INDG 2015 SOCI 2810 WEEK 6 (public version).pdf

INDG 2015//SOCI 2810
Dr. Zoe Todd
October 18, 2021
Week 5: “Indigenous ecological knowledges: South America”
Copyright Professor Zoe Todd 2021

Class outline
• Fanon: Wretched of the Earth III. The
Trials and Tribulations of National
Consciousness (pp. 97-144)
• Valencia, Robert. 2019. “Francia
Márquez, Renowned Afro-Colombian
Activist: What Environmental Racism
Means To Me”.
• Painter, L. and R. Wallace. 2017. “On
Our Lands: Indigenous Bolivians Take
Control Of Their Forests”
• Quijano, Aníbal. 2000. “Coloniality of
Power and Eurocentrism in Latin
America”.

Recap, week 4
• Little Bear: Indigenous vs
European worldviews
• Manuel: mutual dependence
• Ebron: Georgia Sea Islands, land
relations, African diasporic
communities in the US southeast

Francia Márquez • Source: https://www.goldmanprize.org/recipient/francia-marquez/

• Francia Márquez is an Afro-Colombian environmental
activist who studied law at Santiago de Cali University.
She worked with other community members to organize
“a protest march of 80 women who trekked 350 miles
to Bogotá, the capital, to demand the removal of all
illegal miners and equipment from their community.”*
She has been targeted several times by armed attackers
for her work – including an assassination attempt in 2019
**
• *source:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Francia_M%C3%A1rquez)
• **source: https://justiceforcolombia.org/news/award-
winning-activist-francia-marquez-survives-assassination-
attempt/

• Márquez: “Colombia is a country that has traditionally been run by wealthy families.
When Black and Indigenous communities demand that large-scale mining be removed
from our communities and we ask for protection under the rule of law, the ruling families
say that we’re posing a hurdle to economic development. That’s when I ask, what kind of
development are they referring to, especially when Indigenous and Black communities
lack basic utilities? The community I live in has no drinking water, and our river has been
polluted with chemicals used for illegal mining.” (2018)
• source: https://earthjustice.org/blog/2019-august/francia-m-rquez-renowned-afro-
colombian-activist-what-environmental-racism-means-to-me

On the death of 1700 environmental defenders
between 2002 and 2018, globally:
• Márquez: “Much of the pressure environmental leaders experience comes from
developed countries. The U.S. is responsible for what happens to us as environmental
leaders because of its multinational companies’ work in our communities. These
companies, directly or indirectly, are complicit of this genocide. If there weren’t
economic interests in these territories, we wouldn’t have to get up and fight in order to
have a decent life. We’re risking our lives to stop harmful extractive industries, because
the latter are enjoying benefits at the expense of the many people who have died.”
(2018)

Source: https://www.nrcan.gc.ca/maps-tools-and-publications/publications/minerals-mining-
publications/canadian-mining-assets/19323
Canadian
Mining in
South
America

• “Approximately 75 percent of the world's mining companies are
headquartered in Canada, and 60 percent are listed on the Toronto
Stock Exchange” -
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mining_in_Canada#:~:text=Approximat
ely%2075%20percent%20of%20the,on%20the%20Toronto%20Stock%
20Exchange.
• Think about this in relation to Quijano’s ‘coloniality of power’ – why
are extractive companies headquartered in a resource colony in the
global north?

Indigenous environmental activism in Bolivia:
“If there were no trees, no animals, no forest...”
Source: https://e360.yale.edu/features/on-our-lands-indigenous-bolivians-take-control-of-their-forests

Indigenous environmental activism in Bolivia:
“we could not live”
Source: https://e360.yale.edu/features/on-our-lands-indigenous-bolivians-take-control-of-their-forests

https://e360.yale.edu/features/on-our-lands-indigenous-bolivians-take-
control-of-their-forests
“The second-place winner in the 2017 Yale
Environment 360 Video Contest describes how the
Tacana and Lecos communities, which have a total
population of 6,700, have provided sustainable
livelihoods by developing small-scale agriculture,
including coffee and cacao plantations; promoting
ecotourism; allowing limited logging; and effectively
managing rainforest and rivers for hunting and fishing.
As the 9-minute video by directors Robert Wallace,
Lilian Painter, and Elvira Salinas explains, these
controls have resulted in a deforestation rate four
times lower than surrounding regions.”
Watch the
video:

Learning
questions:
• Which Indigenous groups are represented in the
documentary?
• Which environmental issues are described?
• What article from previous weeks’ readings comes
to mind as we learn that Indigenous governance in
this community is attenuating deforestation?

