Sumak Kawsay, Pachamama and Cosmopolitics: Indigenous Struggles and the Rights of Mother Earth in...

Sumak Kawsay , Pachamama and Cosmopolitics:

Indigenous Struggles and the Rights of Mother Earth in Bolivia & Ecuador

Chris Crews | NSSR Politics

chris crews – PhD candidate, NSSR | [email protected] | OLA Draft Conference Paper ~ 2015 ~ not for citation

Sumak Kawsay, Pachamama and Cosmopolitics:

Indigenous Struggles and the Rights of Mother Earth in Bolivia & Ecuador

This paper elaborates on French science studies scholar Bruno Latour and his suggestion

that a new political body is coming into being, which he calls the people of Gaia or Earthbound

people. This concept is an attempt by Latour to help think through what a community of people

fostering new social movements oriented to caring for the Earth in a time of ecological crisis

might look like, and what would bring them together in a shared, global political project. “Let us

start this potential work of assembly with an imaginary collective whose members would

proudly present themselves to others by saying ‘we pertain to the people of Gaia’...a completely

imaginary collective, one that would be able to equip itself to survive in the Anthropocene by

taking seriously what it means to be postnatural.” For Latour, a “postnatural” position reflects 1

a rejection of the historical claim that there is a stark divide between humans and nature.

This emerging movement towards postnatural politics, which I elaborate here through a

theory of Earthbound people, reflects the emergence of a new understanding of politics, one

which not only moves beyond the humannature dichotomy, but also seeks to imagine political

possibilities beyond liberalism, capitalism (neoliberalism) and various forms of state socialism.

In other words, a politics that does not currently exist, and which calls into question the basic

politicolegal governance regimes of both modern states and the dominant global political order

in which these states are embedded. This Earthbound consciousness, which has both local and

1 Latour, Bruno. “Facing Gaia: Six Lectures on the Political Theology of Nature.” 2013. pg. 85.

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global articulations, attempts to advance expanded notions of the political by advancing a

different set of meanings to ideas such as representation, agency, responsibility and value.

This paper seeks to flesh out this theory of an Earthbound people, and argues that rather

than a completely imaginary collective as Latour suggests, the Earthbound people already exist.

After laying out a basic framework for thinking about the Earthbound people, I offer a mini case

study from the Andes to give this theory more context and nuance. I begin by discussing new

language about the rights of nature which was added to the Ecuadorian constitution in 2008 and

then consider if and how these new legal discourses have been linked to resource extraction,

indigenous rights claims, and environmental debates playing out in the Yasuní National Park,

which is located in the Amazonian jungles of eastern Ecuador.

It should be noted that this paper is part of a much larger research project looking at cases

in both the Andes (Ecuador and Bolivia) and Himalayas (Nepal) in the context of developing this

idea of Earthbound people and future directions of environmental politics in the Anthropocene.

As such, my discussion here will necessarily be limited due to space and time constraints. Before

starting, I want to briefly situate this paper within my larger overall research project.

Both regions (Andes and Himalayas) have significant highland and lowland populations,

which provide a chance to compare aspects unique to highland mountain communities with

broader, nonmountain and valley communities in and across regions. Both regions have seen

large social movements led by indigenous or marginalized ethnic and caste (Dalit) communities

that have attempted to introduce different visions of the future into political discourse. These

discourses often articulate a different cosmopolitical view, or cosmovisión, of the world. This

concept also resonates with how many Indigenous activists in the Andes describe their political

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projects. Somewhat connected to cosmopolitical questions, both regions have a significant

population whose livelihoods and identity are still closely tied to living on or working the land.

From a political ecology perspective, this means they are among the first to feel the feedback

loops, which Latour argues is a key aspect of the politics of the Earthbound. These communities

are also the first impacted by agrarian and land reform policies, and as such, the politics of land

are central to these debates. These countries have been pointed to by social movements as

offering innovative practices for climate change, radical democracy experiments, and alternatives

to neoliberal forms of politics (e.g., interculturalism, plurinationalism, rights of nature).

Both regions have complex landscapes of racial, ethnic and religious identities which

impact contemporary political struggles and play an important part in these new political forms I

am tracing here. The Andean axis deals with indigenous or “Indian” racialized identities on one

hand, and white, mestizo or creole identities on the other. The Himalayan axis deals with

indigenous and Dalit ethnic and caste identities on one hand, and Hindu, upper caste identities on

the other. Formal religious dynamics in the Himalayas include Tibetan Buddhism and Hinduism

in Nepal, and Catholicism and Evangelicalism in the Andes. Indigenous beliefs (e.g., shamanic,

animist, Bön, etc) and religious syncretism in both regions add important dynamics to social

movements and resistance to elite political agendas, and have played important roles in helping

to articulate new forms of politics, which I frame through the language of cosmopolitics.

By looking at these two regions, which are not commonly considered together in policy

or academic studies, I hope to tease out productive commonalities and divergences which may

shed light on the impact and significance of environmental practices and discourses emerging

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from these two regions. I argue this approach can help us think about how these two regions are

situated in larger matrices of liberal capitalist power dynamics and global environmental politics.

In developing this theory of the Earthbound, I suggest we must pay particular attention to

how land, law and people are entangled. Part of my discussion on this point draws from the

German legal theorist Carl Schmitt and his concept of nomos, which deals with the politics of

controlling, mapping and imposing new spatial logics and forms of territoriality. As he argues,

every “new age and every new epoch in the coexistence of people, empires, and countries, or

rulers and power formations of every sort, is founded on new spatial divisions, new enclosures,

and new spatial orders of the earth.” I argue these entanglements, when thought through the 2

concept of nomos, help us clarify the implications of geopolitical debates in the Anthropocene,

which is the idea that we are now living in a humandriven geologic epoch of Earth history.

Following Schmitt and his suggestion that every new epoch produces a new spatial order

of the Earth, I argue the Anthropocene represents this new nomos, or spatial and geopolitical

logic of the Earth, and I propose we consider the Earthbound people as one of the possible new

political orders emerging from this process of geopolitical reorganization. The idea of nomos has

the seed of a new political world within it, and can act as a spark to create an entirely new

political order, an idea that political theorists have referred to as “constituent power,” or the

originating power that a people possess and which can be used to found a new political order.

Italian theorist Antonio Negri, who has written extensively on this topic, argues that “constituent

power is not only allpowerful; is is also expansive: its unlimited quality is not only temporal,

2 Schmitt, Carl. Nomos of the Earth in the International Law of Jus Publicum Europaeum. New York: Telos. 2003. pg. 78.

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but also spatial.” This idea helps us link new forms of Anthropocene environmentalism with 3

discussions about new models of sovereignty, territoriality and space which are partly linked to

climate change issues, but which also reflect new movements for radical governance and popular

participation, as seen in the constituent assemblies of Ecuador, Bolivia and Nepal. By linking the

theory of nomos with debates about radical democracy and constituent power as they are playing

out in the Andes and Himalayas, and then reading these new social movements and their politics

through the lens of environmentalism, I believe we can develop a robust picture of what a future

Earthbound people might look like, and what kind of politics they would embody.

A Theory of the Earthbound

In discussing the idea of Earthbound people, Latour suggests we think about several

questions which can help us define this new political collective that is coming into being. We

must (a) “specify what sort of people they are,” (b) declare “what is the entity or divinity that

they hold as their supreme guarantee,” and (c) “identify the principles by which they distribute

agencies throughout their cosmos.” By showing how these answers are articulated in various 4

social movements, we can move one step closer to outlining an Earthbound cosmopolitics.

Drawing on the material in Latour’s lectures, as well as my own research, I propose the

Earthbound have several points that bring them together and help “specify” what sort of people

they are. To this end, I suggest the following points of commonality:

a) Political and cultural identity is tied to respecting and protecting the Earth

b) Articulate an alternative cosmopolitics or cosmovisión

3 Negri, Antonio. Insurgencies: Constituent Power and the Modern State. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. 2009. pg. 3. 4 Latour, Bruno. “Facing Gaia: Six Lectures on the Political Theology of Nature.” 2013. pg. 83.

