Chair: CLACSO Coordination: Facundo Martín and Gabriela Merlinsky (Gino Germani Research Institute, Argentina) Home: 24 / 06 / 2019 | Registration: 04/02/2019 al 21/06/2019
Teaching team: Facundo Martín, Gabriela Merlinsky, Horacio Alejandro César Machado Aráoz, Mina Lorena Navarro Trujillo and Catalina Toro Pérez
Workload: 12 weeks – 90 hours.
Payment methods If you have a link with a CLACSO Associated Center:
Paying in one payment: USD 95 (includes issuance and shipping costs of the digital certificate).
If you have a link with a Network or Institution Associated with CLACSO:
Paying in one payment: USD 140 (includes issuance and shipping costs of the digital certificate).
If you do NOT have a link with a CLACSO Associated Center:
Paying in one payment BEFORE 14/06/2019: USD 150 (includes issuance and shipping costs of the digital certificate).
Paying in one payment: USD 190 (includes issuance and shipping costs of the digital certificate).
Course presentation:
Political ecology in Latin America has ceased to be a somewhat exotic proposition of a few specialists and has established itself with a legitimate presence in academia, along with notable relevance to the demands of the public sphere. This, evidently, accompanies the growing conflict surrounding environmental issues in the region and the world. It is a field of analysis, critique, and pluralistic discourse that has been constituted through the formation of Latin American academic networks, situated in continuity with regional traditions of critical thought and with the complex problem of identity construction in our societies. This political ecology is indebted to Latin American history and proposes to rewrite the region's history in different dimensions, based on the reconstruction of the relationships between societies, cultures, and nature. From an interdisciplinary theoretical perspective built at the intersection of environmental and political history, critical geography, cultural studies, and environmental thought, it seeks to reckon with the past, expand the present, and design futures beyond the Western-modern model.
At the same time, since its emergence, Latin American Political Ecology has been developing an active relationship of permanent exchange and feedback with the very diverse movements and struggles that are involved in conflicts on different scales and in different circumstances.
Contents:
Political ecology in Latin America: genealogy, horizons, and challenges.
Definitions, approaches and methods in Latin American political ecology.
Marx's ecology and eco-socialist perspectives.
Political ecology of extractive regimes.
Environmental conflicts, territories and collective action.
Environmental issue and urban issue.
Thinking about interdependence for the reproduction of life: Women's struggles against extractivism.
Environmental Justice in the Western Caribbean: Geopolitics, Environmental History and Political Ecology.
Community struggles in defense of life in Latin America.
Latin American Context: Ecological Crisis and Neo-Colonial Order. Alternative Horizons in the Face of Capitalist Dispossession.
Héctor Alimonda, "The coloniality of nature - An approach to Latin American political ecology", in Héctor Alimonda (ed.), Colonized nature - Political Ecology and Mining in Latin America, CLACSO-CICCUS, Buenos Aires, 2011.
Enrique Leff, "Political ecology in Latin America. A field under construction", in Héctor Alimonda (ed.), The Torments of Matter - Contributions to a Latin American political ecology, CLACSO, Buenos Aires, 2006.
Arturo Escobar, "After Nature", in Arturo Escobar, The End of the Savage, UNC/ICAH, Bogotá, 1998.
Gian Carlo Delgado Ramos, "Why is political ecology important?", Nueva Sociedad, 244, 2013.
Facundo Martín and Robin Larsimont, “Is a cosmo-political ecology possible?”, Polis [Online], 45 | 2016, Published on May 11, 2017, accessed on November 15, 2017. URL: http://polis.revues.org/12155
Lucrecia Wagner, Socio-environmental conflicts - Megamining in Mendoza (1884-2011), Editorial Universidad Nacional de Quilmes, 2014, chapter 1.
Foster, John Bellamy (2005) “Marx’s Ecology. Materialism and Nature”, El Viejo Topo, Madrid. Chapter V.
(2012) “A Ecology of Political Economy of Marx”. “Lutas Sociais” Magazine PUC São Paulo, São Paulo, n.28, p.87-104, 1st Sem. 2012.
