Browsing by Autor "Mirna Inturias"

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Abordando la Justicia Ambiental desde la Transformación de Conflictos: experiencias en América Latina con Pueblos Indígenas
(University of Granada, 2015) Iokiñe Rodríguez; Mirna Inturias; Juliana Robledo; Carlos Sarti; Rolain Borel; Ana Cabria
A pesar de que la justicia ambiental y la transformacion de conflictos tienen muchos objetivos comunes, poco hablan la una con la otra. En este articulo tratamos de acercar a ambas ramas del conocimiento un traves de una discusion del potencial que ofrece la teoria y practica de la transformacion de conflictos para el campo de la justicia ambiental. Para ello se basa en el marco de Transformacion de Conflictos Socio-ambientales desarrollado por el Grupo Confluencias, un grupo de profesionales de America Latina que ha venido trabajando desde el 2005 como plataforma de deliberacion, investigacion conjunta y de desarrollo de capacidades en este tema. Un aspecto central de este marco es la atencion prestada a la comprension del papel que las dinamicas del poder y la cultura juegan en los conflictos ambientales y su transformacion. Discutimos este marco e ilustramos su utilidad practica a la luz de experiencias en marcha con pueblos indigenas en America Latina, donde el Grupo Confluencias ha venido desarrollando experiencias de transformacion de conflictos socio-ambientales desde diferentes tipos de intervenciones que buscan impactar en el poder hegemonico, para ayudar a reducir las asimetrias e injusticias sociales que dan origen a los conflictos socio ambientales.Mostramos, en particular, la necesidad y la eficacia de impactar, simultaneamente o no, en tres diferentes esferas: las personas y redes, las instituciones y el poder cultural. Se demuestra que, a traves del fortalecimiento del poder estrategico de actores vulnerables, es posible generar cambios sociales que redunden en mayor justiciaambiental y social en territorios indigenas.
Bolivia: contribution of indigenous people to fighting climate change is hanging by a thread
(2020) Iokiñe Rodríguez; Mirna Inturias
Cameras to the people: Reclaiming local histories and restoring environmental justice in community based forest management through participatory video
(University of Warwick, 2016) Iokiñe Rodríguez; Mirna Inturias
Indigenous peoples’ histories and memories are almost invisible to the eyes and ears of western civilization. When we do hear about them, we generally do so through accounts and reconstructions made by naturalists, priests, explorers and more recently historians, geographers, and anthropologists – rarely from indigenous people themselves. Yet indigenous peoples in Latin America are very much aware that an important part of their struggle for cultural and physical survival involves telling the world their own histories. This post discusses how “participatory video” (PV) can help with indigenous peoples’ needs for cultural reassertion as well as with creating opportunities for restoring environmental justice in their territories
Challenges to intercultural democracy in the Plurinational State of Bolivia: case study of the Monkoxɨ peoples of Lomerío
(2020) Iokiñe Rodríguez; Mirna Inturias
The adoption of Bolivia's new political Constitution in 2009 marked the birth of a new plurinational state. One of the most important constitutional changes was a new state system of territorial division that recognises departmental, municipal, regional and indigenous autonomies as new plural forms of political organisation seeking to decentralise decision-making power and the management of public funds, wresting them away from central government. Whereas departmental, municipal and regional autonomy can apply within the pre-2009 territorial division of the state, simply being juxtaposed over former departments, municipalities or regions, indigenous autonomies pose a greater challenge, as they often overlap with more than one municipality or department and therefore necessitate greater institutional and legal changes
Conflict transformation in indigenous peoples’ territories: doing environmental justice with a ‘decolonial turn’
(Taylor & Francis, 2018) Iokiñe Rodríguez; Mirna Inturias
One of the distinctive features of environmental justice theory in Latin America is its influence by decolonial thought, which explains social and environmental injustices as arising from the project of modernity and the ongoing expansion of a European cultural imaginary. The decolonization of knowledge and social relations is highlighted as one of the key challenges for overcoming the history of violent oppression and marginalization in development and conservation practice in the region. In this paper we discuss how conflict transformation theory and practice has a role to play in this process. In doing so, we draw on the Socio-environmental Conflict Transformation (SCT) framework elaborated by Grupo Confluencias, which puts a focus on building community capacity to impact different spheres of power: people and networks, structures and cultural power. We discuss this framework and its practical use in the light of ongoing experiences with indigenous peoples in Latin America. We propose that by strengthening the power of agency of indigenous peoples to impact each of these spheres it is possible to build constructive intra and intercultural relations that can help increase social and environmental justice in their territories and thus contribute to decolonizing structures, relations and ways of being.
