Author: Marcela Torres

Publisher:

Published: 2016

Total Pages: 268

ISBN-13: 9781369565522

Conflicts between indigenous groups and governments over the control of lands potentially containing valuable minerals and hydrocarbons, are proliferating in Latin America and elsewhere around the world. In 1989, the International Labor Organization granted prior consultation rights to all indigenous peoples living in postcolonial countries. Prior consultation affords indigenous communities the right to be consulted by their governments about any project that could potentially impact their territory. While this right remains unimplemented in most parts of the world, violence between indigenous communities and extractive companies over the control of resource-rich lands during the 2000s commodity boom forced Latin American governments to pass prior consultation legislation. This dissertation looks at two different kinds of indigenous movements. The "anti-extractivist indigenous" attempt to maintain the resources in the subsoil to prevent damage to their environmental resources, and thus oppose any extraction whatsoever. By contrast, the "pro-extractivist indigenous" seek to obtain and maximize their share of the economic benefits derived from resource extraction. By assuming that indigenous struggles over the extractive industry are driven by the desire for negotiation or prohibition, this dissertation asks two important questions. First, why can some indigenous groups either profit from resource extraction or prohibit it while others cannot? Second, how do prior consultation procedures enable--or inhibit--the indigenous from achieving these goals? This research shows that prior consultation procedures-the way they are implemented today-do not allow to express indigenous opposition to extractive projects yet these procedures are used as bargaining tables by some indigenous groups to negotiate extractive resources with the state. Dissertation findings show that prior consultation can foster significant redistribution of resources to politically powerful indigenous peoples. Yet, it is actually detrimental--not helpful--in the fight of anti-extractivist indigenous. This study shows that prior consultation has partially achieved its goal of fostering indigenous political participation in extractive policy as it has enabled highly mobilized pro-extractivist indigenous groups to advance some of their economic demands. Anti-extractivist indigenous groups and demobilized pro-extractivist groups, on the other hand, have not seen their interests advanced through prior consultation. This study contributes to a much better understanding of the goals held by indigenous groups over the extractive industry sector. Likewise, understanding the degree to which the institutionalization of the right to prior consultation has transformed the way indigenous peoples participate in this industry--and the obstacles for participation--has important implications for avoiding violence surrounding mineral and hydrocarbon extraction.