In Latin America and the Caribbean, approximately 45 million people are Indigenous, representing about 10% of the total population. They have been key actors in the progress made since the early 90s in recognizing their rights as peoples. This progress is particularly evident in their inclusion in new constitutions, the adoption of Indigenous rights instruments (especially ILO Convention 169), the modification of laws and regulations governing the extraction of raw materials, and a more prominent role as political actors at the national level. These changes reflect a redefinition of the relationship between Indigenous peoples and nation-states, with Ecuador and Bolivia, incorporating Buen Vivir (Good Living) and the rights of nature into their new constitutions, being the most advanced examples.

These transformations are expected to produce better conditions for Indigenous self-determination and participation in decisions concerning their territories. However, these advances have been strained by pressure from Latin American states, and from states in the Global North in general, due to the exploitation of raw materials, many of which are located in or near the lands and territories traditionally occupied by Indigenous peoples. These extractive projects have highlighted the existence of an “implementation gap” (Stavenhagen, 2006) between the new legal frameworks and their actual implementation.

Latin America has a long history of economies based on the extraction of raw materials (Altomonte and Sánchez, 2016; Sinnott, Nash and de la Torre, 2010), with these extractive activities increasing since 1994 when the region became the largest investor in mineral exploration, which was further increased by the rise in metal and oil prices between 2003 and 2012 (Altomonte and Sánchez, 2016), which in turn were due to the greater demand for raw materials by China and then by other emerging economies (e.g., India and Indonesia) (Altomonte and Sánchez, 2016), as well as by new exploitation technologies and the growing transnational nature of the extractive industries (Reed, 2002). Among the internal causes in the region are the adoption of neoliberal measures of the Washington Consensus in the 90s, which produced a deregulation of the economy (Canel, Idemudia and North, 2010) that was oriented towards extractive projects.

It is projected that the extractive sector will remain important in the region in the coming years, although not reaching the levels of the 2003–2013 period (Altomonte and Sánchez, 2017). In other words, we can expect that in the coming years, unless governments change their extractive production orientation or substantially reform extractive governance, pressure and tensions on Indigenous territories will persist due to mining, hydrocarbon, forestry, and energy projects (hydroelectric, wind, biomass), especially considering that the region currently holds 20% of the world's oil reserves and 4% of its gas reserves (Altomonte and Sánchez, 2016), in addition to its forest reserves and agro-export potential.

A central issue for the region is that despite the growth of the extractive sector and its discourse of development, the countries of the region have failed to resolve tensions with Indigenous peoples and, moreover, have failed to translate the revenue generated by these projects into well-being for society as a whole (Bebbington, 2012; Sinnott, Nash, and de la Torre, 2010). Instead, they have adopted a development model that makes their economies dependent on volatile external cycles (Altomonte and Sánchez, 2016; Gudynas, 2018) and has generated significant political and social conflict (Bebbington, 2012; Altomonte and Sánchez, 2016). Furthermore, there are few differences between neoliberal and post-neoliberal governments, nor according to the type of extractive project (conflicts exist in mining, oil, gas, hydroelectric, forestry, and agro-export projects).

On the other hand, in the region, the governance of extractive projects operates at multiple scales. At the transnational level, the influence of international financial institutions and extractive industries on governments (Sawyer and Gómez, 2012), multilateral trade agreements (Aylwin, 2013; Aylwin, Gómez, and Vittor, 2016; Galera and Alda, 2017), international environmental agreements (Ulloa, 2007), the influence of governments in the Global North on governments in the region (Moore and Velásquez, 2012), the fluctuations in raw material demand on national economies, the role of international tribunals that act as a counterweight to government decisions that promote extractive projects at all costs, and, finally, private actors (NGOs, organizations such as the FSC and its forest certification, and extractive industries) all intersect. At the national level, this governance is related to government approaches to the commodity-based economy and their redistributive policies (Gudynas, 2018; Svampa, 2019), the quality of government institutions (Acosta, 2009), and the governance technologies implemented (Indigenous consultation regulations, environmental assessment, income-sharing models, etc.). At the local level, governance is intertwined with Indigenous resistance strategies, their alliances with other actors (especially human rights or environmental NGOs), benefit-sharing agreements between communities and extractive industries (Bustamante and Martin, 2018), the application of forest certification (especially FSC), and Corporate Social Responsibility practices.

