Tammy L. Lewis
- Published in print:
- 2016
- Published Online:
- January 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780262034296
- eISBN:
- 9780262333382
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- The MIT Press
- DOI:
- 10.7551/mitpress/9780262034296.001.0001
- Subject:
- Environmental Science, Environmental Studies
Ecuador is biologically diverse, petroleum rich, and economically poor. Its extraordinary biodiversity has attracted attention and funding from such transnational environmental organizations as ...
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Ecuador is biologically diverse, petroleum rich, and economically poor. Its extraordinary biodiversity has attracted attention and funding from such transnational environmental organizations as Conservation International, the World Wildlife Fund, and the United States Agency for International Development. In Ecuador itself there are more than 200 environmental groups dedicated to sustainable development, and the country’s 2008 constitution grants rights to nature. The current leftist government is committed both to lifting its people out of poverty and pursuing sustainable development; but petroleum extraction is Ecuador’s leading source of revenue. While extraction generates economic growth, which supports the state’s social welfare agenda, it also causes environmental destruction. Given these competing concerns, will Ecuador be able to achieve sustainability? In this book, Tammy Lewis examines the movement for sustainable development in Ecuador through four eras: movement origins (1978–1987), neoliberal boom (1987–2000), neoliberal bust (2000–2006), and citizens’ revolution (2006–2015). Lewis presents a typology of Ecuador’s environmental organizations: ecoimperialists, transnational environmentalists from other countries; ecodependents, national groups that partner with transnational groups; and ecoresisters, home-grown environmentalists who reject the dominant development paradigm. She examines the interplay of transnational funding, the Ecuadorian environmental movement, and the state’s environmental and development policies. Along the way, addressing literatures in environmental sociology, social movements, and development studies, she explores what configuration of forces—political, economic, and environmental—is most likely to lead to a sustainable balance between the social system and the ecosystem.Less
Ecuador is biologically diverse, petroleum rich, and economically poor. Its extraordinary biodiversity has attracted attention and funding from such transnational environmental organizations as Conservation International, the World Wildlife Fund, and the United States Agency for International Development. In Ecuador itself there are more than 200 environmental groups dedicated to sustainable development, and the country’s 2008 constitution grants rights to nature. The current leftist government is committed both to lifting its people out of poverty and pursuing sustainable development; but petroleum extraction is Ecuador’s leading source of revenue. While extraction generates economic growth, which supports the state’s social welfare agenda, it also causes environmental destruction. Given these competing concerns, will Ecuador be able to achieve sustainability? In this book, Tammy Lewis examines the movement for sustainable development in Ecuador through four eras: movement origins (1978–1987), neoliberal boom (1987–2000), neoliberal bust (2000–2006), and citizens’ revolution (2006–2015). Lewis presents a typology of Ecuador’s environmental organizations: ecoimperialists, transnational environmentalists from other countries; ecodependents, national groups that partner with transnational groups; and ecoresisters, home-grown environmentalists who reject the dominant development paradigm. She examines the interplay of transnational funding, the Ecuadorian environmental movement, and the state’s environmental and development policies. Along the way, addressing literatures in environmental sociology, social movements, and development studies, she explores what configuration of forces—political, economic, and environmental—is most likely to lead to a sustainable balance between the social system and the ecosystem.
Tammy L. Lewis
- Published in print:
- 2016
- Published Online:
- January 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780262034296
- eISBN:
- 9780262333382
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- The MIT Press
- DOI:
- 10.7551/mitpress/9780262034296.003.0008
- Subject:
- Environmental Science, Environmental Studies
The concluding chapter summarizes the changes in the Ecuadorian environmental movement from 1978-2015. The movement grew, diversified, struggled and radicalized. The state expanded its conception of ...
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The concluding chapter summarizes the changes in the Ecuadorian environmental movement from 1978-2015. The movement grew, diversified, struggled and radicalized. The state expanded its conception of development beyond economic goals to include social and environmental goals. The impetus for that shift came from social actors working within Ecuador. Lessons from Ecuador are expanded to a general discussion of how the interplay of transnational funders, civil society and states affect development paths, and specifically what Allan Schnaiberg called the nature-society dialectic. Hypotheses related to environmental sociology, transnational social movements, and the sociology of development are laid out. The book concludes that neoliberalism was not conducive to sustainability. Alternatives to neoliberal development models arose when the state was least constrained by the international political economy. Under both capitalist and socialist leadership, Ecuador struggled with the fundamental contradictions of economic growth–the central driving logic of the treadmill of production. This was evident as the trade-offs among economic growth, social justice, and environmental protection shifted throughout the four periods. Alternatives to traditional development, such as Ecuador’s plan for buen vivir, rewrite the goals for development and offer some hope for an ecological synthesis of the human-nature dynamic.Less
The concluding chapter summarizes the changes in the Ecuadorian environmental movement from 1978-2015. The movement grew, diversified, struggled and radicalized. The state expanded its conception of development beyond economic goals to include social and environmental goals. The impetus for that shift came from social actors working within Ecuador. Lessons from Ecuador are expanded to a general discussion of how the interplay of transnational funders, civil society and states affect development paths, and specifically what Allan Schnaiberg called the nature-society dialectic. Hypotheses related to environmental sociology, transnational social movements, and the sociology of development are laid out. The book concludes that neoliberalism was not conducive to sustainability. Alternatives to neoliberal development models arose when the state was least constrained by the international political economy. Under both capitalist and socialist leadership, Ecuador struggled with the fundamental contradictions of economic growth–the central driving logic of the treadmill of production. This was evident as the trade-offs among economic growth, social justice, and environmental protection shifted throughout the four periods. Alternatives to traditional development, such as Ecuador’s plan for buen vivir, rewrite the goals for development and offer some hope for an ecological synthesis of the human-nature dynamic.
