"We Are All Indigenous!" Insurgent Universality on the Extractive Frontier. Issue 3 (3rd July 2022)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Wilson, Japhy
• Is Part Of: Capitalism, nature, socialism. Volume 33:Issue 3(2022)
• Page Start: 120
• Page End: 137
• Publication Date: 2022-07-03
• Subjects: Universality -- pluriverse -- extractivism -- uprising -- Ecuador; Economic development -- Environmental aspects -- Periodicals; Environmental policy -- Periodicals; Socialism -- Periodicals; Capitalism -- Periodicals; 304.205
• DOI: 10.1080/10455752.2022.2081926
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 1045-5752

Abstract

ABSTRACT: This paper tells the inside story of a spontaneous uprising in the Ecuadorian Amazon in 2017, in which mestizo, Afro-descendant and Indigenous workers and communities confronted the combined forces of a multinational oil company and a militarized state. The paper documents a rapidly evolving battle that achieved a remarkable victory, and bears witness to the fleeting emergence of an insurgent form of political universality. It suggests that the decolonial dichotomy between top-down universalism and a bottom-up pluriverse should be replaced by an approach that is attentive to manifestations of universality performed by subaltern subjects in their confrontations with extractive capital.