Löwy, Michel (2012) “Ecosocialism. The radical alternative to the capitalist ecological catastrophe”, Herramienta, Buenos Aires. Chapter 3.
Magdoff, Fred and Foster, John B. (2010) “What Every Environmentalist Needs to Know About Capitalism.” Monthly Review, Vol. 61, No. 10.
Alimonda, Héctor (2011) “The Coloniality of Nature. An Approach to Latin American Political Ecology”. In Alimonda (Coord.) “Colonized Nature. Political Ecology and Mining in Latin America”. Clacso-Ciccus, Buenos Aires.
Altvater, Elmar (2014) “Capital and the Capitalocene”. In Mundo Siglo XXI, Revista del CIECAS-IPN, No. 33, Vol. IX, 2014, pp. 5-15.
Lander, Edgardo (2013) “Civilizational Crisis, Planetary Limits, Assaults on Democracy and Peoples in Resistance”. In “Alternatives to Capitalism/Colonialism of the 21st Century”, Permanent Working Group on Alternatives to Development, Rosa Luxemburg Foundation, Free America, Buenos Aires.
Machado Aráoz, H. (2015) “Political Ecology of Extractive Regimes. From Imperial Reconfigurations and Decolonial Re-existences in Our America. Revista Bajo el Volcán, vol. 15, N° 23, Benemérita Universidad Autónoma de Puebla, Mexico, Sept.-February 2016 pp. 11-51.
Machado Aráoz, H. (2016) “On Really Existing Nature, the Entity 'America' and the Origins of the Capitalocene. Dilemmas and Challenges of Species”. Actuel Marx Interventions Journal No. 20, First Semester of 2016. LOM Ediciones, Santiago de Chile. Pp. 205-230.
Merlinsky, G. (2014), "Introduction: the environmental issue on the public agenda", in Merlinsky, G. (compiler), Cartographies of environmental conflict in Argentina, Buenos Aires, Ciccus/CLACSO, pp. 19/60.
Merlinsky, G. (2014), "The spiral of conflict. A methodological proposal for conducting case studies in the analysis of environmental conflicts", in Merlinsky, G. (compiler), Cartographies of environmental conflict in Argentina, Buenos Aires, Ciccus/CLACSO, pp. 61/117.
Merlinsky, MG and Latta, A. (2012), "Environmental Collective Action, Justice and Institutional Change in Argentina", in A. Latta & H. Wittman (eds), Environment and Citizenship in Latin America: Natures, Subjects and Struggles, New York, Berghahn.
Merlinsky, G. (2013), "Politics, rights and environmental justice: the Riachuelo conflict", Buenos Aires, Fondo de Cultura Económica, chapter 8.
Nik Heynen, Maria Kaika, Eric Swyngedouw (2006), "Urban political ecology: Politicizing the production of urban natures", in M. Kaika, N. Heynen, E. Swyngedouw (eds), In the Nature of Cities: Urban Political Ecology and the Politics of Urban Metabolism. Questioning Cities, New York, Routledge.
Merlinsky, G. (2014), "Environmental conflicts and structural cases: the effects of the "Riachuelo" ruling on the implementation of public policies in the metropolis of Buenos Aires", in Antonio Azuela and Miguel Angel Cancino (coordinators), Judges and urban conflicts in Latin America, Mexico City, Environmental and Territorial Reorganization Attorney's Office of the Federal District.
Cruz, Delmy Tania and Bayón Jiménez, Manuel, Bodies, Territories and Feminisms. Latin American compilation of theories, methodologies and political practices. Abya Yala and Institute of Ecological Studies of the Third World, 2019.
Hernández, Rosalva Aída, “Female bodies, violence and accumulation by dispossession, in: Belausteguigoitia, Marisa/ Saldaña Portillo, María Josefina, Dispossession: Gender, territory and struggles for self-determination, Mexico, UNAM, 2015.