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c) Reject neoliberal forms of economics and politics

d) Believe in otherthanhuman agency and their ability to impact the world

e) Committed to relational, communal or radical democratic politics

The Earthbound people are concerned about the future of all life on Earth, not just humans. This

view reflects an ecocentric, rather than anthropocentric, politics, and is part of the emergence of

what Latour has in mind when he describes the earthbound as “postnatural”. It also speaks to an

expanded understanding of political agency, where old definitions of political actors no longer

have the same validity. New subjects, such as CO2, have emerged as active political forces. The

Earthbound also reflect the rise of a new environmental consciousness, or what we might think

of as a fourth wave environmentalism.

Religious scholars Mary Evelyn Tucker and John Grim note seven core values which

combine religious and environmental concerns as part of this new green political awakening. “As

this shift occursand there are signs it is already happeningreligions are calling for reverence

for the Earth and its profound ecological processes, respect for the Earth’s myriad species and an

extension of ethics to include all life forms, reciprocity in relation to both human and nature,

restraint in the use of natural resources combined with support for effective alternative

technologies, a more equitable redistribution of economic opportunities, the acknowledgment of

human responsibility for the continuity of life, and restoration of both human and ecosystems for

the flourishing of life.” These are many of the same concerns outlined by both deep ecologists 5

and various Green Party platforms around the world. This shift is one reason why Latour

suggests the Earthbound are both postnatural, as they represent a politics in formation which

5 Grim, John and Marly Evelyn Tucker. Ecology and Religion. Washington: Island Press. 2014. pg. 8.

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would displace the liberal Cartesian worldview which informed an earlier generations of

environmental politics, philosophy, ethics and laws.

Politics of Place

Earthbound people also have a strong attachment to place, ranging from the local

community up to a larger notion of a bioregion. The Earthbound understand their fate is tied to

the health of the land. These attachments exist for all forms of life, but are often weaker in

humans living in cities due to their geographic distance and alienation from any meaningful

contact with the Earth, a phenomenon Richard Louv refers to as Nature Deficit Disorder. Even 6

in these urban context, there have been efforts to rebuild closer relations with the Earth, such as

various efforts to creating greenspace, establish urban farm and farmers markets, address air

pollution from automobiles, and clean up up waterways polluted from industrial factories. All of

these various efforts reflect a growing desire to reconnect with the Earth in meaningful ways.

One specific form in which we find this Earthbound attachment to land is through sacred

landscapes, where the land is understood to be inhabited by some noumenal power (spiritual,

elemental, affective) which gives it a meaning which transcends physical characteristics. In the

context of Andean indigenous politics, land may also be linked to specific cultural memories. As

Martin Andersen notes, “for the indigenous peoples of Mexico and Central and South America

the ability to govern themselves, to establish and maintain group rights and territorial control of

lands that form part of their cultural inheritance, to empower themselves through education and

6 Louv, Richard. Last Child in the Woods: Saving Our Children from NatureDeficit Disorder. Chapel Hill: Algonquin Books. 2005.

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to protect their languages and cultures, means that as people they can also hope to survive in a

way that allows them to pass their ethnic identity as well as their traditions to their children.” 7

While notions of ancestral land are often culturally and geographically distinct, the basic

idea of honoring the land on which we live is not limited to indigenous communities, and rituals

honoring the Earth are common in ecospiritual and pagan circles today. These pagan and

ecospiritual trends are important aspects of the Earthbound, and it is here that syncretism and

efforts to draw upon indigenous practices and ethics for insights into how to live better as part of

a community of beings, only some of which are human, are most evident. For example, pagan

activist Starhawk notes the importance of such rituals when she suggests that “by maintaining a

personal practice of listening to the earth, we create a new relationship that is healing, not just for

the earth, but for ourselves. For when we are out of communication with the elements and the

energies and processes that sustain our lives, we cannot be healthy and whole.” Jenny Blain and 8

Robert Wallis note a similar overlap of interests between various pagan practices and concerns

for the Earth. “Paganisms today comprise a variety of moreorless allied or associated ‘paths’ or

‘traditions’ which focus, in some way, on engagements with environment and ‘nature’, variously

theorised or theologised, through deities, ‘spirits of place’, or a more direct animist engagement

with spirits or ‘wights’ in the landscape.” 9

As I have suggested, an Earthbound cosmopolitics looks to the Earth (some might even

say the universe) for insights about living well amidst a diverse community of beings.

Vietnamese Buddhist philosopher Thích Nhất Hạnh refers to this idea as “interbeing”, and I see

7 Andersen, Martin Edwin. Peoples of the Earth: Ethnonationalism, Democracy, and the Indigenous Challenge in “Latin” America. Lanham: Lexington Books. 2010. pgs. 1011. 8 Starhawk. The Earth Path: Grounding Your Spirit in the Rhythms of Nature. San Francisco: Harper Collins. 2004. pg. 217. 9 Blain, Jenny and Robert Wallis. Sacred Sites: Contested Rites/Rights. Brighton: Sussex Academic Press. 2007. pg. 6.

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this as a major part of this new nomos of the Earth at the dawn of the Anthropocene. Discussing

this ideas of interbeing in Thích Nhất Hạnh’s writings, religious studies professor Ira Chernus

frames this shift in consciousness along the lines of Latour’s arguments about the postnatural.

Just as every person is within me, bound to me in interbeing, so is all of nature. Nature is

our “larger self.” All our environmental problems stem from the illusion that there is a

basic difference between the human self and nature. Once we see through this illusion,

we extend our compassion to every natural species. We respond immediately, in the

present moment, to suffering anywhere in nature. But we understand that suffering

anywhere is our own suffering. So we must also take care of nature to ease our own

suffering. We need the right kind of natural environment to get personal harmony, and we

need personal harmony to have the right kind of natural environment. 10

The idea of interbeing, of entangled existence, has parallels within Andean indigenous practices,

as well as most indigenous communities across the Americas, a point discussed at length by

Fernando SantosGranero in relation to materiality and personhood in Amazonian cosmologies.

As he notes when discussing Amerindian notions of relationality, personhood is best understood

as “a social mode by which every being is a synthesis of the combined efforts of all the beings

who have contributedsocially and bodilyto his or her existence,” and which, importantly for

us, includes humans, animals, plants, spirits and certain ritual objects, all of which are

understood as having the capacity for agency. 11

This notion of interbeing or hybrid relationality takes on specific forms in the Andes

when we move to the level of everyday practices. Many indigenous communities express a

10 Chernus, Ira. American Nonviolence: The History of an Idea. Maryknoll: Orbis Books. 2004. pgs. 2012. 11 SantosGranero, Fernando. The Occult Life of Things: Native Amazonian Theories of Materiality and Personhood. Tucson: University of Arizona Press. 2009. pg. 7.

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contextspecific version of these relational politics through the language of harmonious or just

living. These concepts include the Quechua term sumak kawsay (good living), the Guaraní terms

ñandereko (harmonious life), teko kavi (good life) or tekoha (living well), and Aymara concepts

of suma qamaña and suma jakaña (living well). Waskar Ari notes that suma qamaña in the 12

“Aymara philosophical approach to life translates as “to live well,” in the sense of being good

and just, and is in opposition to marketoriented and consumerist lifestyles. It advocates living in

harmony with Pachamama and emphasizes justice and peace.” Regardless of phrasing, these 13

concepts signify that indigenous philosophies have a positive view on how to live properly, and

these understandings are applicable in daily social interactions all the way up to more abstract

cosmological views about upholding right relationships with the creative powers of the universe.