Viewed in a global context, tensions between extractive projects and Indigenous peoples are not exclusive to Latin America and the Caribbean. Several international organizations recognize territorial conflicts as one of the main problems facing Indigenous peoples in recent years (IWGIA, 2018; Anaya, 2013; Expert Mechanism on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, 2018). Studies such as those coordinated by Sawyer and Gomez (2012) highlight the importance of the transnational level of governance of extractive projects in various Indigenous communities around the world, as well as the tendency for conflicts to arise, with communities only achieving positive outcomes in some specific cases. In a recent state-of-the-art study in Anglo-Saxon and Scandinavian countries, Horowitz et al. (2018) conclude that mining projects have significant impacts on Indigenous communities, affecting their relationship with their territories due to environmental impacts, contributing little to local development, and producing social problems (mental health issues, internal community conflicts, and inequalities). Furthermore, in the Anglo-Saxon context, models called "negotiated territorial agreements" have been implemented between Indigenous communities and states (Nettheim, 2002), which use negotiation as a decision-making mechanism, but whose outcomes for Indigenous peoples are unclear.

In our region, this conflictive relationship between Indigenous peoples and extractive projects highlights the contradictions in the implementation of new forms of relations between Indigenous peoples and nation-states. It seems to express, rather, a continuation of colonial projects, despite the fact that new definitions of multiethnic, multicultural, or even plurinational societies, with their ethics of good living, were supposed to overcome them. For Indigenous peoples, their struggles of resistance are being renewed, this time with new actors and new levels of action, and the limits to their self-determination are becoming apparent. Moreover, these tensions also call into question the logics and practices of governments, both in their development choices and in the limitations of the new democracies that have emerged since the 90s.

In summary, in Latin America and the Caribbean, conflicts related to extractive projects require analytical frameworks that articulate development, democracy/citizenship, environment/territory, and capital. Furthermore, the specific situation of indigenous communities requires, and this serves as one of the exploratory hypotheses in this Working Group, the articulation of indigenous subjects/territory, epistemes, human rights, and colonialism.

Therefore, some of the questions this working group will address are: To what extent are extractive activities compatible with a plurinational state or with the exercise of Indigenous rights? Which governance technologies are best suited for this? What strategies do Indigenous peoples use to resist, and which are most effective in protecting their territories and cultures? How are the various scales (transnational, national, and local) at which extractive industries operate interconnected? How can collaborative work between academia and Indigenous peoples be developed that is not “extractivist”?

The problematic relationship between Indigenous peoples and extractive projects has a long history in social research in Latin America and the Caribbean, especially stemming from the documentation of Indigenous struggles to protect their territories and ways of life in the face of these projects, and notable for the development of a rich critical thought. Today, this critical thinking within Latin American social sciences is engaged in an important debate, drawing on the contributions of coloniality and "epistemologies of the South." All of these perspectives challenge the predominance of the modern European-North American-centric episteme, highlight the need to generate categories specific to our region, and emphasize the need to recognize Indigenous epistemes.

More recently, several fields of study have been identified in which research on this subject has been organized. On the one hand, we identify socio-legal studies, focused on analyzing the normative aspects of national legislation or indigenous rights instruments, and their practical implementation in local, national, or international courts (Sierra-Camargo, 2014 and 2017; Guerrero, 2016; Merino, 2014 and 2015; Ramírez, 2007; Carrasco and Ramírez, 2015; Carmona, 2009).

Another approach is that of political economy, which in recent years has been dominated by the contributions of Gudynas and Svampa regarding the categories of extractivism. This approach focuses on analyzing the environmental effects of extractive projects, the differences and similarities between the classic extractivist orientations of neoliberal governments (Mexico, Colombia, Peru, Chile) and the neo-extractivist orientations of post-neoliberal governments (Ecuador, Bolivia, Venezuela). Following Gudynas (2018) and Svampa (2019), both orientations manifest an extractivist orientation of the economy (“commodities consensus”), a dependent integration into the global market, and the repression or criminalization of social protest, which results in pressure on Indigenous communities living in territories rich in raw materials.

Another theoretical perspective present in the region's literature corresponds to the "rentier state" approach and the "curse of plenty." These studies emphasize that the existence of raw materials does not guarantee a society's development; for these resources to translate into development, high-quality government institutions are fundamentally required. The problem in our region is that our countries exhibit the problems of rentier states or the "curse of plenty": authoritarianism, lack of transparency, political clientelism, inequalities in wealth distribution, tax systems dependent on raw material extraction (Acosta, 2009; Aguirre, 2017; Farfán-Mares, 2011; Weyland, 2009; Schuldt and Acosta, 2006; Teran, 2014), fostering corruption and authoritarian regimes.

