strategies yeah that is um that is an excellent question and  I think one that we'll kind of kind of have to say   time will tell because I think the experience  of the Obama Administration is very mixed on   a foreign policy standpoint you know there are  there are some you know certainly some negatives   in terms of foreign intervention in conflicts  around the world that occurred on the Obama   administration and I'm not exactly clear how much  biden has like learned from that or will change   his attack um that that issue aside um definitely  there is a relief on the part of Latin American   progressives and leftists that Trump is out of  office obviously Trump um uh in very concrete ways   like helped um increase the political fortunes  of very right-wing political actors in in in   the americas right bolsonaro being one of them but  also his work with sort of fringe very right-wing   elements of the venezuelan opposition and his  attempt to like elevate you know some of those   to to to power um and and working around more  um dialogue based forms of of of of moderating   conflicts you know it it was very concerning  and having Trump out of the office means that   read you know kind of right wing and fascist and  conservative elements around the region like don't   have someone in the white house that's gonna like  elevate their fortunes um but you know I'm very   curious to see what biden does he has said one  thing that is positive from my perspective but   I really just want to frame all this by saying  I'm not exactly sure what what policy framework   he'll take towards the the americas and democrat  democrats in office in the white house have done   lots of not good things in the americas right so  I think the standard is pretty low unfortunately   he has said that he wants to address root causes  of migration so he wants to address things like   climate change and economic disparities and under  development and vulnerabilities that are driving   migration and that he also wants to uh help  invest through I don't know if it would be through   foreign aid or through what exactly um in green  technology and renewable energy in the region   right so sort of offer this alternative pathway  that could be an alternative to the sort of oil   and and and mineral and large scale agriculture  perhaps based economies that predominant in the   region so we'll see if he carries through on  that promise I think that you know thinking   about the redistribution of economic resources  in the region uh region including the u.s is   is is really important I also think this would be  more radical than biden is going to do but if I   were president you know one thing that I think  is really important to talk about is canceling   debt and I and I don't mean student debt though  I think we should cancel that too but what I   mean is sovereign debt which is the debt that that  governments owe to often either private creditors   or international financial institutions like the  imf and Latin America is a wash in sovereign debt   to levels that I think all economists agree like  are just totally unsustainable and never be paid   off the issue with debt and I'll end this here is  that debt kind of incentivizes extractivism in a   number of ways but one key way is that if you have  a lot of debt you're going to go to where you can   immediately get government revenues and that's  these extractive you know these global markets   and extractive resources and so it really creates  a short-termism in terms of economic policy and   so biving could do a lot the u.s has a lot of  leverage over international debt markets and  