Anthropologist Melania Calestani provides additional context from her fieldwork in the

Bolivian city of El Alto in the early 2000s, adding that “Suma Jakaña is ‘the good life’ at the

household level; Jakaña meaning placenta. It also means to exist existence, to live well: many

conveyed a spiritual dimension when defining it and also added the importance of having

harmonious relations within the household. On the other hand, Suma Qumaña is ‘the good life’

at the community level and it is the concept GTZ Aymara intellectuals discuss in their work.” 14

This spiritual dimension which Calestani mentions has strong ties to the Andean creation

goddess known as Pachamama, who I will return to when discussing Ecuador. Anthropologists

Rubem Ferreira Thomaz de Almeida and Fabio Mura, in a similar vein as Calestani, emphasize

12 Hindery, Derrick. From Enron to Evo: Pipeline Politics, Global Environmentalism, and Indigenous Rights in Bolivia. Arizona: University of Arizona Press. 2013. pg. 167. As there are local variations for spelling these terms, for consistency I will use the Quechua spelling sumak kawsay or the Aymara spelling suma qamaña. 13 Ari, Waskar. Earth Politics: Religion, Decolonization and Bolivia’s Indigenous Intellectuals. Durham: Duke University Press. 2014. pg. 97. 14 Calestani, Melania. An Anthropological Journey into WellBeing: Insights from Bolivia. New York: Springer. 2013. pg. 7. GTZ refers to the German Technical Cooperation Agency, which supports various social projects in Bolivia.

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how communal territory for the indigenous Guaraní is constructed through both proper

community relations and expanded notions of personhood that transcend human boundaries.

Tekoha is thus the physical place – land, forest, field, waters, animals, plants, remedies,

etc. – where the teko, or “way of being”, the Guarani state of life, is realized. It

encompasses social relations of macrofamilial groups who live in and are related in a

specific physical space. Ideally this space should include the ka’aguy (forest), a values

element of great importance in the lives of these Indians as a source for gathering of

foods, raw material for building houses, production of utensils, firewood, remedies, etc.

The ka’aguy is also an important element in the construction of cosmology, being the

scene for mythological narratives and the dwelling of numerous spirits. 15

These ideas are similar to, but not the same, as the Spanish phrase buen vivir/vivir bien

meaning living well or to live well. “In its most general sense, buen vivir denotes, organizes, and

constructs a system of knowledge and living based on the communion of humans and nature and

on the spatialtemporalharmonious totality of existence. That is, on the necessary interrelation of

beings, knowledges, logics, and rationalities of thought, action, existence, and living. This notion

is part and parcel of the cosmovision, cosmology, or philosophy of the indigenous peoples of

Abya Yala.” One key distinction which Walsh glosses over when discussing buen vivir is the 16

missing cosmopolitical link between ancestral lands, indigenous identity and understandings of

living well, all of which are weak or absent in the Spanish idiom. This absence has been ascribed

to the fact that Spanish is a foreign, colonial language lacking the local specificity which native

dialects still retain, a marker of ongoing tension between issues of language and ethnic identity.

15 de Almeida, Rubem Ferreira Thomaz and Fabio Mura. “Localition and Tekoha.” Povos Indígenas no Brasil. web. 2003. http://pib.socioambiental.org/en/povo/guaranikaiowa/552. 16 Walsh, Catherine. “Development as Buen Vivir: Institutional arrangements and (de)colonial entanglements.” Development. 53:1. 2010. pg. 18.

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Whatever the case, the idea of living well is more comprehensive than the purely

instrumental understandings found in Western development frameworks. These concepts are also

distinct from Western philosophical understandings of the “good life”, such as those discussed

by ancient Greek philosophers like Plato and Aristotle. These indigenous articulations of a

different way to understand the “good life” have informed some of the stronger critiques of

neoliberalism, especially those versions focused solely on celebrating modernity and progress,

and which ignore all of the spiritual and communal aspects implied in concepts such as sumak

kawsay. 17

As Thomas Fatheuer points out, “Buen Vivir is not geared toward ‘having more’ and does

not see accumulation and growth, but rather a state of equilibrium as its goal. Its reference to the

indigenous world view is also central: its starting point is not progress or growth as a linear

model of thinking, but the attainment and reproduction of the equilibrium state of Sumak

Kausay.” Promoting and taking seriously a postnatural and relational ontology of personhood 18

is one key way this new cosmopolitics of the Earthbound, who seek to live well with the Earth, is

attempting to put a new, old way of being back into practice on a much wider global scale. One

prominent example is the push for the Earth Charter to be formally adopted by the UN, a move

that has often been done in tandem with organizing efforts around calls for the rights of nature.

These relational ontologies, which have always existed in indigenous, animist and

earthcentered spiritual traditions, are now beginning to appear in global environmental

movements calling for the rights and protection of diverse forms of life, not simply human rights.

17 Wikipedia contributors. "Abya Yala." Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. 18 Fatheuer, Thomas. Buen Vivir: A brief introduction to Latin America’s new concepts for the good life and the rights of nature. HeinrichBöllStiftung Series on Ecology, 17. Berlin:HeinrichBöllStiftung. 2011. pg. 16.

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This is one of the key defining aspects of a new Earthbound cosmopolitics, and this also helps

explain why so many environmental groups have begun looking to indigenous struggles and

movements for inspiration and deeper insights. In this regard, Grimaldo Rengifo Vásquez notes

that from “the Andean point of view, community is understood as ayllu, a collective of human

beings that also includes the world beyond humans, that is, nature and deities. Given this, human

decisions are not only human, but also they are based on a consensus achieved with the world

that is beyond human.” These expanded notions of community go hand in hand with relational 19

politics and opposition to the individualistic tendencies of neoliberalism I have been exploring.

Resistance to Neoliberalism

Another crucial aspect of the Earthbound is the rejection of the selfinterested, utility

maximizing individual in an unconstrained and free market which forms the heart of liberal

political philosophy. Instead of the free market individual, the Earthbound are focused on

building (or rebuilding) networks of cooperative associations and communal structures. Here it is

important to note that the 500+ years of indigenous communal destruction at the hands of

colonial powers has earlier parallels in the imperial countries themselves, and colonialism is just

the latest chapter in a much older conflict between individualist and collectivist forms of political

organization which ultimately gave rise to the philosophies of both capitalism and imperialism.

Enclosure movements in Europe led by elites began divided the commons in the 1500s, and had

a similar purposeto dismantle communal property rights and turn people into isolated and

19 Vásquez, Grimaldo Rengifo. “Education from Inside Deep America”. New World of Indigenous Resistance: Noam Chomsky and Voices from North, South, and Central America. San Francisco: City Lights Books. 2010. pg. 277.

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landless workers vulnerable to colonial or industrial forms of exploitation. Although the

processes were different, the underlying logic was the same, to grease the wheels of capitalism.

It should therefore come as no surprise that Earthbound people have opposed neoliberal

projects seeking to privatize the world and undermine various fragments of communal politics.

Here I follow Geographer David Harvey in his definition of neoliberalism as “a theory of

political economic practices proposing that human wellbeing can best be advanced by the

maximization of entrepreneurial freedoms within an institutional framework characterized by

private property rights, individual liberty, unencumbered markets, and free trade. The role of the

state is to create and preserve an institutional framework appropriate to such practices.” 20

By the 1960s, shortly before neoliberalism emerged in its current form, a variety of social

movements were attempting to develop cooperative or communal social relations as a counter to

these reductive economic philosophies. Following the emergence of the “Washington consensus”

and neoliberalism in the late 1980s, many largescale social mobilizations emerged to challenge

these ideas. A few examples include the nationwide indigenous uprising in Ecuador in 1990, 21

the 1992 lowland Amazonian march from Pastaza to Quito in Ecuador, the 1995 Zapatista

uprising against NAFTA in Chiapas, Mexico, the 1999 protests in Seattle, USA which shut down

a meeting of the World Trade Organization (WTO), the 2001 protests against the FTAA in

Quebec, Canada, and recently, the 2011 Occupy Wall Street and subsequent “Occupy”

movements in New York City and around the world. I argue these can all be seen as part of a

20 Harvey, David. "Neoliberalism as creative destruction." The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science 610.1. 2007. pg. 21. 21 Williamson, John. "Short History of the Washington Consensus, A." Law & Bus. Rev. Am. 15. 2009. pg. 7.

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wider attempt by social movements, both indigenous and leftist, to oppose the further expansion

of neoliberalism around the globe.

