Fostering collective subjectivities: Technologies of the self and resistance in Colombian community forest initiatives

Abstract

Subjectivity is at the core of contestations in environmental politics. This article explores the dynamics of such contestations by analyzing how collective subjectivities relate to the state in a forest conservation context, drawing on three cases of community forestry projects in Colombia. It applies Michel Foucault’s concept of technologies of the self and uses insights from social movement literature to analyze the process of collective subjectivity construction. The results highlight how subjectivities are shaped by resistance to state and extractive activities (i.e. mining and cattle ranching) on the one hand and by communitarian desires for political recognition on the other. Care of the environment was in all cases connected to a (historically) grown and shared identity of a specific community, including afrodescendant-, Amazonian peasant-, or indigenous identities to form a collectivity subjectivity. Collective subjectivities allowed communities to adapt to, and at the same time also resist volatile state environmental policy projects. Technologies of the self are used to create collective subjectivity, ranging from the appropriation of forest monitoring techniques to the establishment of community enterprises. Such collective subjectivities routinize a particular way of relating to the state and external actors, often opposing state interventions but frequently also tinkering with and adopting state technologies. We conclude by emphasizing that collective subjectivities draw from a heterogeneous set of discourses, strategies and technologies and are thus grounded in a fragile tension between peoples’ historical experiences of marginalization and perceived opportunities for self-determination in connection to the natural environment, while responding to changing state interventions.