Infrastructural violence and resistance in Namqom: Navigating environmental injustice in Formosa, Argentina

Abstract

Infrastructure connects – and disconnects – people and communities. In this paper, we analyze how the Qom (an Indigenous population in the Gran Chaco region of Argentina) navigate marginalization enacted through infrastructure in Formosa, Argentina. Drawing upon two seasons of fieldwork that involved surveys, semi-structured interviews, and participant observation, we focus on experiences of Qom people in the peri-urban village of Namqom. We extend the literature on infrastructural violence and environmental injustice by considering how this form of violence is unique for Indigenous Peoples who experience both historical and present forms of dispossession, including through the destruction of natural resources important for Indigenous health, well-being, and culture. The Qom in Namqom experience multifaceted colonial infrastructural violence through water, policing, labor, and politics that intertwines with their history of dispossession. However, the Qom use local rationalities to guide their engagement in dialectics of disruption; within this context, the community uses various forms of resistance to creatively generate cultural continuity, including their land use, housing, water, repurposing items, laboring in the landfill, and their political action. This analysis shows how environmental injustice can be enacted through colonial infrastructural violence to constrain Indigenous Peoples like the Qom. Yet, using local rationalities, the Qom engage in everyday acts of opposition, leveraging their agency to exert sovereignty with this capitalist system through dialectics of disruption.