Promoting and defending the rights of nature in Ecuador : $$b divergent environmentalisms and counter-hegemonies

Abstract

This thesis contributes to academic knowledge on the subject of the rights of nature, both in Ecuadorian and international contexts. Current literature on the rights of nature in Ecuador largely focuses on their significance in as much as they mark a radical shift away from conventional methods of development, with scarce attention being paid to the forms of activism and varying cultural politics that exist at the forefront of the rights of nature issue. I analyse and discuss these processes of environmental activism which are predicated upon the promotion and defense of the rights of nature, particularly regarding the dynamics between activists operating across and within different geographical scales. The research utilised ethnographic methods over a period of ten months fieldwork in Ecuador, obtaining data via participant observation and semi-structured interviews with a variety of rights of nature activists, ranging from NGOs to student groups. This is supplemented with a discourse analysis of the 108 documents produced thus far by the United Nations Harmony with Nature project. The thesis makes 5 fundamental claims: 1) Grassroots rights of nature activism in Ecuador is fundamentally anti-state in its character, but is also diverse. 2) Grassroots rights of nature activism in Ecuador is predicated on material issues, such as security, territory, and human rights. 3) Grassroots rights of nature activism in Ecuador is deeply embedded within the state-society-extractivism nexus. 4) International rights of nature activists “scale-up” the rights of nature according to environmentalist values more characteristic of the global north than the global south, such as the intrinsic value of nature, universalism, and an agenda of “biocentrism”. 5) International rights of nature activists appropriate and misrepresent the case of the rights of nature in Ecuador in order to promote the rights of nature as a successful and viable political project.