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Neo-extractivism as defined by Maristela Svampa, is better known as the concentrated extraction of natural resources from the environment at an alarming and devastating rate. These processes often times destructive, render acres of land as dead zones or zones of sacrifice, where no life can be sustained. With the approaching decline of these resources, our current mode of life is unsustainable. But there is a hidden factor behind these actions, what specifically propels the concentrated extractivismo that is currently occurring? In the Southern cone of Latin America, the indigenous communities which reside within their sovereign territories provide a partial answer to the latter. Within these territories resides a major reserve of the worlds lithium supply, better known as the lithium triangle. This specific area has been the subject of dispute by multinationals who seek to appropriate this land and extract its resources, bordering the Argentinian, Chilean, and Bolivian borders in the Andes, this land belongs to the Quechua, Kolla, Aymara, and Lickan Antay people. Their residing within these lands is not that of a simple relationship, but rather an intimate and familial bond that these communities share with the land.
The Transandean Lithium Project (here on referred to as TLP) by Luis Martin-Cabrera provides a deeply intimate view into the relationship that these communities hold with the land and a glimpse into their everyday lives and customs. This project essentially approaches the subject of human/land relations, forced dispossession of lands, and the unique relationship that women hold with the land. To understand these questions, I build upon the construction of worlds, specifically that of the dual world (western view) and the pluriverse or plurality (Arturo Escobar). Both worlds hold maintain similar ideologies on the relationship that women hold with the land but approach it from different viewpoints. This thesis specifically breaks down the conceptualization of each world and the relationship that women hold within ecology. To answer this in depth I propose the following question(s), What is the relationship that women hold within ecology, what importance does femininity have with the ecological bond women have, what importance does reciprocity serve in the midst of this complex relationship, and how do these concepts present themselves in contemporary literature production. The novels Tender is the Flesh by Agustina Bazterrica and Fever dream by Samanta Schweblin provide a view into how such ideologies are conceptualized and the perversity of their nature and what they represent for women.
From this research it became apparent the purpose that world conceptualization served in these relationships. For both the plural and dual world it is held true that women hold an intimate and unique relationship with ecology. However, there is a disconnect with the purpose that these relations serve within the dual world. Through these findings, I was able to conclude that the dual world cannot be viewed entirely as its own standalone concept. Duality, as defined by Escobar, is a black and white view of the world/ecology/ and humanimal relations. This duality, which is maintained in the western world, does not allow us to establish a significant relationship with our ecological surroundings. We are consistently put above it, denying us the ability to view animals or the earth as a living being with purpose. Dualism specifically creates this great divide as it is a repackaging of coloniality. Colonialism seeks to maintain an implied control over bodies, and the dual world allows for that. In this, I was able to conclude that the relationship of women/femininity/ecology in the dual world serves to specifically appropriate itself of women’s bodies in order to characterize them as anther resource to which extract from. In this case, the labor or resource is an imposed motherhood which seeks to control women’s bodies. Hence, the direct situation of women as central all ecological questions and conceptions. Women are placed directly at the center of ecology in order to appropriate and control their bodies in this repackaged version of coloniality. In the plural world it is apparent that women hold a differing relationship to ecology. Rather than being the center of all ecological conception, they are on the sidelines. They foster a unique maternal relationship with the land that based off their creative power. In the plural world, femininity and maternity are tied the reciprocal relationship that they hold with the land. In this world, ecology is a living being and must be treated as an equal. To acknowledge this, payments are made to the earth in order to strengthen this bond of creative and expressive power.
Returning to the main concept of women’s importance in within ecology and how this relationship is expressed, it is clear that there is a great divide between both worlds and how this relationship is expressed. Given that the dual world is nothing other than a reduced interpretation and translation of pluriversality we cannot accept the dual world as its own standalone concept. Duality is only but a repackaged version of coloniality which continuously seeks to exploit and appropriate the body in order to maintain hierarchal structures of control. Dualism exists as an implicit form of colonialism; it maintains the same concepts as the original idea but rewrites them to create an illusion of free will. By establishing a hierarchy between human and animal, it facilitates the categorization of bodies and their implied need to maintain a level of control over them. Truly, we have never been modern or better than our counterparts, we have only created a false illusion which allows for coloniality to seep through and control us to such extent that only death may free us from its grasp.