Navarro, Mina Lorena/ Gutiérrez, Raquel, “Keys to thinking about interdependence from the perspective of ecology and feminisms”, Revista Bajo el Volcán, no. 28. In press.
Ayala, María del Rosario/ Zapata, Emma/ Cortés, Ramón, “Extractivism: expression of the capitalist-colonial-patriarchal system”, in: Revista Ecología Política, no. 54, Icaria, Barcelona.
Castro, Guillermo. and Jose Marti in the Latin American culture of nature.” Pp. 16. For a Latin American Environmental History. Social Sciences. 2004, Havana, Cuba. Pp. 7-52
Catalina Toro Pérez. (CLACSO 2017) La Mosquitia: “Last Imperial Frontier? Neo-Colonialism / Neo-Extractivism in the Afro-Caribbean world. pp. 117 – 159, in: Latin American political ecology: critical thought, Latin American difference and epistemic rearticulation/ Héctor Alimonda ... [et al.] ; CLACSO; Buenos Aires, 2017. Volume II.
Extreme Bulletin: New Frontiers of Energy Extractivism in Latin America. Extreme: "Exploding the Ocean". Roberto OCHANDIO pp. 27 - 33 and "Pre-salt: Extreme Energy from the Earth's Depths". LOUREIRO, BETO et al. (2017) pp. 35 - 44
Caliban's Indiscipline. Philosophy in the Caribbean beyond academia. Felix VALDES GARCIA. (2017). [email protected]Havana, Cuba.
Gutiérrez, Raquel, Navarro Mina Lorena and Linsalata, Lucia (2017), “Rethinking the political, thinking about the common. Keys for discussion”, in: Inclán, Daniel, Linsalata, Lucia, Millán, Márgara, Alternative Modernities, UNAM-Ediciones del Lirio.
Svampa, Maristella, The frontiers of neo-extractivism in Latin America: socio-environmental conflicts, eco-territorial turn and new dependencies. CALAS, Germany, 2019.
“Capitalist dispossession and struggles for the commons in defense of life in Mexico. Keys from political ecology” in Latin American Political Ecology. Coordinated by Héctor Alimonda, Catalina Toro Pérez and Facundo Martín. 2017. Volume II. CLACSO and Metropolitan Autonomous University, Buenos Aires, Argentina.
Edgardo Lander. Neo-extractivism: Debates and conflicts in countries with progressive governments in South America. Pp. 79 – 92 in: Latin American political ecology: critical thinking, Latin American difference and epistemic rearticulation/ Héctor Alimonda ... [et al.] ; CLACSO; Mexico 2017. Volume II.
Emiliano Teran Mantovani. The Geopolitics of Development: Systemic Crisis, Neoliberalism and Planetary Limits. Pp. 31 – pp. 69 In The Ghost of Greater Venezuela. A Study of Development and the Dilemmas of the Petro-State in the Bolivarian Revolution.
Horacio Machado Aráoz. “Latin America and the Political Ecology of the South. Struggles for Re-existence, Epistemic Revolution, and Civilizational Migration.” In: Latin American Political Ecology: Critical Thought, Latin American Difference, and Epistemic Rearticulation / Héctor Alimonda ... [et al.] ; CLACSO; Mexico 2017. Volume II. Pp. 19
Porto Goncalves, Carlos Walter "Geopolitical dimension of the Brazilian crisis: A perspective from subaltern social groups. In: Latin American political ecology: critical thinking, Latin American difference and epistemic rearticulation/ Héctor Alimonda ... [et al.] ; CLACSO; Mexico 2017. Volume I.
A course consists of twelve classes, each accompanied by required readings, supplementary readings, discussion forums, and learning activities proposed by the teaching team, as well as partial submissions and a final project. The course is delivered online and asynchronously. Some instructors may propose synchronous activities. In these cases, the time and date will be agreed upon in advance between the teaching team and the students to ensure everyone's participation. To pass the seminar, students must participate in at least 80% of the discussion forums and activities proposed by the instructors, complete all scheduled partial submissions, and pass the final project.