Most of the large Andean political mobilizations in recent years have been directly

related to these neoliberal privatization efforts, which have harmed local community wellbeing

and, in many cases, torn apart the social fabric of local communities and even the nation. For

example, Bolivian protests that began in September of 2003 in the city of El Alto against a new

property tax (referred to as “Maya, Paya, Kimsa” or “one, two, three” in Aymara) quickly spread

to La Paz and other cities and then merged with protests against the de Lozada government’s

privatization schemes, especially plans to export natural gas to the US via Chile. In October of 22

2003, as the protests spread across the country and gained more popular support, the rightwing

government of Sánchez de Lozada sent in the military, attacking and killing more than eighty

people and wounding over five hundred, all in an effort to enforce a neoliberal regime. 23

Melania Calestani was conducting her fieldwork in El Alto during these attacks and she

argues the “neoliberal model and its various manifestations through different policies was the

main reason behind these mobilizations … The view that ‘Nos están matando como a corderos

They are slaughtering us like lambs’ created a sense of unity, solidarity and identity not only

among the victims, but also among Bolivians (intellectuals, the middle class) who did not

approve of this kind of repression … It was a collective disengagement, especially in the

department of La Paz: citizens belonging to different social classes, religious groups

(Evangelicals and Catholics fought together in the protests), age groups, professional categories

22 Calestani, Melania. An Anthropological Journey into WellBeing: Insights from Bolivia. New York: Springer. 2013. pg. 48. 23 Postero, Nancy. “Bolivia’s Challenge to “Colonial Neoliberalism”.” Neoliberalism, Interrupted: Social Change and Contested Governance in Contemporary Latin America. Mark Goodale and Nancy Postero, Eds. Stanford: Stanford University Press. 2013. pg. 30.

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and ethnic backgrounds felt united.” Nancy Postero notes in this regard that the “linkage 24

between free trade and democracy promotion resulted in policies such as decentralization (the

devolution of state power to cities and regions), on the one hand, and the empowerment of civil

society, on the other.” So in a paradoxical way, neoliberalism has been both the source of, and 25

the agent behind, social mobilizations to oppose its control of the state. Suzana Sawyer makes a

similar argument based on her fieldwork in Ecuador, and points out that “the processes of

exploitation in thirdworld margins are more fragile and openended than many would care to

think. This is not to proclaim the imminent breakdown of global capitalism, but rather to point to

how subaltern oppositional movements proliferate precisely through the same transnational

processes that enable hyperexploitation under globalization.” 26

In a related vein, José Antonio Lucero argues the various wars across Andean countries

in the 2000s helped elect a new wave of populist leaders in places like Ecuador and Bolivia. As

he notes, “both the ‘Washington consensus’ economic policies and Bolivia’s party system were

unable to weather the ‘wars’ over gas, taxes, and water. Morales and the MAS party were able to

create a broad antiimperialist message … Morales has articulated a broad base of support and

(seemingly) put an end to Bolivia’s tenyear neoliberal experience.” Similar examples can be 27

seen in the protests organized by indigenous and leftist confederations such as CONAIE,

24 Calestani, Melania. An Anthropological Journey into WellBeing: Insights from Bolivia. New York: Springer. 2013. pgs. 5051. 25 Postero, Nancy. “Bolivia’s Challenge to “Colonial Neoliberalism”.” Neoliberalism, Interrupted: Social Change and Contested Governance in Contemporary Latin America. Mark Goodale and Nancy Postero, Eds. Stanford: Stanford University Press. 2013. pg. 31. 26 Sawyer, Suzana. Crude Chronicles: Indigenous Politics, Multinational Oil, and Neoliberalism in Ecuador. Durham: Duke University Press. 2004. pg. 16. 27 Lucero, José Antonio. “Barricades and Articulations: Comparing Ecuadorian and Bolivian Indigenous Politics.” Highland Indians and the Modern State in Ecuador. A. Kim Clark and Marc Becker, Eds. Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press. 2007. pg. 229.

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CONFENIAE and Pachakutik in Ecuador against what nowpresident Rafael Correa referred to

before his election as Ecuador’s “long neoliberal night”. 28

In the Bolivian context, Calestani argues the 2003 gas wars “united different groups with

multiple interests (miners, farmers, bus and lorry drivers, workers, teachers, sellers, students),

affected in different ways, but in the majority of the cases concerned with the return of property

rights regarding natural resources, in particular gas and oil, to Bolivian people.” As I will 29

discuss in more detail, this rhetoric of natureas both Pachamama and a national patrimony to be

exploitedpresents a clear tension between the environmental ideals and indigenous land

struggles one one hand, as encapsulated by sumak kawsay and suma qamaña, and on the other

what Alberto Acosta, following Eduardo Gudynas, refers to as the curse of plenty which

continues to fuel “neoextractivism” as the dominant logic even under leftist governments. 30

28 Becker, Mark. ¡Pachakutik! Indigenous Movements and Electoral Politics in Ecuador. New York: Rowman and Littlefield. 2012. pg. xi. 29 Calestani, Melania. An Anthropological Journey into WellBeing: Insights from Bolivia. New York: Springer. 2013. pgs. 49. 30 Acosta, Alberto. "Extractivism and neoextractivism: two sides of the same curse." Beyond Development. 2013. pg. 61.

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Extractivism has been a constant in the economic, social and political life of many

countries in the global South. Thus, with differing degrees of intensity, every country in

Latin America is affected by these practices. Dependency on the metropolitan centres via

the extraction and export of raw materials has remained practically unaltered to this day.

Some countries have managed to change a few relevant aspects of traditional extractivism

by bringing about increased state intervention in these activities, but that is all. Therefore,

beyond a few differences of greater or lesser importance, the extractivist mode of

accumulation seems to be at the heart of the production policies of both neoliberal and

progressive governments. 31

Despite lots of talk about the rights of nature and Pachamama in both Ecuador and Bolivia, this

progressive neoextractivism remains the dominant model, and because of this even leftists

governments like Evo Morales and Rafael Correa continue to undermine and ignore indigenous

communities when their interests conflict with resource extraction plans supported by the state.

This creates important challenges for thinking about our Earthbound cosmopolitics and the

urgent need to find a way beyond the limits of neoliberalism, since it is clear that even

progressive socialist governments are just as destructive to the planet as neoliberalism. For a new

Earthbound nomos to come into being, the link between neoliberalism and the global economic

reliance on destruction of nature to produce energy and raw materials for production must by

permanently and irrevocably severed once and for all.

31 Acosta, Alberto. "Extractivism and neoextractivism: two sides of the same curse." Beyond Development. 2013. pg. 63.

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Relational Politics and Radical Governance

So far I have been looking at how alternative cosmopolitics emerging from leftist and

indigenous social movements have expressed a different set of ideas about land, territory and

well being which are often critical of dominant neoliberalism politics, and suggest a different

way to organize individual, communal and national politics. I want to suggest two final trends

that I think are important to help us think about the Earthbound people, and these have to do with

questions of governance and law.

The new constitutions of Ecuador (2008) and Bolivia (2009, 2011), and the process of

Constituent Assemblies and popular mobilizations in support of the ideas of interculturidad and

plurinacionalidad, are important elements of these emerging new governance frameworks which

have emerged from more horizontal forms of politics, or what Marina Sitrin, looking at the early

2000s mobilizations in Argentina, called the politics of horizontalidad. “It is a positive word that

implies the use of direct democracy and the striving for consensus, processes in which everyone

is heard and new relationships are created. Horizontalidad is a new way of relating, based in

affective politics, and against all of the implications of ‘isms.’” These new forms of being and 32

doing not only lead to openings for new political innovations, but in their very form open up

spaces for political subjects to emerge which have largely been excluded up to this point.

Discussing this opening in the context of the 1992 march from Pastaza to Quito in Ecuador,

Suzana Sawyer argues that “Amazonian Indians had succeeded in interrupting the

32 Sitrin, Marina. Ed. Horizontalism: Voices of Popular Power in Argentina. Oakland: AK Press. 2006. pg. vi.

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sixteenthcentury epic of conquest and the twentiethcentury myth of national exclusion, and

were carving out a place in which they could be recognized as political subjects.” 33

Although less successful, the examples of the Arab Spring in Tunisia and Egypt, and the

Occupy movement that emerged from New York City, all attempted to put into practice new and

radically democratic forms of political participation by the public. For Occupy, this was reflected

in the daily General Assembly (GA) meetings which were the heart of decision making for the

collective of people linked to the occupation of Zuccotti Park. As activist historian Todd Gitlin

noted about Occupy, a “kind of anarchism of direct participation has become the reigning spirit

of leftwing protest movements in American in the last half century … In its recent incarnation,

anarchism is not so much a theory of the absence of government but a mood and a theory and

practice of selforganization, or direct democracy, as government … Given the growing

immigration northward from south of the border, it was only fitting that the horizontality style

received a strong ideological boost from Latin America.” During this time, as Sitrin and Gitlin 34

both note, there was a good deal of back and forth influence amongst global social movements.