over international financial institutions um I  don't think he would take such a radical step   but I would love to see him do it so to pick up on  this the the the last point um and try to link uh   the discussion you were just having with some of  your more recent work which I know is focused on   kind of um the political economy of kind of green  value chains as it relates to kind of transforming   uh in a green fashion the kind of global  economy so if we if we take the kind of   the green new deal the global green new deal  as a goal and objective we're going to have   to have renewable forms of energy that's going  to involve a lot of things including the use of   things like lithium and other kind of metals that  we can at this point only get by mining so how do   we it's already hard enough to come up with like  a heterodox development strategy how do we think   about doing that in the context of um uh trying  to think about you know the negative effects   of extractivism when some of those resources  may in fact be central to the construction of   some kind of a of a new type of of green economy  and so how does one manage those conflicts I i   think there would be a wing of folks who maybe  come out of the d growth community who would say   you know we just that's too bad that's not  a pathway that we can go down and so it's   about de-growth and lowering consumption and so  forth what what is kind of the positive vision   of building a green economy that would still  rely it's to some degree on extractive minerals   yeah thank the amazing question and nice framing  in terms of yes there's a lot of different   perspectives of on this among progressives among  leftists and then you know more broadly than that   just to give folks a little context if people are  not kind of aware of of the the bigger context   of John's question um green technologies or clean  technologies are the technologies that we need to   develop and deploy to switch to renewable energy  and also to mitigate you know the the uh the the   harm that climate change has already caused  right and so we're thinking about things like   solar panels like wind turbine um there are also  more um speculative technologies around carbon   capture and things like that and what I'm studying  is lithium batteries which are in your cell phones   on your laptops but are also in tesla's right and  so those are used a lot of what drives the demand   for lithium batteries increasingly is electric  vehicles they're also used to store electric   excuse me renewable energy on grids that use solar  or wind power because the energy is intermittent   so you need to store it in some way okay so those  are what lithium ion batteries are now the word   lithium gives you a clue that um like anything  in the world and like all green technologies   these are made with things that are pulled out of  the earth right and so what's being pulled out of   the earth here is lithium but there's also cobalt  and nickel and magnesium and a whole host of other   minerals that go into making these batteries um  and just to give you a sense of how significant   John's question is and the sort of topic uh  right now investor analysts are predicting a   new huge commodity boom right I talked about a  commodity boom from 2000 to 2014 and I gave you   a sense of how much that changed the global and  regional conjunction right right now we might be   entering to another commodity boom because the  amount of raw materials that green technologies   require is actually enormous right so just to  give you an example a tesla or I don't need to   say a tesla any electric vehicle like sedan size  has like 180 pounds of copper in it which is like   way more copper that's wiring you know for all of  the uh you know the electric motor and and driver   so these are resource intensive objects even if  they are extremely important to reducing carbon   emissions and so it feels like a real trade-off  like how do we both protect local ecosystems   um respect indigenous rights um uh and also  uh transition to a future in which these   green technologies would be more prevalent and  it's it's you know a thorny one and I'm at the   beginning stages of a project around this I've  done a few months of field work in chile when   I lucky enough when I did field work before the  pandemic um you know and so I've been and reading   and sort of researching this question and I think  there's you know a few ways that I would answer   it really briefly one is I think that we need  to really rethink um global economic exchange   specifically trade right so what are the  conditions under which lithium or cobalt   or copper are extracted and then traded around  the globe right are there ways the answer is   yes are there ways to make these much more just  equitable environmentally sustainable our current   trade model so-called free trade I don't really  like the term it's not really free for anybody   except for capital mobility and investor  kind of rights and so thinking about how to   rewrite our trade models to make them more  green lower carbon and more just and to ensure   um better sourcing and better conditions for  communities and ecosystems at the extractive   frontiers of these supply chains right so that's  one um another though and this is the bigger thing   that that John the end of John's question kind  of hinted towards is like rethinking a lot about   how we produce and consume right and I'll just  give a quick example and end here which is like   you know for me this whole moment of electrifying  transit of of moving away from internal combustion   engines towards electric transit is a moment  to actually rethink our whole transit system   like why do we each need a car um uh why  don't we push our transit systems towards   mass transit public transit um walking and cycling  um and other forms of transit because the most   resource-intensive thing in terms of the minerals  pulled out of the ground is a model in which   everyone has their own passenger vehicle that  just sits in a garage most of the day and you   know isn't even really being used in any rational  sense in terms of how much went into it whereas a   bus at least serves many more people right and  so just thinking about how do we design these   transit models and what kind of transit systems  do we demand in the global north so that the   supply chains are less rapacious in terms of how  much needs to be extracted um and I'll I'll just   pause there because I could go on this is like the  question of our moment but I just encourage folks   when we're when we're advocating for environmental  low-carbon you know policies in the u.s as I do to   just think about their supply chain implications  because I think different policies have really   different uh reverberated in really  different ways across the rest of the planet   so I draw one last question the draw from the from  once something submitted to the q a so you focus   primarily on Ecuador these kind of issues have  also been raised in similar debates in bolivia   there was the recent relatively recent legislation  in el salvador about ending um minerals so   what kind of pat do you see there being a pathway  uh the q the questioner says you know what about   costa rica ecotourism agriculture those are  themes that kind of jaku perez has drawn on   as what uh we might think of as a maybe as  a degrowth approach or a Buen Vivir approach   you know is that is that really a viable  strategy as an alternative pathway for   sustainable prosperity yeah I mean absolutely  I think that from the us to Ecuador we should   be thinking of ways to shift our economies to  less resource intensive less energy intensive to   thinking about care as one of the most important  social functions right whether that's teaching or   healthcare or elder care which happens to be low  resource intensive and low carbon right and so   thinking about those sectors of our economy also  thinking more broadly about care sectors including   environmental care environmental remediation and  then there's the whole renewable energy kind of   sector that we need to build up right so there's  a lot of different sectors that I think that   they don't have zero environmental implications  but they have fewer and they might also create   better and more equitable social relations right  so I'm all for wherever we are in the world of of   thinking about you know how to build a different  economic model and I think you know honestly as   challenging as the circumstances are right now for  all the reasons I listed earlier with the pandemic   and economic dislocation crises are also potential  moments to sort of do deeper re-evaluation and to   maybe create different types of coalitions um you  know one one thing I'll just to circle back to   your to your question more specifically I mean  I think that all of those ideas about you know   more regenerative agriculture eco-tourism though  the flying thing is not solo carbon but okay a lot   of ecotourism is actually regional I mean people  within Ecuador might travel drive and you know   travel somewhere within the country right so you  have ecotourism you have regenerative agriculture   you have a research and knowledge economy and  a care economy and all of those would be great   and I think they should be promoted the problem  is the economic resources needed to deal with   you know extreme poverty which has really  increased as you know in this pandemic moment   and in that context I think the two things are  key one is domestic within a country and one is   regional or global so the domestic is we have to  tax rich people more we have to do that everywhere   but in Latin America wealthy people are taxed  at just everyone actually is taxed as way lower   rates than is like you know the oecd average  or whatever so taxation rates are extremely low   in Latin America and that has to change because  that's another thing that incentivizes extraction   because you don't have domestic kind of fiscal  resources um that's and they're more sustainable   economically I mean more stable than than boom  and bust cycles of extractive markets so that's   one thing and then the global I already mentioned  which is I think there has to be a real call on   the world bank on the imf and on private creditors  to reduce dramatically or in my view cancel   debt that is constraining fiscally the room for  maneuver for progressive governments right so   I don't think you can do these things just in one  country even though a country like costa rica has   done amazing things towards decarbonization  right but I think ultimately there are changes   at higher scales that need to occur and I think  that's also where we come in in the global north   in solidarity and sort of policy  circles to kind of think about   how can we put pressure on our governments  or corporations to change that global picture   well thank you Thea um apologies folks for  apologies to you for running over a little bit   and for thank you folks for hanging around with  us this was absolutely wonderful presentation uh   the book again resource radicals duke university  press um and we hope to have you back very soon   Thea if that would be okay of course uh maybe  for the next project when I when I you know   uh whenever you want um that would be great this  is wonderful questions I i was reading some of   them that we didn't get to in very informed uh  discussion and questions thank you great uh so   uh all right everyone we will see you next week  we're back to our regular scheduled time of 12:30   uh and we look forward to seeing you here  next week take care everyone thanks again Thea

2021-04-09 09:06

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