TY - JOUR

T1 - “We Are All Indigenous!” Insurgent Universality on the Extractive Frontier

AU - Wilson, Japhy

PY - 2022/5/30

Y1 - 2022/5/30

N2 - This paper tells the inside story of a spontaneous uprising in the Ecuadorian Amazon in 2017, in which mestizo, Afro-descendant and Indigenous workers and communities confronted the combined forces of a multinational oil company and a militarized state. The paper documents a rapidly evolving battle that achieved a remarkable victory, and bears witness to the fleeting emergence of an insurgent form of political universality. It suggests that the decolonial dichotomy between top-down universalism and a bottom-up pluriverse should be replaced by an approach that is attentive to manifestations of universality performed by subaltern subjects in their confrontations with extractive capital.

AB - This paper tells the inside story of a spontaneous uprising in the Ecuadorian Amazon in 2017, in which mestizo, Afro-descendant and Indigenous workers and communities confronted the combined forces of a multinational oil company and a militarized state. The paper documents a rapidly evolving battle that achieved a remarkable victory, and bears witness to the fleeting emergence of an insurgent form of political universality. It suggests that the decolonial dichotomy between top-down universalism and a bottom-up pluriverse should be replaced by an approach that is attentive to manifestations of universality performed by subaltern subjects in their confrontations with extractive capital.

U2 - 10.1080/10455752.2022.2081926

DO - 10.1080/10455752.2022.2081926

M3 - Article

VL - 33

SP - 120

EP - 137

JO - Capitalism Nature Socialism

JF - Capitalism Nature Socialism

IS - 3

ER -