Conflictividad socioambiental en Latinoamérica: Aportes de la transformación de conflictos socioambientales a la transformación ecológica
(2019) Iokiñe Rodríguez; Mirna Inturias; Volker Frank; Juliana Robledo; Carlos Sarti; Rolain Borel
atencion al rol que juegan los conflictos socio ambientales y su transformacion en la necesaria transformacion socio-ecologica. Los conflictos socio ambientales son una parte inherente de la crisis del sistema ecomomico actual. Hacen visibles las injusticias y las asimetrias de poder que se configuran en el orden politico y mundial y por lo tanto tienen mucho que aportar sobre las transformaciones necesarias desde la perspectiva de quienes viven mas de cerca y de forma directa los avatares de nuestra crisis socio-ambiental planetaria. Mas importante aun, los conflictos socio-ambientales tambien motorizan y catalizan la transformacion al confrontar y producir cambios sobre las asimetrias de poder que generan injusticias e inequidad en el uso del ambiente y los territorios. En este sentido hay tres temas que pueden brindar importantes elementos a las discusiones sobre la transformacion socio-ecologica de America Latina desde las ciudadanias. En primer lugar, ?Que son y que nos dicen los conflictos socio-ambientales sobre las transformaciones necesarias desde una perspectiva emancipadora que busca la construccion de mayor justicia social y ambiental y reduccion de violencias? En segundo lugar, ?Que es la transformacion de conflictos y como fortalecerla para avanzar hacia el logro de dicha justicia? En tercer lugar, ?como sabemos si vamos por buen camino en la construccion de esas transformaciones necesarias?
Conservationists' perspectives on poverty: An empirical study
(Wiley, 2020) Janet Fisher; Hari Dhungana; J. H. DUFFY; Jun He; Mirna Inturias; Ina Lehmann; Adrian Martin; David Mujasi Mwayafu; Iokiñe Rodríguez; Helen Schneider
Abstract Biodiversity conservation interventions have long confronted challenges of human poverty. The ethical foundations of international conservation, including conservation's relationship with poverty, are currently being interrogated in animated debates about the future of conservation. However, while some commentary exists, empirical analysis of conservation practitioner perspectives on poverty, and their ethical justification, has been lacking thus far. We used Q methodology complemented by more detailed qualitative analysis to examine empirically perspectives on poverty and conservation within the conservation movement, and compare these empirical discourses to positions within the literature. We sampled conservation practitioners in western headquartered organizations, and in Bolivia, China, Nepal and Uganda, thereby giving indications of these perspectives in Latin America, Asia and Africa. While there are some elements of consensus, for instance the principle that the poor should not shoulder the costs of conserving a global public good, the three elicited discourses diverge in a number of ways. Anthropocentrism and ecocentrism differentiate the perspectives, but beyond this, there are two distinct framings of poverty which conservation practitioners variously adhere to. The first prioritizes welfare, needs and sufficientarianism, and is more strongly associated with the China, Nepal and Uganda case studies. The second framing of poverty focuses much more on the need for ‘do no harm’ principles and safeguards, and follows an internationalized human rights‐oriented discourse. There are also important distinctions between discourses about whether poverty is characterized as a driver of degradation, or more emphasis is placed on overconsumption and affluence in perpetuating conservation threats. This dimension particularly illuminates shifts in thinking in the 30 or so years since the Brundtland report, and reflecting new global realities. This analysis serves to update, parse and clarify differing perspectives on poverty within the conservation, and broader environmental movement, to illuminate consensual aspects between perspectives, and reveal where critical differences remain. A free Plain Language Summary can be found within the Supporting Information of this article.
Decolonizing wildfire risk management: indigenous responses to fire criminalization policies and increasingly flammable forest landscapes in Lomerío, Bolivia
(Elsevier BV, 2023) Iokiñe Rodríguez; Mirna Inturias; Elmar Masay; Anacleto Peña
Drawing on decolonial thought, this article provides a perspective on local indigenous knowledge and governance systems as a resource for informing wildfire risk policy approaches and collaborative environmental security. In 2019, the Indigenous Territory of Lomerío in Bolivia was heavily affected by wildfires, due to a combination of fires that penetrated the territory from outside and others that spread from inside. As result, the Bolivian Forest Management Agency (ABT) started threatening indigenous people with criminal action for using fire in their livelihood practices. In response, in 2020 and with the support of several institutions, the Union of Indigenous Communities of Lomerío (CICOL) initiated a series of activities to ensure local control of wildfire risk management in the territory. These include a written burning protocol, a fire monitoring programme, water basin and forest conservation policies, participatory research conducted by indigenous researchers about the use of fire in Lomerío and cultural revitalization strategies. The article presents the results of these different strategies and their contributions to creating awareness of appropriate regulations for wildfire risk management by national authorities from the perspective of the Monkoxɨ indigenous people.
