New Political Spaces in Latin American Natural Resource Governance

Abstract

Theoretical framing: (1) enclave formation in extractive industries (partnering btwn state and private industry thru concessions, spatial separation, detached economic and political structuring) and (2) rationale of local indvs and orgs present before the enclave formation – focus on values and how resources circulated. In Ecuador, the state licenses companies to operate, providing space for enclaves and giving to transnat private corps responsibility for public service creation, infrastructure construction, and control of natural resources (e.g., air space, rivers). Locally, companies depend on communities’ collaboration: (a) those nearest the operations, access their resources/public services which creates area of exclusion in which those outside enclave zone only have access to state’s insufficient services [oil company’s power consolidated by providing services to come groups]; (b) may also contribute to new power configurations through “exclusionary circulation of resources” (157), which along with other effects (e.g., pollution) might contribute to resistance, which might result in local-global alliances (locals-NGOs). “Alliances between indigenous ethnopolitical groups and NGOs create networks that put resources into circulation and give access to political possibilities to those communities that are opposed to oil extraction, creating an alternative flow of wealth” (157), which helps to maintain the inequalities and shores up enclave formation.