Intercultural Democracies: Power and Resource Flows

Claims from hitherto excluded indigenous groups have led to the rewriting of constitutions in Bolivia and Ecuador to recognize intercultural democracy. At the same time, indigenous environmental justice movements have increased their contestation of hydrocarbon extraction and recently mining due to their socio-political and ecological impacts. Analysis of these movements to date has focused on the consequences of conflicts, but less so on their socio-political and ecological drivers. While evidence has demonstrated the role of an increasing social metabolism referring to the manner in which human societies organize their growing exchanges of energy and materials with the environment as a driver of extraction, less attention has been paid to power relations and competing socio-political forces in postcolonial settings. However, these deeply influence the possibilities for a democratic control of the extractive sector, a crucial factor for achieving greater environmental justice and global sustainability. The proposed research aims to unpack the power relations that interact with biophysical (i.e. material and energy) flows of expanding resource extraction in the intercultural democracies of the Andes. Two mining-related conflicts in Cuenca Poop (Bolivia) and Intag (Ecuador), where indigenous organizations claim greater environmental justice specifically through self-determination as part of intercultural democracy will be analyzed, applying mixed methods: quantitative analysis of biophysical flows and qualitative analysis of interviews and data. It will potentially evidence how ecological and metabolic drivers enable/limit different groups democratic participation through multi-scale power relations around resource appropriation. Competing socio-political forces and resource flows that interact with these multi-scale power relations will be specified towards revealing how these power relations enable/affect indigenous groups democratic participation in particular, thereby enabling/limiting intercultural democracies. The political dimension of political ecology will be detailed through proposing a theoretical framework for postcolonial settings around categories of space, difference and power relations, which can also be applied to environmental justice studies. The understanding of intercultural democracies will be deepened by exploring social justice in postcolonial settings and intercultural democracies through analyzing difference (and related democratic pluralism), scale and political power relations. During my research stays at two host institutions, the Department of Geography at the University of Cambridge, and the Institute for Environmental Science and Technology at the Autonomous University of Barcelona, I will acquire interdisciplinary competences in quantitative economic resource flow analysis and in postcolonial and intercultural geographies, and will contribute my knowledge in political science and Latin American studies. These capacities will be brought back to the University of Viennas Institute of Political Science, where I will actively contribute to scientific excellence at the Institute and with the International Political Ecology Research Group.

The Intercultural Democracies: Power and Resource Flows project has examined the power relations underpinning indigenous movements struggles for environmental justice, specifically in Huanuni (Bolivia) and Intag (Ecuador). It has found that multi-scalar power dynamics, crucial in determining resource access, are not only political drivers for environmental justice conflicts - they also limit the exercise of formally recognized intercultural democracies in Bolivia and Ecuador. These results have contributed to understanding how socio-political forces at local, national and global scales inhibit environmental justice at sites of extraction understood as vital for achieving global sustainability. This project has focused on Bolivia and Ecuadors plural economies, which have been promoted by indigenous organizations and Constitutionally recognized since 2008 and 2009 - though only partially implemented since then. Throughout this research, the role of postcolonial difference in thwarting further democratization has been emphasized. The limited implementation of plural economies, which aimed to support intercultural democratization, has been attributed to the power relations playing out between different economic forms. This includes the disembedding of other-than-extractive economies through ecological destruction, as well as interventions into social relations (e.g. dividing indigenous communities and organizations). Considering the dynamics between different economic forms has enabled the conceptualization of economies as plural in postcolonial settings (where diverse economic forms co-exist next to each other). The ways that postcolonial power relations prevent further democratization have been examined primarily at local and national scales. Such relations have been found to be fundamentally grounded in sovereignty arrangements. Indigenous groups` struggles for decolonization have been based, for example, in demands for plural sovereignty rights. However, these have been impeded by introducing a division between political and economic sovereignty in the Constitutions of both countries. Simultaneously, sovereignty over economic decisions (for example, regarding strategic natural resources) has become highly centralised. This opens-up debates about what decolonization means for different actors, affirming that variegated decolonization politics are sustained by diverse actors and interests. Further, it raises questions about how the postcolonial power relations that strengthen deep-seated political exclusions and inhibit further democratization in contexts of resource extraction are sustained globally. Conceptually, a postcolonial and decolonial lens was combined with theories of political ecology and political economy. With its strong focus on postcolonial power relations in settings of ongoing resource extraction, this project has been original - contributing to social science debates, including those that overlap with economic and natural science. The research project has also advanced the field of political ecology by identifying the ways that power relations are informed by postcolonial politics. In addition, it has informed wider public debate about environmental justice and resource extraction.