'Yes to life, water, and land'. Alternative hidrosocial relations in Colombia

Abstract

The boom of development policies based on mining extractivism in Latin America is dramatically transforming human-nature relationships. In countries such as Colombia, these structural reforms opened agricultural territories to large-scale mining and energy investments. The area known as the "Middle Cauca Belt" bordering the Cauca River in the southwestern part of the department of Antioquia became a potential extractive space. In light of this situation, peasants and indigenous communities formed the social process "Cinturón Occidental Ambiental" (COA), in order to propose a different relation with nature in their territories. Departing from a political ecology of place perspective, this research uses the ethnographic method to visibilize hydrosocial relations of the COA that are making possible a geographical alternative to the extractivist model.