Engaging with environmental justice through conflict transformation: experiences in Latin America with Indigenous peoples
(Universidad de Granada, 2015) Iokiñe Rodríguez; Mirna Inturias; Juliana Robledo; Carlos Sarti; Rolain Borel; Ana Cabria Melace
Although environmental justice and conflict transformation have many common goals, they rarely talk to each other. In this article we try to bring these two bodies of knowledge closer with a discussion of the contributions that the theory and practice of conflict transformation offer to the field of environmental justice. In order to do so, it draws on an Environmental Conflict Transformation framework developed by <em>Grupo Confluencias</em>, a consortium of professionals from Latin America, who have been working since 2005 as a platform for deliberation, joint research and capacity building on this topic. Central to this framework is the focus on understanding the role that power dynamics and culture play in environmental conflicts and their transformation. We discuss this framework and its practical use in the light of ongoing experiences with indigenous peoples in Latin America, where <em>Grupo Confluencias</em> has been developing conflict transformation processes that seek to impact on hegemonic powers, in order to reduce the asymmetries and injustices that give rise to environmental conflicts. We emphasize, in particular, both the need and efficacy to create impacts, simultaneously or not, in three different spheres: people and networks, institutions and cultural power. We show that, through strengthening the power of agency of vulnerable actors, it is possible to produce a change in favor of a greater social and environmental justice in indigenous peoples’ territories.
Fair ways to share benefits from community forests? How commodification is associated with reduced preference for equality and poverty alleviation
(IOP Publishing, 2019) Adrian Martin; Bereket Kebede; Nicole Gross‐Camp; Jun He; Mirna Inturias; Iokiñe Rodríguez
Abstract This research is concerned with the trend towards commodification of forestry, in the context of community forest governance for sustainable development in the tropics. In these contexts, commodification takes different forms, including sales of certified timbers and sales of carbon credits. In addition to the general aim to enhance income, these market-based forestry interventions typically aim to align with sustainable development agendas, including (a) safeguarding ecological integrity and (b) promoting poverty alleviation. Our concern here is that the process of forest commodification might lead to a shift in local norms of benefit-sharing, in ways that can hinder these key components of sustainable development goals. We report the results of a survey ( N = 519) conducted across sites in Bolivia, China and Tanzania that shows that switching from non-monetary to monetary benefits is associated with changes in preferences for distributional fairness in ways that may be detrimental to the poor. In particular, we show that forest commodification is associated with a lower likelihood of selecting pro-poor or egalitarian approaches to benefit sharing and higher likelihood of selecting to distribute benefits in a way that rewards individual contributions or compensates losses.
Motley territories in a plurinational state: forest fires in the Bolivian Chiquitanía
(Taylor & Francis, 2021) Marie Jasser; Isabella M. Radhuber; Mirna Inturias
In August and September 2019, wildfires destroyed over 3 million hectares of forest in the Bolivian Chiquitanía. They were caused by slash-and-burn land clearance techniques used to prepare land for agriculture. In this article, we examine how the forest fires constitute a way of making territory, paying particular attention to how underlying relations of power have historically shaped territories in the region. We trace the actors and social relations of power that have historically developed in the region from the 17th century to today, putting an emphasis on the necessity to expand the temporal lens through which we analyse struggles over territory in Latin America. The Chiquitanía region is an illustrative case study, as it reflects Bolivia’s highly diverse society, revealing multiple, simultaneously existing territorialised social relations, which we conceptually grasp as motley territories. We define motley territories as diverse territorialised social relations that were established in different epochs but continue to coexist in often unarticulated ways. We argue that the state-sanctioned appropriation of slash-and-burn practices by landowners is a mechanism to integrate more land into the agricultural frontier while rendering other forms of inhabiting those motley territories more difficult.
Territorios, justicias y autonomías:Un diálogo desde los gobiernos autónomos indígenas de Bolivia
(University of East Anglia, 2019) Mirna Inturias; Iokiñe Rodríguez
The Type of Land We Want: Exploring the Limits of Community Forestry in Tanzania and Bolivia
(Multidisciplinary Digital Publishing Institute, 2019) Nicole Gross‐Camp; Iokiñe Rodríguez; Adrian Martin; Mirna Inturias; Glory Massao
We explore local people’s perspectives of community forest (CF) on their land in Tanzania and Bolivia. Community forest management is known to improve ecological conditions of forests, but is more variable in its social outcomes. Understanding communities’ experience of community forestry and the potential benefits and burdens its formation may place on a community will likely help in predicting its sustainability as a forest and land management model. Six villages, two in Tanzania and four in Bolivia, were selected based on the presence of community forestry in varying stages. We found that communities were generally supportive of existing community forests but cautious of their expansion. Deeper explorations of this response using ethnographic research methods reveal that an increase in community forest area is associated with increasing opportunity costs and constraints on agricultural land use, but not an increase in benefits. Furthermore, community forests give rise to a series of intra- and inter-community conflicts, often pertaining to the financial benefits stemming from the forests (distribution issues), perceived unfairness and weakness in decision–making processes (procedure/participation), and also tensions over cultural identity issues (recognition). Our findings suggest that communities’ willingness to accept community forests requires a broader consideration of the multifunctional landscape in which it is embedded, as well as an engagement with the justice tensions such an intervention inevitably creates.