Quijano and
Fanon
The ‘coloniality of power’ (Quijano)
The impact of the ‘local bourgeosie’ (ie: the
‘petit bourgeosie’) on movements for
#LandBack, reconfiguring the social structures
imposed and built through colonization (Fanon)
The limits of revolutionary movements in the
context of the racial capital (Cedric Robinson),
‘coloniality of power’ (Quijano), and colonial
social-political structures imposed by colonizers

The
coloniality
of power
(Quijano)
• In this text, Quijano argues that the social, political,
economic structures that european colonizers
created in America (ie: South and North America)
went on to reshape the entire planet
• This ‘coloniality of power’ is explicitly built on
enslavement of African and African diasporic
peoples; the genocidal elimination of Indigenous
peoples in the Americas; and the development of
local elites (bourgeosie) who uphold the
intellectual, political, economic ideals and
structures of the European colonizer
• (important to remember not to call the USA
‘America’ as a shorthand as this erases the
specificities of experience in the rest of the South
and North American continents)

Both Fanon and Quijano demonstrate how the bourgeoisie
(ie: middle or upper middle class) is forged in the control of
lands, waters, resources that enrich both local bourgeoisie
(‘petite’ or ‘petty bourgeoisie) and colonial bourgeoisie
The local bourgeoisie is not interested in relinquishing
control of the means of production or control of wealth and
property
Fanon is very critical of the local (colonized bourgeoisie)
academics of his time for their inability to align with the
collective needs of the most exploited members of the
colonized nation
Both Quijano and Fanon are drawing our attention to the
way that power circulates unevenly both within colonizer
and colonized societies

Quijano: on the erasure of distinct Indigenous
nations/societies in Africa and America
• Quijano draws our attention to the ways in which distinct societies
were erased by European colonizers and replaced with racial
categories
• These racial categories are co-produced with capital
• Whiteness is invented to justify and reproduce the power relations
that are first manifested in the colonial genocide and enslavement
employed in Africa and America

• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gkTkZoXQpUs&ab_cha
nnel=Fundaci%C3%B3nEntreculturas (Spanish)
• Awajun-Wampis defence of lands against mining and
extraction industries

Summary
• Colonial capital is global – we can think of this as racial capital
(Robinson) and coloniality of power (Quijano)
• This coloniality of power is reproduced by the bourgeoisie locally and
in the colonizer nations
• We must analyze power in all of its manifestations
• Canada plays a very big role not only in violating Indigenous land
rights here, but also globally through Canada’s $263.2 BILLION in
mining assets around the world

Summary
• Fanon: the challenges of decolonization in the
context of the nation-state (borders, boundaries)
• Francia Márquez’ environmental labour in
Colombia
• Environmental stewardship in Bolivia
• How race and capital are co-produced (see
Cedric Robinson’s ‘racial capital’), and together
shape ‘the coloniality of power’ (Quijano)

• Through reading Indigenous texts this term, the
concepts of gratitude, reciprocity, and relationality
have emerged repeatedly
• In class activity:
• Reflect on one thing you are grateful for
• Write it out on a piece of paper
• Discuss what you are grateful for with folks in your physical
bubble or your virtual bubble online
• Reflection question: How does intentional reflection on
what you are grateful for impact your priorities in the
present, near and/or far future? How do you organize your
life to protect earth/land/waters/atmospheres in your day
to day existence?
Learning activity

Weekly reflection
• Reflection question: How does intentional reflection on what you are
grateful for impact your priorities in the present, near and/or far
future? How do you organize your life to protect
earth/land/waters/atmospheres in your day to day existence?

INDG 2015 SOCI 2810 WEEK 6 (public version).pdf

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