Citizenship and the Politics of Nature: The Case of Chile's Alto Bio Bio
Titel:
Citizenship and the Politics of Nature: The Case of Chile's Alto Bio Bio
Auteur:
Latta, P. Alex
Verschenen in:
Citizenship studies
Paginering:
Jaargang 11 (2007) nr. 3 pagina's 229-246
Jaar:
2007-07
Inhoud:
To date, most treatments of ecological citizenship have been concerned with identifying the ways in which particular approaches to citizenship might provide political tools for working toward more sustainable futures. The present analysis builds on an alternate perspective, which instead treats nature and citizenship as dynamic interconnected sites of power relations. While not dismissive of the existing literature, this approach is partly informed by a concern for promoting a more democratic politics of nature, rather than simply “greener” practices of citizenship. Furthermore, it calls for a more empirically-based analysis of the way in which nature is politicized by different social actors. By way of putting this perspective into practice, the essay examines the case of a conflict over hydroelectric development on the Bio Bio River, in southern Chile, seeking to document the way that nature is constructed vis-a-vis the country's dominant citizenship regime, and also to identify the insurgent voices of alternate ecological citizenships. This is achieved by comparing the discourses of nature and citizenship employed by various actors in the conflict, including proponents of the dams, environmentalists, and the Pehuenche indigenous people, whose lands were at the centre of the struggle. While environmentalists and the Pehuenche can be seen to have advanced significant challenges to the market-based citizenship of Chile's post-dictatorship liberal democracy, the failure of the resistance ultimately led to a re-consolidation of the central ideological components of the existing eco-political order.
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