Embedded in the new Ecuadorian and Bolivian constitutions are radical ideas regarding

nature as a political subject having legal rights, expanded notions of autonomy and rights for

indigenous communities, and new ways of thinking about the nation states that draws upon

diverse ethnic and cultural identities as part of the larger national identity. Some advocates even

see these trends as an expression of a new cosmopolitics emerging from popular and indigenous

33 Sawyer, Suzana. Crude Chronicles: Indigenous Politics, Multinational Oil, and Neoliberalism in Ecuador. Durham: Duke University Press. 2004. pg. 41. 34 Gitlin, Todd. Occupy Nation: The Roots, the Spirit, and the Promise of Occupy Wall Street. New York: itbooks. 2012. pgs. 8081,83.

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movements, inspired by an Andean cosmovision rooted in the Aymara concept of Pacha Kuti, or

a time of war and upheaval that has cosmological and well as revolutionary connotations.

The protests that have taken place in Bolivia in the last 10 years … were led by

indigenous people and movements, and represented an open opposition to neoliberal

policies perceived as the main cause of their impoverishment. For many Aymara, this

indicates the beginning of a new Pacha Kuti. Pacha Kuti or time of war … is defined by

Andean intellectuals and writers as the ‘overturning of the world’, indicating the

beginning of a new age or era with the ending of the previous temporal cycle. Pacha

(time and space) Kuti (alternation/to turn over) was described to me by Ricardo Huanaca

as ‘el espíritu reordenador’ (‘reordering spirit’) … the Aymara community as a whole

starts a new Pacha Kuti every 500 years (in 492, 992, 1492, 1992). Therefore, the year

1992 marks the beginning of a new temporal phase for the Aymara people, a new cycle in

opposition to the previous 500 years characterised by the Spanish colonisation and the

birth of the Bolivian Republic. 35

This concept of a pachakutik cycle was especially important in Ecuador, and it marked the start

of a new wave of social mobilizations still going on today. As Mark Becker notes, scholars have

“interpreted contemporary Indigenous movements emerging out of this pachakutik as “new” in

that they were primarily concerned with legal reforms, struggles over territory and resource use,

and interactions with nonIndigenous organizations and social movements.” 36

The was clearly seen in the birth of Movimiento Unidad Plurinacional Pachakutik

(Pachakutik Movement for Plurinational Unity) or Pachakutik, which became an indigenous

political party in 1995, just three years into this 500year Aymara cosmopolitical cycle. As Mark

35 Calestani, Melania. An Anthropological Journey into WellBeing: Insights from Bolivia. New York: Springer. 2013. pgs. 5758. 36 Becker, Mark. Indians and Leftists in the Making of Ecuador’s Modern Indigenous Movements. Durham: Duke University Press. 2008. pg. 167.

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Becker argues, “Pachakutik represented the emergence of a third option in forming a new

political movement in which Indigenous peoples and other sectors of Ecuador’s popular

movements organized together as equals in a joint project to achieve a common goal of a new

and better world. It opposed the government’s neoliberal economic policies that privatized public

resources and functions, and favored a more inclusive and participatory political movement.” 37

Sawyer also noted that these calls for a plurinational state, and for recognition of communal land

titles, were at the heart of the original 1992 march by lowland indigenous communities. “As the

Ecuadorian state increasingly disavowed its role as the protector of its people and as subaltern

groups had fewer effective avenues for addressing the perceived wrongdoings of ever more

pervasive capitalist ventures, indigenous political movements increasingly oriented their struggle

around questioning reigning forms of political representation and creating an alternative national

polity: a plurinational political space.” 38

Important social evolutions have emerged from these new political mobilizations and

experiments at radical democracy, such as the idea of a plurinational state, expanded notions of

living well (sumak kawsay or vivir bien) and living together, an idea expressed through the

notion of interculturalidad or interculturality, which represents a more radical and expansive

notion than multiculturalism, which is still seen as a handmaiden to neoliberalism. Educator Faye

RollingsCarter describes interculturality as “the interaction of people from different cultural

backgrounds using authentic language appropriately in a way that demonstrates knowledge and

understanding of the cultures. It is the ability to experience the culture of another person...to

37 Becker, Mark. ¡Pachakutik! Indigenous Movements and Electoral Politics in Ecuador. New York: Rowman and Littlefield. 2012. pg. xi. 38 Sawyer, Suzana. Crude Chronicles: Indigenous Politics, Multinational Oil, and Neoliberalism in Ecuador. Durham: Duke University Press. 2004. pg. 10.

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evaluate personal feelings, thoughts, perceptions, and reactions in order to understand another

culture and use that experience to reflect on their own life and surroundings.” In the context of 39

Ecuador and Bolivia, this has meant finding ways to open political space and participation for

historically oppressed indigenous communities, as well as afroBolivians and afroEcuadorians.

One of the key ways these new ideas have taken shape in both Ecuador and Bolivia is

through the Constituent Assemblies and the revision of state constitutions. These forums have

been key to securing the recognition of plurinational state identity as well as the rights of nature.

The emergence of plurinational forms of governance, and the rights of nature, suggest new

political spaces opening within existing governance regimes, and call for a movement beyond the

old Westphalian model of the nation state as a homogeneous and unitary body. Thinking back to

Carl Schmitt for a moment, these trends also speak in part to his concept of nomos, one which

interestingly links his notion of a new epoch and my interest in reading the Anthropocene as this

new epoch with Andean cosmopolitical understandings of pacha kutik and cosmic cycles and

upheavals. Could the Anthropocene be seen as a manifestation of pacha kutik, or vise versa?

As indigenous communities have repeatedly stressed, any future political project must

include respect for their own cultural forms of governance and self rule as a basis for future

negotiations. And now in both Bolivia and Ecuador, this future may also include taking seriously

the rights of nature. Sinclair Thomson argues is an old issue within Andean political struggles,

and continues to inform movements today.

39 RollingsCarter, Faye. “What is Interculturality?”. LinguaFolio. 2010. www.learnnc.org/lp/editions/linguafolio/6122.

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In my view, the crucial connection between Aymara community transformation and

insurgency in the eighteenthcentury Andes was the issue of selfrule. The local struggle

for selfrule was at the root of community conflicts with their caciques [community

governors] throughout the latecolonial period. The same political aim was also at the

heart of anti colonial projects among Andean people in the eighteenth century. While in

the end the great insurrection of 17801781 did not culminate in lasting triumph for

Indian peasants, the aspiration for autonomy was kept alive afterwards at the local level.

It has manifested itself subsequently in republican history, in the form of cyclical

struggles to reassert control over the sphere of political representation and mediation with

the state, and it continues to be present in Aymara political culture today. 40

I want to suggest this spirit of demanding selfrule, which Sinclair links to the history of

indigenous resistance movements in the Andes, helped shape radical discourses that overlap with

critical theories related to concepts of radical democracy, even while noting that the

understanding of political subject is quite different between Andean and European theories (e.g.,

Laclau and Mouffe, Hardt and Negri, Rancière). As Thomson notes, “ethnic leaders and

institutions controlling power staked their political claims on ancestral heredity, communal, and

territorial rights rather than on abstract and ostensibly timeless notions of human rights and

individual citizenship. Democracy was present neither as a novel political philosophy nor a

system in which a detached stratum of special intermediaries administered public affairs, but as

lived forms of communal, decentralized, and participatory political practice.” Here we can see 41

echoes similar to what Sitrin discussed as the spirit of horizontalidad in Argentina and Gitlin

40 Thomson, Sinclair. We Alone Will Rule: Native Andean Politics in the Age of Insurgency. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press. 2002. pg. 12. 41 Thomson, Sinclair. We Alone Will Rule: Native Andean Politics in the Age of Insurgency. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press. 2002. pg. 6.

