UDTR — Radar mondial des droits de la Nature

Pachamama Politics: Campesino Water Defenders and the Anti-Mining Movement in Andean Ecuador by Teresa A. Velásquez (review)

Identification

Clé publique

doi:10.1353/nai.2023.a904208

Auteurs

Jaime Hoogesteger

Année déclarée

2023

Langue déclarée

en

Type source

article

Première détection

2026-11-09T19:04:47.596169+00:00

Dernière observation des métadonnées

2026-11-09T19:05:51.629932+00:00

Dernière vérification HTTP

Non effectuée

Résumé documentaire — langue originale

Reviewed by: Pachamama Politics: Campesino Water Defenders and the Anti-Mining Movement in Andean Ecuador by Teresa A. Velásquez Jaime Hoogesteger (bio) Pachamama Politics: Campesino Water Defenders and the Anti-Mining Movement in Andean Ecuador by Teresa A. Velásquez University of Arizona Press, 2022 pachamama politics is an engaged analysis of peasant struggles against the Quimsacocha mining project in the province of Azuay in the southern Andes of Ecuador. It is informed by a very rich body of ethnographic material covering a period of almost fifteen years when the author carried out the research and accompanied many of the analyzed people and processes. This period was politically interesting, as it encompassed the rise, demise, and aftermath of the leftist-inspired Ecuadorian Citizens Revolution (2007–2017). The book begins by analyzing the rise of the antimining movement in the communities of Victoria del Portete and Tarqui in the province of Azuay. In these communities, water became a central issue in the antimining movement that locally united peasants of different social classes. This movement was organized around disputes about water quality studies and the interpretation of the results after a mining company had started explorations in the area and a watershed protection program was initiated. Starting from this local resistance to mining activities in the upper watershed, the resistance unfolded into broader issues and merged with regional and national antimining and for-water and autonomy movements, most notably the Indigenous Ecuadorian Movement. Velásquez foregrounds some interesting notions. She shows that water has become a mobilizing resource through which many other demands and struggles are channeled and through which networks and movements are linked. In this sense, water is linked to broader territorial development plans; to autonomy in water management; and importantly also forms a strong link to Indigenous Andean cosmovisions. The latter include among others the protection of the Pachamama, the plurinational state, the revalorization of the Indigenous symbol, and the related transformation of individual and community identity. As part of this process the Indigenous symbol "lo nuestro" ("that which is ours") has emerged as a strong emblem of local campesino struggles. [End Page 155] The research shows the intrinsic contradictions of the Ecuadorian Citizens Revolution through the eyes of the analyzed water defenders. On the one hand, the Citizens Revolution recognized progressive proposals in Ecuador's 2008 Constitution, such as the recognition of the Rights of Nature, the plurinational state, community-based resource management, prior consent, and participative governance. On the other hand, it built its economy and political project on the development and revenues of extractive industries, the repression of social and most notably Indigenous and environmentalist movements and protests, the waving away of local struggles as nonrepresentative: the Revolution framed its programs and the development of mining in the name of the advancement of the greater good of the Ecuadorian citizens. In this context Teresa Velásquez analyzes how communities—especially the women—united in the Women Defenders of the Mother Earth organization, which engaged with the national Indigenous movement and its efforts to negotiate substantial changes to the proposed Water Law through (among other strategies) street protests and road blockades that were harshly repressed. Velásquez shows how as part of this broader movement Indigenous and campesino communities united with city dwellers in the defense-of-life movement that had a very clear antimining agenda. The movement was closely related to the Indigenous movement and reappropriated Indigenous symbols, language, and identities. These were expressed through the appropriation of notions of water as life and as an ethical entity that combined with Catholicism resulting in waterside masses both in the city as well as in the rural areas, pampamesas, and the related reappropriation of Indigenous identities, symbolisms, and practices. The reappropriation of the Indigenous symbol, related identities, and shared struggles also served as a means through which race, gender, and mestizaje are reconsidered in and among campesino communities as well as in the city of Cuenca. In this process the highly stigmatized indio is negotiated, making room for the adoption of the Indigenous identity; albeit especially among men with greater access to education and urban experiences, while women mainly struggle to free themselves from being treated...

Identifiants

OPENALEX

W4385846951

DOI

10.1353/nai.2023.a904208

Repères documentaires

Famille documentaire

Doctrine

Types déclarés par les sources

article

Juridictions étudiées — sources explicites

EC

Entités naturelles mentionnées

Bassin versant · Terre Mère · Pachamama · Territoire

Les mentions d’entités ne constituent pas une preuve de reconnaissance juridique. La juridiction étudiée est distincte du pays d’affiliation des auteurs.

Sources

OpenAlex · Document 1 · Document 2 · Document 3

• Document · http://dx.doi.org/10.1353/nai.2023.a904208
• DOI · https://doi.org/10.1353/nai.2023.a904208
• OpenAlex · https://openalex.org/W4385846951

Statut documentaire

Pertinence à examiner

Bibliothèque

Cette identité n’est pas encore intégrée à la Bibliothèque juridique.