The perspective of social movements, based on theories of agency or theories of the subject, focuses on documenting and analyzing indigenous resistances, their strategies, alliances, rationalities and the results of their actions, which appears in the works of Benavides (2010), De Echave (2010), Martí i Puig (2009), Carrasco and Fernández (2009), Delgado (2013).

Closely related to these analyses are the works carried out from political ecology and socio-legal perspectives, which demonstrate how political power influences the processes of environmental transformation on the continent, while also accounting for the power relations between Indigenous peoples and the economic sectors involved in these dynamics (Leff, 2003; Escobar, 2010; Martínez, 2005). A particular perspective is developed by Escobar (2015), Blaser (2008), and Ulloa (2017), who study the social ecology of difference proposed by Indigenous peoples and their worldviews within the framework of socio-environmental conflicts, converging with the studies of Huanacuni (2010), Gudynas and Acosta (2011), and Aylwin, Martí, Wright, and Yañez (2013). Based on ethnographic research, these authors question the persistence of the developmental paradigm, suggesting concepts such as territory, relational ontologies, pluriverse, and cosmopolitics, among others.

The Marxist perspective is also present, using analytical categories such as accumulation by dispossession, which posits that extractive projects develop forms of capital accumulation that original Marxism considered characteristic of primitive capitalism (Seoane, 2013; Harvey, 2014). It also focuses its analysis on the resistance practices and class alliances of Indigenous movements as a way of confronting transnational capital.

Finally, another analytical perspective that has been gaining increasing interest is that which is articulated from decolonial thought (Quijano, 2002; Grosfoguel, 2008; Castro Gómez, 1998) with environmental issues and Indigenous demands (Montenegro, 2012; Chaparro, 2015; Cuadra, 2016; Morales and Girão Florêncio, 2018). These works highlight the colonial continuity present in state and corporate practices, as well as the struggles for self-determination in conflicts led by various Indigenous peoples.

In summary, this fruitful theoretical debate in our region has been highly relevant for its production of its own approaches and conceptual categories and for contributing a situated and critical character to approaches and categories produced outside the region, all of which, from diverse theoretical approaches, from diverse disciplines, predominantly focused on macrostructural analyses and to a lesser extent on the microsocial level, shed light on the power conditions that operate at multiple scales, restricting the possibilities of self-determination of indigenous communities, clearly positioning the relationships with extractive projects within the framework of the colonial project still existing in the region.

However, several questions and tensions remain to be addressed, some of which are: How do macrostructural categories relate to the diversity of situations and agency of Indigenous subjects at local levels? How do these categories account for the specificities of different types of extractive projects? How are the various technologies of power at play in extractive projects interconnected? What role do the agency and self-determination of Indigenous communities play? How do the conceptual categories of Western epistemology relate to Indigenous epistemologies regarding their territories and life projects?

Regarding this last question, this Working Group will also incorporate the theoretical debates of Indigenous researchers who question the epistemological, ethical, and political aspects of academic production, as these are part of the colonial project that conceives of the Indigenous subject as a mere object or informant from whom knowledge is “extracted” and Western categories are imposed (Nahuelpán, 2013; Leyva et al., 2018; Antileo, Cárcamo-Huechante, Calfío, and Huinca-Piutrín, 2015), potentially leading to “epistemicide.” This form of research has been conceptualized as a form of “epistemic extractivism” (Grossfoguel, 2016), “abyssal thinking” (de Sousa Santos, 2013), or “academic extractivism.” In return, indigenous researchers propose “epistemic sovereignty” (Nahuelpán et al., 2013), “SURearnos” (Leyva et al., 2018), decolonization from practice and ch'ixi epistemology (Rivera Cusicanqui, 2015).

This Indigenous critique in Latin America is also very present outside our region, especially among Indigenous researchers who, following Linda Tuhiwai Smith's (2016) work, "Decolonizing Methodologies," advocate for the decolonization of the social sciences, a non-colonial relationship between researchers and Indigenous peoples, and the development of Indigenous research programs. This debate has fostered research by Indigenous researchers based on their own epistemologies (Kovach, 2010).

This serious questioning of the conditions of production of knowledge “about” indigenous peoples will constitute one of the axes of work of this GT to dialogue with indigenous actors and produce decolonizing research that respects their epistemes.