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associated with selfgovernance tendencies in the North American left, inspired in part by the

Zapatistas in Mexico and the Indignados in Spain.

These increasing calls by both indigenous and radical social movements has important

implications in Ecuador as well, particularly from 1979 onward as Ecuador emerged from

decades of rightwing military dictatorships. As Amalia Pallares documents, between 1979 and

1992 major changes in the relationship between the state and indigenous communities took

place, including an official embrace of pluriculturalism by the state and expanded involvement of

indigenous groups and movements in shaping cultural, educational and literacy policies. Of 42

particular relevance for our focus on the Earthbound, this growing involvement of indigenous

and radical social movements quickly ran into obstacles within state policy, as the Ecuadorian

state continued to separate indigenous cultural issues from questions of land, law and economics.

As I have argued, this new Earthbound cosmopolitics requires that we understand land, law and

people as interlinked and coconstitutive. Any attempts to separate these issue into discrete and

disconnected domains fails to engage with expanded notions of relational political ontologies.

Rights of Nature and the Battle for Yasuní

These various political struggles are critical to understanding how ideas about the rights

of nature have emerged alongside calls for plurinational politics in Andean countries, and how

these movements connect with larger global movements calling for the rights of nature or Earth

rights to become part of international environmental protection strategies. As the case of Ecuador

42 Pallares, Amalia. From Peasant Struggles to Indian Resistance: The Ecuadorian Andes in the Late Twentieth Century. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press. 2002.

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will help clarify, there must be a shift in the conceptualization of the political, a shift which first

required the creation of constituent assemblies in order to emerge. As Pallares notes, “a critique

of land dispossession and a belief that respect for indigenous culture was respect for and defense

of land rights and for the economic empowerment of indigenous peoples … In this new

perspective, there was a cultural dimension to all material needs and demands, and cultural issues

and policy could not be separated from the material needs of the population.” This prefigurative 43

and expanded politics was a necessary precondition for ideas like the rights of nature and

plurinationalism to emerge, but whether this is also sufficient for real change remains to be seen.

The link between Earthbound people, land and law become even more clear when we

think about how nature is understood and addressed within the political framework of most

countries. With a small handful of exceptions, which includes Bolivia and Ecuador, nature is still

seen by official state policies as an inanimate object to be bought and sold, dug and cut up,

plowed, mined and polluted, for the material fulfillment of one specieshumans. The gradual

emergence since the 1970s of ecocentric politics, combined with these various indigenous

articulations of alternative land and governance frameworks, represents a fundamental

ontological challenge to existing natural resource regimes, irrespective of their commitment to

capitalism or socialismwhich both share the same extractive view of nature. Recent innovations

in the Ecuadorian constitution concerning land and law are instructive, as they help highlight

both the radical potential of these postnatural political movements as well as the inherent

limitations of our current neoliberal system to accommodate a cosmopolitics of the Earthbound.

43 Pallares, Amalia. From Peasant Struggles to Indian Resistance: The Ecuadorian Andes in the Late Twentieth Century. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press. 2002. pg. 2078.

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To tell the story of the rights of nature and the battle over Yasuní, we need to go back a

bit in time, before the 2008 adoption of the new constitution. Our story starts in 1979, when

approximately 10,000 km2 of Amazonian rainforest in eastern Ecuador was established as the

Yasuní National Park (Parque Nacional Yasuní). Originally set aside due to its unique plant and

animal biodiversity, Yasuní was later named a World Biosphere Reserve by UNESCO’s Man

and the Biosphere (MAB) Programme in 1989. 44

From the 1960s until the early 1990s, USbased Texaco was the major oil producer in

Ecuador, with much of its production in the western and central regions of Ecuador. But

following the rise of neoliberal austerity measures in the early 1980s, the production of oil

increasingly spread to eastern Ecuador where new reserves were being sought to help cover the

high costs of debt servicing which Ecuador was locked into as part of various International

Monetary Fund (IMF) and World Bank (WB) structural adjustment programs (SAPs). This 45

brought in new corporate players, both foreign and domestic, and led to a series of confrontations

between loggers, oil company workers and indigenous communities. The negative impacts of

these early projects led to social mobilizations to gain legal protections for two uncontacted

Huaorani (Waorani) indigenous communities living within the park, the Tagaeri and

Taromenane, who were considered at risk from these expanding oil, gas and logging operations.

As Sawyer notes, oil exploration “tore indigenous communities apart in the northern Oriente

through disease and displacement, contamination and corruption.” In response to indigenous 46

44 Wikipedia contributors. "Yasuni National Park." Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, 13 Mar. 2015. Web. 19 Apr. 2015. 45 Sawyer, Suzana. Crude Chronicles: Indigenous Politics, Multinational Oil, and Neoliberalism in Ecuador. Durham: Duke University Press. 2004. pgs. 1213 46 Sawyer, Suzana. Crude Chronicles: Indigenous Politics, Multinational Oil, and Neoliberalism in Ecuador. Durham: Duke University Press. 2004. pg. 13.

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and environmental protests, in 2006 the government created the Zona Intangible Tagaeri

Taromenane (ZITT) along the southern portion of the park, which attempted to stop new oil

developments and road construction projects inside Yasuní.

The next major step by the government following the creation of the Zona Intangible was

to address the larger issue of oil developments near and within the park. Without addressing this,

it was clear no longterm solution would be possible. The place where this issue finally came to a

head was the IshpingoTambocochaTiputini (ITT) oil block, which encompassed 15% of the

overall Yasuní park. The government estimated there was around 850 million barrels of oil

which could be extracted, making it the second largest untapped reserve in the country. At the

time, this was equivalent to 20% of the country's proven oil reserves, with an estimated market

value of between $6 and $10 billion dollars. The possibility of this block being drilled finally 47

led to the YasuníITT Initiative, which was announced in June of 2007. Speaking at the UN 48

General Assembly’s High Level Dialogue on Climate Change in September 2007, Ecuadorian

president Rafael Correa outlined the argument behind the new YasuníITT Initiative as follows.

In exchange for leaving the oil in the ground, protecting indigenous communities living

within the park, and conserving the rich biodiversity of the Amazon, the international community

would compensate Ecuador for half of the value of foreign oil exchange revenues which they

would lose by not selling the oil, around $4.6 billion over a 12 year period. This international

money would then be placed into the YasuníITT Environmental Fund, which was to be

overseen by the UNDP, and used to support various conservation, development and social

47 Finer, Matt et al. “Ecuador’s Yasuní Biosphere Reserve: A Brief Modern History and Conservation Challenges.” Environmental Research Letters 4, no. 3 (September 1, 2009): 034005. doi:10.1088/17489326/4/3/034005. 48 Finer, Matt et al. “Ecuador’s Yasuní Biosphere Reserve: A Brief Modern History and Conservation Challenges.” Environmental Research Letters 4, no. 3 (September 1, 2009): 034005. doi:10.1088/17489326/4/3/034005.

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welfare programs. In exchange for financing, the global community gained the environmental

benefits of keeping the oil in the ground, preventing an estimated 400 million metric tons of new

CO2. 49

Not only would the environment and indigenous people living in the Yasuní benefit,

Correa told the assembled world leaders, but it would also demonstrate a new model of

economics which was more in line with the ideas of protecting Pachamama, of sumak kawsay

and bien vivir, ideas which were being debated within the Constituent Assembly at that time.

In addition to the technical and economic support, the Ecuadorian proposal seeks to

transform old conceptions of economy and of value. In the market system the only

possible value is the value of exchange, the price. The YasuníITT project is based above

all on the recognition of the values of use and service, on the noneconomic value of

environmental safety and the maintenance of planetary diversity. It aims to introduce a

new economic logic for the 21st century, one in which the production of value is

rewarded, not only the production of commodities. 50

On the surface the proposal had some truly innovative features. One was the idea that wealthy

developed nations would pay nations in the global south not to develop their fossil fuel reserves.

This would not only support sustainable development projects in countries like Ecuador, but it

would also be an improvement over carbon trading and similar emission regimes, which at the

end of the day did not actually reduce overall pollution, but simply moved the accounting for

where it came from to whoever could afford to buy or sell pollution credits. The YasuníITT

Initiative would actually keep the oil the ground, rather than simply selling it as a carbon quota.

