Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Date of Degree

2-2018

Document Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Ph.D.

Program

Earth & Environmental Sciences

Advisor

Ines Miyares

Committee Members

Thomas Angotti

Mark Ungar

Subject Categories

Human Geography | Latin American Studies | Nature and Society Relations | Place and Environment | Race and Ethnicity

Keywords

production of space, indigenous social movements, Peru, Latin America, Amazon

Abstract

The resistance movement that resulted in the Baguazo in the northern Peruvian Amazon in 2009 was the culmination of a series of social, economic, political and spatial processes that reflected the Peruvian nation’s engagement with global capitalism and democratic consolidation after decades of crippling instability and chaos. The recently discovered oil and natural gas reserves that occupy the subsoil of much the Peruvian Amazon provide the latest natural resource upon which the national project can continue to be implemented. In a context of neo-imperialism and neo-extractivism where through accumulation by dispossession, new markets are introduced into global capitalist structures after a history of neglect, indigenous spatial productions have developed in the northern Peruvian Amazon that have arguably contributed to the relative effectiveness of the Baguazo in meeting movement outcomes. This dissertation analyzes these spatial productions through the theoretical framework of Lefebvre’s Production of Space, which is applied to indigenous communities in Condorcanqui province in northern Perú. Unique indigenous nature-society relationship formulations, identity constructions, and productions of scale are considered for their contributions to the production of indigenous capitalist-emergent spaces. By analyzing the role played by the state, the law, and culture in indigenous productions of space, it is also hoped that a better spatial understanding of indigenous social movements can be gained. By conclusion, an inclusion of capitalist-emergent spaces onto Lefebvre’s conceptual triad of spatial production is proposed to facilitate further theoretical applications to the field.

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