TY - JOUR

T1 - Perplexing Entanglements with a Post-Neoliberal State

AU - Wilson, Japhy

PY - 2017/4/1

Y1 - 2017/4/1

N2 - An enormous abstract condor of concrete, glass, and steel soars above the humble dwellings on a roadside leaving Quito. This is the headquarters of the United Nations of South American States (UNASUR), constructed by the Ecuadorian government at a cost of over US$50 million. UNASUR was created in 2008, at the highpoint of twenty first century socialism, and the condor stands as a symbol of Latin American liberation from the eagle of US empire. Since the election of Rafael Correa Delgado as President of Ecuador in 2006, the “Citizens’ Revolution” has cast itself as one of the more radical of the post-neoliberal experiments underway in the region. In 2008, a new constitution was framed in terms of the kichwa indigenous principle of sumak kawsay (Buen Vivir, or “Good Living”), and Ecuador became the frst nation in the world to recognise “the rights of nature.” The most recent National Development Plan challenges “capitalism… which is premised on accumulation, regardless of how this is achieved,” and promotes “the dismantling of the bourgeois state”; “the egalitarian redistribution of resources”; and the inclusive participation of the indigenous peoples of Ecuador, who will fnally cease to be “objects of ‘civilization’, indoctrination, and colonial subordination” SENPLADES 2013).

AB - An enormous abstract condor of concrete, glass, and steel soars above the humble dwellings on a roadside leaving Quito. This is the headquarters of the United Nations of South American States (UNASUR), constructed by the Ecuadorian government at a cost of over US$50 million. UNASUR was created in 2008, at the highpoint of twenty first century socialism, and the condor stands as a symbol of Latin American liberation from the eagle of US empire. Since the election of Rafael Correa Delgado as President of Ecuador in 2006, the “Citizens’ Revolution” has cast itself as one of the more radical of the post-neoliberal experiments underway in the region. In 2008, a new constitution was framed in terms of the kichwa indigenous principle of sumak kawsay (Buen Vivir, or “Good Living”), and Ecuador became the frst nation in the world to recognise “the rights of nature.” The most recent National Development Plan challenges “capitalism… which is premised on accumulation, regardless of how this is achieved,” and promotes “the dismantling of the bourgeois state”; “the egalitarian redistribution of resources”; and the inclusive participation of the indigenous peoples of Ecuador, who will fnally cease to be “objects of ‘civilization’, indoctrination, and colonial subordination” SENPLADES 2013).

M3 - Article

VL - 16

SP - 177

EP - 184

JO - Journal of Latin American Geography

JF - Journal of Latin American Geography

SN - 1545-2476

IS - 1

ER -