49 CBD. “The YasuniITT Initiative in Ecuador.” Resource Mobilization Information Digest. No. 208. 2013. 50 Correa, Rafael. “Presidential Remarks to the High Level Dialogue on Climate Change of the 62 Period of Sessions of the General Assembly of the United Nations.” Government of Ecuador. Sept 24, 2007.

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Another was that developing nations would actually recognize their unequal benefits

from, and contributions to, both fossil fuel use and carbon production. In essence, and this was a

point that Correa highlighted in his speech to the UN, it would be an act of environmental justice

on the part of the biggest polluters. He began by pointing out that “the present model of growth,

based on the intensive use of fossil fuel and overconsumption, is untenable. Its benefits reach

the “privileged” minority of modern society, while enormously harming us all.” He then pivoted

from responsibility on the part of developing nations, to the actions that Ecuador was willing to

take to address climate change. “We are ready to make this tremendous sacrifice, but we need the

international community to share the responsibility by providing a minimum compensation in

recognition of the environmental benefits we will generate for the entire planet.” 51

In these and other ways, some suggested the YasuníITT Initiative marked the start of a

new regime of climate change politics, one where developing nations took a more active role in

making the transition away from fossil fuels and broke with what Alberto Acosta described

earlier as the policies of neoextractivism underlying economic development in much of Latin

America. But the proof that the YasuníITT Initiative would actually work as planned was, as the

saying goes, in the pudding, and it was not long before the Yasuní pudding began to fall apart.

Before getting to that story, we need to return to our discussion of the rights of nature and

the Constituent Assembly in Ecuador, which in 2007 was in the process of discussing these new

ideas about land, law and people which Correa and others were pointing to as bold new ideas.

While the details of the back and forth between social movements, indigenous confederations

and established political parties is too complicated to address in this limited space, the first

51 Correa, Rafael. “Presidential Remarks to the High Level Dialogue on Climate Change of the 62 Period of Sessions of the General Assembly of the United Nations.” Government of Ecuador. Sept 24, 2007.

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important moment for our interests occurred on April 15, 2007, when the people of Ecuador

went to the polls to vote a referendum to constitute and empower the Constituent Assembly, a

move that was opposed by both economic elites and entrenched political parties. The final result

of the referendum was a resounding victory for Correa and the social movements calling for the

Constituent Assembly. As Mark Becker notes, the “referendum’s victory represented a rejection

of the neoliberal economic model that concentrated wealth and power in the hands of a few

privileged people.” The successful referendum was followed a few months later with elections 52

for the Assembly, a process in which Correa and his AP (Alianza País) party retained a majority.

All of this created the context in which both leftist social movements and indigenous

parties pushed for recognition of the rights of nature, for respecting Pachamama, and for

incorporating indigenous territorial rights, intercultural politics, plurinationalism, and a new

vision of what a prosperous and healthy Ecuador looked like, one in which concepts like sumak

kawsay and vivir bien might be more than quaint political expressions of a better way of living.

“The 2008 Constituent Assembly created a critical juncture of Indigenous movements as it

opened up a historic opportunity to decolonize the country’s political structure.” At the head of 53

the new Constituent Assembly was Alberto Acosta, former energy minister for Rafael Correa

and an outspoken critical of the politics of neoextractivism. Acosta declared publicly that he was

committed to the ideas of sumak kawsay and plurinationalism, and called for more inclusive

participation on the part of Indigenous and marginalized groups within Ecuador. As Acosta

continually reminded his critics, building a “democratic society required creating not only new

52 Becker, Mark. ¡Pachakutik! Indigenous Movements and Electoral Politics in Ecuador. New York: Rowman and Littlefield. 2012. pg. 130. 53 Becker, Mark. ¡Pachakutik! Indigenous Movements and Electoral Politics in Ecuador. New York: Rowman and Littlefield. 2012. pg. 134.

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institutions but also new values. It would take time to build a solid foundation for an inclusive,

equitable, and just society that respected life,” including the life of other than humans. 54

As indigenous leader and AP delegate Mónica Chuji argued in relation to indigenous

calls for plurinationalism, the idea must be seen as “a new form of social contract that respects

and harmonizes the rights of Indigenous peoples and nationalities with the juridical structure and

political force to recognize their status as political subjects with clear rights”. Similarly, the 55

indigenous federation Ecuarunari argued that plurinationalism was “a democratic rupture that

permits the organization and social control over public goods and the state, and in this way

surpasses the neocolonial system that marginalizes and subjects people.” 56

It is precisely this idea of a democratic rupture, an apertura democrática, which allowed

for plurinational politics to emerge in the constitution, as well as the rights of nature, the

discourse of Pachamama and calls for sumak kawsay and vivir bien. Without such a democratic

rupture, these new ideas may never have made their way into the process. I see this moment as

an example where we the concept of Earthbound people begins to move from a theoretical idea

into an embodied political moment. In fact, we might even imagine the very process of the

Constituent Assembly as itself a part of these new Earthbound politics we have been looking for.

By asserting a different understanding of the political, a new space was brought into being, one

where previously excluded political subjectsindigenous communities and otherthanhuman

beings, found an opening for their political voices to emerge, albeit still in very limited ways.

54 Becker, Mark. ¡Pachakutik! Indigenous Movements and Electoral Politics in Ecuador. New York: Rowman and Littlefield. 2012. pg. 138. 55 Chuji, Mónica. “El estado plurinacional.” Yachaykuna. 8. 2008. pg. 14. 56 Ecuarunari. “Nuestra propuesta a la Asamblea Constituyente.” 2007. pg. 4.

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The significance of this opening became more clear in 2008, when the final draft of the

new Ecuadorian Constitution was approved. The new constitution “incorporated the concept of

sumak kawsay, that is, of living well, not just better; defended indigenous languages; and, in a

highly symbolic gesture, embraced plurinationalism in an effort to incorporate Indigenous

cosmologies into the governing of the country.” The opening Preamble to the Constitution 57

captures this new cosmpolitics by referencing “our ageold roots, wrought by women and men

from various peoples,” when it celebrates “nature, the Pacha Mama (Mother Earth), of which we

are a part and which is vital to our existence,” and when it calls for a “new form of public

coexistence, in diversity and in harmony with nature, to achieve the good way of living, the

sumak kawsay.” All of these speak directly to the idea of a new Earthbound cosmopolitics. 58

The new constitution also guaranteed the rights of nature, making Ecuador the first

country in the world to take this bold move. President Correa made sure to point to this fact

whenever he promoted support for this YasuníITT Initiative, evidence, he would claim, of even

more bold environmental thinking taking place in Ecuador. The heart of the new rights of nature

legislation is enshrined in Chapter 7, Articles 7174.

Nature, or Pacha Mama, where life is reproduced and occurs, has the right to integral

respect for its existence and for the maintenance and regeneration of its life cycles,

structure, functions and evolutionary processes… All persons, communities, peoples and

nations can call upon public authorities to enforce the rights of nature… The State shall

give incentives to natural persons and legal entities and to communities to protect nature

and to promote respect for all the elements comprising an ecosystem. 59

57 Becker, Mark. ¡Pachakutik! Indigenous Movements and Electoral Politics in Ecuador. New York: Rowman and Littlefield. 2012. pg. 151. 58 Plurinational State of Ecuador. “Article 71, Constitution of Ecuador.” 2008 . pg. 8. 59 Plurinational State of Ecuador. “Article 71, Constitution of Ecuador.” 2008 . pg. 30.

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With the adoption of this new Constitution in 2008, many Ecuadorians, as well as many outside

observers, suggested a new political moment was beginning to emerge, one that reflected some

of what I have been discussing in terms of the postnatural politics of the Earthbound, but also

one which took indigenous cosmopolitics and concepts like sumak kawsay and plurinationalism

seriously. How successful these new innovations will proved to be remains to be seen, and one

that will take more time and application to become clear. With that in mind, let us return to the

YasuníITT Initiative and the post2008 moment in Ecaudor.

Around the same time that the Correa government began promoting the YasuníITT

Initiative, it also began work on a “Plan B” option should international lenders fail to support the

new initiative. “We would never want to use it, but if necessary, we will,” said President Correa.

