Natural Resource Development and Human Rights in Latin America offers a re-assessment of extractivism as a strategy for development in Latin America through the lens of a human rights framework. Its starting point is the contradictory tendencies between the promotion and widening of human rights on the one hand, and their abuses and violation in the course of the extraction and commodification of natural resources on the other. The editors remark in their introduction that even while statutory human rights are increasingly being violated in the context of extractivism, for many ‘indigenous movements, the international human rights system has [thus] become a crucial channel to demand attention from their respective states and motivate Latin American governments to recognise human and particularly indigenous rights in the framework of their constitutions and national legislations’ (p. 17). Thus things are more complex, multi-layered and intricately interwoven than they may seem at first glance. In this regard, the editors make a strong argument for a multi-dimensional, multi-layered, multi-disciplinary and, I would add, ‘dialectical’ perspective on the relationship between human rights and struggles over nature in contemporary Latin America: ‘As natural resources have become an increasingly contested and politicised source of development, the environment has emerged as a new political background for human rights’ (p. xvi).
The book is the result of a joint two-part symposium organised by the editors on ‘socio-environmental conflicts, development dilemmas and human rights in Latin America’ (p. vii), held in 2015 in London and Warsaw. In seven chapters plus the editors’ introduction, authors from the social sciences – mainly sociology, anthropology, human geography and Latin American studies – examine the ambivalent role that environmental and human rights practices and norms play within conflicts over extractivism. In their analyses, they draw on empirical data from case studies on conflicts over extractivism from different countries of the region. Furthermore, key concepts, practices and mechanisms – that either underpin the discourses on development and nature or promote the commodification of resources and its elements and functions – are critically reflected upon and deconstructed through the lens of power–knowledge intersections.
The first part of the volume brings into focus tensions between the recognition and violation of human rights, especially with regard to indigenous rights, and the role of the state. Radosław Powęska (Chapter 2) examines indigenous rights in Bolivia. Starting from the concept of ‘state power’, Powęska underlines the importance of studying the actions and discursive strategies of the state apparatus in order to understand the discrepancies between the recognition and violation of rights. Due to the Bolivian state's high dependency on resource rents, the Morales government finds itself in need of managing discourses that legitimise the extractivist agenda, and which must at the same time be ‘coherent with the idealistic principles derived from indigenous identity’ (p. 28). Indigenous rights and agendas are therefore being manipulated and appropriated by an ‘indigenous state’ (p. 29), which hinders those affected by and opposing extractivism to effectively defend their rights.
Malayna Raftopoulos (Chapter 3) links human rights and the international ‘Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation plus Conservation and Sustainable Development (REDD+)’ climate policy mechanism. From a critique of the commodification of forests via REDD+, Raftopoulos argues that the mechanism raises the urgent need for a debate on human rights and a standardised human rights impact assessment (HRIA). Only thus will it be possible to protect the knowledge, laws and customs of indigenous peoples and their right to free, prior and informed consent and to territorial control and self-determination.
The protection, or rather violation, of indigenous peoples’ rights is also at the centre of Magdalena Krysińska-Kałużna's contribution on conflicts over mining in indigenous territories in the Peruvian and Brazilian Amazon (Chapter 4). Krysińska-Kałużna discusses the actions and reactions of indigenous groups in response to extractive activities in their territories. Following the work of Arjun Appadurai (Fear of Small Numbers: An Essay on the Geography of Anger, Duke University Press, 2006, which she cites in the Polish edition), she argues that whether and how (the escalation of) human rights violations take place depends pivotally on the actions of state actors, their lack of interest and commitment and failure to effectively enforce the law.
The next section of the book focuses on power–knowledge relations, and the production of alternative knowledge. Theoretically informed by post-development accounts of power and knowledge and critical geography, Doug Specht (Chapter 5) focuses on the duality of mapping and cartography in processes of nature exploitation. He argues that Geographic Information Systems (GIS) are no longer only instruments of power and domination. Through the partial closing of the digital divide, they have transformed themselves into a tool for ‘tactical counter mapping insurrections’ (p. 121) on the part of NGOs and social movements. Without being naive, Specht argues that, by using counter-maps, it may be possible to challenge dominant spatial representations, narratives and relations of power over knowledge, and thus to promote the rights of those affected by extractivism.
Robert Coates (Chapter 6) considers the relevance of human rights discourse to an understanding of the social construction of vulnerability to floods and landslides in the Brazilian city of Nova Friburgo. The author argues that dominant discourses of ‘natural disasters’, which are grounded in a dualism of nature and society (the non-human and human), produce vulnerability in coastal regions instead of reducing it, and justify the suspension of rights instead of protecting them. ‘Disasters, externalised as natural, authorise liberalism to proclaim an absence of rights, which justifies urbanising interventions, ultimately leading to greater vulnerability’ (p. 133).
The final section of the book focuses on the concept of sustainable development. Starting from the aims of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), Joanna Morley (Chapter 7) critically examines the economic, environmental and human rights concerns of all actors involved in the conflict over the Interoceanic Grand Canal in Nicaragua, namely local communities along the proposed canal route, the Ortega government and the Chinese firm behind the project. In her analysis, Morley identifies a paradox of resource-dependent development in Nicaragua – a strategy which also relates to other countries of the region – namely that the premise that the construction of the dam is the only way to fund social programmes and reduce poverty leads to an acceptance of the destruction of nature and the disregarding of rights.
Bogumiła Lisocka-Jaegermann's contribution (Chapter 8), which constitutes the final chapter of the volume, critically examines the concept of sustainable development in the light of two other concepts with distinct epistemological and ontological origins: politics of place and decoloniality. The aim of this ‘theoretical work’ is to discuss possible encounters, tensions and contradictions between the three concepts, each of which ‘refers to a particular scenario of the future’ (p. 189). Lisocka-Jaegermann contrasts her theoretical discussions with field experiences in Afro-indigenous communities in different countries of the Andes, thereby reflecting on the production of alternative concepts and visions of development.
The chapters that make up Natural Resource Development and Human Rights in Latin America address dilemmas of development in today's Latin America that have already been discussed widely over the last decade – within and outside the region. Nevertheless, the compilation in this volume represents a valuable intervention in contemporary Latin American studies. Although I missed a concluding chapter that combines the overall insights of the – sometimes widely diverse – contributions, as well as some conceptual clarity, I value the volume for its convincing endeavour to link conflicts over the natural resource development agenda in Latin America to human rights theories and practices. In this regard the volume provides direction for future research and new insights – as the editors write – ‘on competing visions, concepts and interests grounded in mutual influences and interdependencies that [are] shaping the contemporary arena of social-environmental conflicts in Latin America’ (p. 21).
