{"title":"The struggle for territory in Mesoamerica","authors":"Emanuel Bran-Guzmán","doi":"10.1080/17442222.2020.1839223","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"Socio-environmental conflict in Latin America is a problem that has manifested itself significantly over the course of the last 15 years or more. On the one hand, the number and scale of extractive mega-projects are on the rise due to collusion between governments and companies, and on the other hand, a great number of socio-political movements have emerged with claims relating to territory, identity, or human rights. In Mesoamerica, this kind of conflict is significant, because of the levels of dispossession and increasing antagonism affecting communities. In this issue of LACES, we have the chance to take a look at what’s happening in these cases. We will present reviews of three books, all of which examine socioenvironmental conflict to explain the dispossession and struggle of different indigenous peoples from Guatemala and southern Mexico who are resisting a variety of mega-projects. In Dinámicas de despojo y resistencia, Bastos and de León present us with three case studies from Guatemala in which the local population, mostly indigenous Maya, has stood up to a variety of mega-projects. The authors intend to analyze the political aspects of the social conflict by focusing on the interactions between community mobilizations and company and State actions. Above all, Bastos and de León seek to discover the processes and tendencies related to community mobilization. The authors situate their case studies within the broader conditions of Latin America’s position at the beginning of the 21st century, amid a regional shift to opening up to the global economy, by which the demand from emerging economies for raw materials made extractive activities paramount for local governments in the region. At that time, transnational or local capital colluded with different governments to advance mega-projects. In","PeriodicalId":35038,"journal":{"name":"Latin American and Caribbean Ethnic Studies","volume":"16 1","pages":"224 - 236"},"PeriodicalIF":0.6000,"publicationDate":"2020-12-15","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1080/17442222.2020.1839223","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Latin American and Caribbean Ethnic Studies","FirstCategoryId":"1085","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.1080/17442222.2020.1839223","RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":null,"ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q4","JCRName":"ETHNIC STUDIES","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
Abstract
Socio-environmental conflict in Latin America is a problem that has manifested itself significantly over the course of the last 15 years or more. On the one hand, the number and scale of extractive mega-projects are on the rise due to collusion between governments and companies, and on the other hand, a great number of socio-political movements have emerged with claims relating to territory, identity, or human rights. In Mesoamerica, this kind of conflict is significant, because of the levels of dispossession and increasing antagonism affecting communities. In this issue of LACES, we have the chance to take a look at what’s happening in these cases. We will present reviews of three books, all of which examine socioenvironmental conflict to explain the dispossession and struggle of different indigenous peoples from Guatemala and southern Mexico who are resisting a variety of mega-projects. In Dinámicas de despojo y resistencia, Bastos and de León present us with three case studies from Guatemala in which the local population, mostly indigenous Maya, has stood up to a variety of mega-projects. The authors intend to analyze the political aspects of the social conflict by focusing on the interactions between community mobilizations and company and State actions. Above all, Bastos and de León seek to discover the processes and tendencies related to community mobilization. The authors situate their case studies within the broader conditions of Latin America’s position at the beginning of the 21st century, amid a regional shift to opening up to the global economy, by which the demand from emerging economies for raw materials made extractive activities paramount for local governments in the region. At that time, transnational or local capital colluded with different governments to advance mega-projects. In
拉丁美洲的社会环境冲突是一个在过去15年或更长时间里明显表现出来的问题。一方面,由于政府和公司之间的勾结,采掘业大型项目的数量和规模都在增加,另一方面,出现了大量与领土、身份或人权有关的社会政治运动。在中美洲,这种冲突意义重大,因为影响社区的剥夺程度和日益加剧的对抗。在本期LACES中,我们有机会了解一下这些情况下发生了什么。我们将对三本书进行评论,所有这些书都探讨了社会环境冲突,以解释来自危地马拉和墨西哥南部的不同土著人民的剥夺和斗争,他们正在抵制各种大型项目。在Dinámicas de despojo y resistancia,Bastos和de León向我们介绍了来自危地马拉的三个案例研究,在这些案例研究中,当地人口,主要是土著玛雅人,勇敢地面对了各种大型项目。作者打算通过关注社区动员与公司和国家行动之间的互动来分析社会冲突的政治方面。最重要的是,Bastos和de León试图发现与社区动员有关的过程和趋势。作者将他们的案例研究置于拉丁美洲在21世纪初的更广泛的地位条件下,当时拉丁美洲正朝着向全球经济开放的方向转变,新兴经济体对原材料的需求使采掘活动对该地区的地方政府至关重要。当时,跨国或地方资本与不同的政府勾结,推进大型项目。在里面