“We’re not going to play around with the wellbeing of the Ecuadorian people.” So already by 60

2008 there began to be discussions about the problems of the YasuníITT Initiative as observers

began to question the actual commitments of the Correa governemtn, as opposed to their claimed

position. As Imme Scholz notes in discussing the eventual failure of the initiative, it was an open

question shortly after the Initiative was announced whether it ever had real support from Correa.

60 “Ecuador Says it has “Plan B” if Yasuni Initiative Fails.” Latin American Herald Tribune. http://www.laht.com/article.asp?ArticleId=353316&CategoryId=13280.

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First, parallel to announcing the YasuníITT Initiative in 2007, Ecuador’s President

Rafael Correa openly explored a Plan B by entering into negotiations with oil firms

interested in exploring the ITT reserves and adjoining blocks. Under the pressure of the

credit crunch following the financial market crisis in 2011, Correa also concluded a loan

agreement of USD 7 billion with the Chinese development bank, to be partially repaid in

the form of crude oil exports. This did not foster trust in Ecuador’s will to engage in this

ambitious and innovative initiative. 61

By 2010, it was becoming clear that the proposed plan would not bring the windfall profits that

Correa and others had hoped for. The largest funder, Germany, pulled out their support in 2010,

citing concerns about official Ecuadorian commitments as well as poor financing from other

nations. By 2013, less than $340 million had been pledged by international donors, and this

amount came mostly from Europe (esp. Germany), while the actual investment dollars Ecuador

had received barely totalled $13 million, far below the requested $4.6 billion. On August 15, 62

2013, Correa announced the formal end to the project, stating “I have signed the executive

decree for the liquidation of the YasuníITT trust fund and through it, end the initiative.” 63

Discussing the importance of this failure, Pamela Martin notes that while “the press and

policy leaders have railed against the president for not completing this pioneering plan, a subtle

and more important point has escaped us: the very foundations of this plan, sumak kawsay / buen

vivir (the good life), and Ecuador’s constitutional rights of nature, are threatened. The world may

have missed an opportunity to move toward a more sustainable outlook for its future.” This 64

61 Scholz, Imme. “Towards a Revolutionary Path: Ecuador's YasuníITT Initiative”. International Policy Development. 5:2. 2014. 62 Martin, Pamela. "Ecuador's YasuniITT Initiative: Why did it fail?" International Policy Development. 5:2. 2014. 63 Valencia, Alexandra. "Ecuador to open Amazon's Yasuni basin to oil drilling." Reuters. Aug 16, 2013. 64 Martin, Pamela. "Ecuador's YasuniITT Initiative: Why did it fail?" International Policy Development. 5:2. 2014.

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brings us back to the challenge we have been discussing, which is how to take these radically

new ideas of land, law and people that the Earthbound people embody and put them into practice

through a system which is fundamentally opposed to, or unable to reconcile, some of the more

transgressive implications of these new politics.

It would appear the easiest of these new ideas to reconcile with contemporary forms of

neoliberalism is the concept of plurinationalism, perhaps followed closely by the notion of

interculturality. While both concepts have the ability to question hegemonic forms of power and

politics, they can also be at least partly incorporated into existing governance regimes, and to this

extent, they are more amenable to cooperation with existing liberal capitalist forms of politics

and economics. By contrast, the more radical concepts of sumak kawsay and the rights of nature

pose a fundamental challenge to the basic logics of political liberalism and capitalist economics.

By calling into question the deanimating process of commodification, and linking this with a

critique of development as more commodities, these concepts pose a more systemic challenge to

contemporary politics, and therefore are more difficult to embrace within the current paradigm.

It is for this reason, I believe, that the YasuníITT Initiative ultimately failed. There was

broad global agreement, not to mention strong internal support, to protect Yasuní from new oil

exploration. There are strong scientific reasons to protect the Amazon for reasons of biodiversity.

There are strong legal and humanitarian reasons to protect vulnerable indigenous communities

living within the park. On all these accounts, common sense dictates that not exploiting the oil

under the ITT block of Yasuní made sense. But none of these logics was able to undermine the

progressive neoextractivism which Alberto Acosto criticized, and which remains the dominant

logic oven within socalled progressive Socialist states like Ecuador, Bolivia and Venezuela.

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These nations are just as mired in the logic of resource extraction and the objectification of

nature as any other country, and consequently the idealism of the rights of nature and sumak

kawsay are not enough on their own to undo this political power of neoliberalism.

The challenges, then, both for future environmental and indigenous rights movements, as

well as leftists political movements more generally, is developing a way to overcome the current

stranglehold on our imaginations that neoliberalism, combined with a politics of neoextractivism,

imposes on even the most innovative and bold efforts at political reform. The story of Ecuador’s

attempt to refound the nation and its core ideals, as manifest through the Constituent Assembly

and the new Constitution, give us a glimpse of what this new politics of the Earthbound might

look like in some form. As the example of the failed YasuníITT Initiative helps make clear,

creating legal protections for the rights of nature, and proudly claiming the value of indigenous

cosmopolitics and state support for concepts like sumak kawasay are not enough on their own.

Without a deeper shift in the consciousness of the average person, claiming support for

Pachamama and the rights of nature are largely symbolic gestures, important perhaps for their

rhetorical point, but ultimately unable to effect the kind of changes they seek to manifest.

It is clear that the Earthbound people, in whatever form they might exist at present, have

a long, uphill battle ahead of them. At the same time, the political experiments playing out in

countries like Ecuador and Bolivia help us look for the moments of transgression where a crack

of light seems to shine through, suggesting that with more time and struggle, the gaps in the

armor of neoliberalism may weaken further. The shift since the 1980s towards a postnatural

politics is one example where we can say with a high level of confidence that real changes are

beginning to take place. The very possibility of the rights of nature in Ecuador and Bolivia are

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one sign of that, even if they currently remain largely as theoretical concepts. Likewise, the rise

and expansion of indigenous political movements, which is taking place not only in the Andes,

but in other parts of the world as well, also point to this possible new opening of political space

and imagination where the chant “another world is possible” becomes more than just a dream.

Conclusion

As I have tried to outline here, the nexus for understanding the idea of the Earthbound

people is land and law, where we can see a new cosmopolitics trying to come into being. These

trends are built on important social, cultural and political changes which have been taking place

over the last half century. These Earthbound articulations are tied to questions of land and

autonomy, and expressed through the language of of Pachamama and sumak kawsay in the

Andean context, but also beyond this region in Pagan and animist rituals. Attempts to honor the

Earth as sacred, and taking these ideas seriously into political practices, a theory of the

Earthbound helps us to articulate expanded notions of political subjectivity which include

otherthanhuman agency and which operate within a larger cosmopolitical framework.

The example of pachakutik may also help us clarify the political role of cosmopolitics, as

it speaks to a conflict and shift within our understandings of space and time, and thus also of our

political imaginations. In this way, it is much bigger than just a political change, and helps to

illustrate this more comprehensive view of the world that the concept of cosmopolitics or

cosmovisión implies. In a similar way, I see the idea of the Anthropocene in the environmental

discourses, which posits a new geological epoch dominate by human actions (a “new human”

time), as marking a similarly radical break, except in this case the notion is rooted in a mythic

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scientific understanding of a geohistorical past that may now be coming to an end. In this sense,

perhaps pachakutik and the Anthropocene share more in common than might be apparent.

As I have suggested, the cosmopolitics of the Earthbound is connected to these new

political understandings about subjectivity and agency, land and law, and involve critiques of

both neoliberalism and neoextractivism as models of development and politics. An Earthbound

perspective would suggest that they are both expressions of our alienation and disconnection

from the Earth, in both a material and a spiritual sensesigns that we are not living up to the

ideals of sumak kawsay or good living. In order to find this good way of living with the Earth, I

have argued we need a new cosmopolitical vision of this future after both neoliberalism and

neoextractivism. This is precisely what an Earthbound cosmopolitics tries to help us think

through. If history can teach us anything about the task of imagining and struggling for a new

world, it is that we must look to our past to avoid mistakes while imagining a future yet to come.

###

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