Erik Swyngedouw
- Published in print:
- 2015
- Published Online:
- September 2015
- ISBN:
- 9780262029032
- eISBN:
- 9780262326957
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- The MIT Press
- DOI:
- 10.7551/mitpress/9780262029032.001.0001
- Subject:
- Environmental Science, Environmental Studies
In this book, Erik Swyngedouw explores how water becomes part of the tumultuous processes of modernization and development. Using the experience of Spain as a lens to view the interplay of modernity ...
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In this book, Erik Swyngedouw explores how water becomes part of the tumultuous processes of modernization and development. Using the experience of Spain as a lens to view the interplay of modernity and environmental transformation, Swyngedouw shows that every political project is also an environmental project. In 1898, Spain lost its last overseas colony, triggering a period of post-imperialist turmoil still referred to as El Disastre. Turning inward, the nation embarked on “regeneration” and modernization. Water played a central role in this; during a turbulent period from the twentieth century into the twenty-first -- through the Franco years and into the new era of liberal democracy -- Spain’s waterscapes were completely transformed, with large-scale projects that ranged from dam construction to irrigation to desalinization. Swyngedouw describes the contested political-ecological process that marked this transformation, showing that the Spain’s diverse and contested paths to modernization were predicated on particular trajectories of environmental transformation. After laying out his theoretical perspectives, Swyngedouw analyzes three periods of Spain’s political-ecological modernization: the aspirations and stalled modernization of the early twentieth century; the accelerated efforts under the authoritarian Franco regime -- which included six hundred dams, expanded hydroelectricity, and massive irrigation; and the changing hydro-social landscape under social democracy. Offering an innovative perspective on the relationship of nature and society, Liquid Power illuminates the political nature of nature.Less
In this book, Erik Swyngedouw explores how water becomes part of the tumultuous processes of modernization and development. Using the experience of Spain as a lens to view the interplay of modernity and environmental transformation, Swyngedouw shows that every political project is also an environmental project. In 1898, Spain lost its last overseas colony, triggering a period of post-imperialist turmoil still referred to as El Disastre. Turning inward, the nation embarked on “regeneration” and modernization. Water played a central role in this; during a turbulent period from the twentieth century into the twenty-first -- through the Franco years and into the new era of liberal democracy -- Spain’s waterscapes were completely transformed, with large-scale projects that ranged from dam construction to irrigation to desalinization. Swyngedouw describes the contested political-ecological process that marked this transformation, showing that the Spain’s diverse and contested paths to modernization were predicated on particular trajectories of environmental transformation. After laying out his theoretical perspectives, Swyngedouw analyzes three periods of Spain’s political-ecological modernization: the aspirations and stalled modernization of the early twentieth century; the accelerated efforts under the authoritarian Franco regime -- which included six hundred dams, expanded hydroelectricity, and massive irrigation; and the changing hydro-social landscape under social democracy. Offering an innovative perspective on the relationship of nature and society, Liquid Power illuminates the political nature of nature.
Erik Swyngedouw
- Published in print:
- 2015
- Published Online:
- September 2015
- ISBN:
- 9780262029032
- eISBN:
- 9780262326957
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- The MIT Press
- DOI:
- 10.7551/mitpress/9780262029032.003.0005
- Subject:
- Environmental Science, Environmental Studies
Chapter five documents the post-Civil War developments. It focuses on how General Franco’s ideological-political mission was predicated upon cultural and material national territorial integration, ...
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Chapter five documents the post-Civil War developments. It focuses on how General Franco’s ideological-political mission was predicated upon cultural and material national territorial integration, the eradication of regionalist aspirations and a concerted discursive and physical process of cultural and material national(ist) homogenization and modernization. Attention is paid to the political enrolling of diverse interests and social actors (peasants, capital, engineers, scientists) in a hegemonic assemblage that supported the hydraulic transformation of the country. In addition, the mobilization of water in a particular socio-political discourse, and integrated within a supporting cultural vision, is documented. Finally, the chapter shows how Spain’s geo-political isolation and limited economic-financial capacity prevented the full implementation of the program during the first decade and a half of fascist rule.Less
Chapter five documents the post-Civil War developments. It focuses on how General Franco’s ideological-political mission was predicated upon cultural and material national territorial integration, the eradication of regionalist aspirations and a concerted discursive and physical process of cultural and material national(ist) homogenization and modernization. Attention is paid to the political enrolling of diverse interests and social actors (peasants, capital, engineers, scientists) in a hegemonic assemblage that supported the hydraulic transformation of the country. In addition, the mobilization of water in a particular socio-political discourse, and integrated within a supporting cultural vision, is documented. Finally, the chapter shows how Spain’s geo-political isolation and limited economic-financial capacity prevented the full implementation of the program during the first decade and a half of fascist rule.
