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This chapter examines international and national forces that shaped Ecuador’s environmentalism during the height of neoliberalism. It looks at how the international environmental discourse of “sustainable development” interfaced with the international economic hegemony of neoliberalism. During the boom years, international, national and local concerns coalesced to create growth in the environmental movement sector in terms of both the number and types of organizations. Ecoimperialist organizations used their transnational funding to grow ecodependent organizations (NGOization), which altered their structures to become more professional and to conserve important habitats. The negative impact of the ecoimperialist funding was that the local ecodependent organizations’ agendas were channelled by foreign forces and competition among Ecuadorian groups for funding weakened solidarity within the national movement, preventing a collective approach that would be critical of the extractive development trajectory. Nevertheless, ecoimperialists and ecodependents forged an alliance to fill the void left by the state, weakened by its own decisions and by international economic actors. The state took some token steps toward sustainable development, but overall, neoliberalism ruled the day and Ecuador resorted to natural resource extractive development. Under the radar, grassroots movements led by indigenous groups and ecoresisters generated alternative possibilities for the nation’s future development.

Chapter 1 provides an overview of the volume and outlines the research question, the argument, and the methodological approach. The volume combines three broader discussions: the first one concerning the GJM, the Occupy Movement, and the World Social Forum process; the second one concerning international non-governmental organizations ([I]NGOs) in relation to the United Nations and the World Bank; and the third one concerning Dalit activists and Dalit feminists in South Asia working in collaboration with Burakumin activists in Japan. In this chapter the author positions her discussion within these three scholarly debates. She also points out links between the social movements in South Asia and Japan and social movements in other regions, such as the United States, Latin America, and Europe. The methods of transnational fieldwork and the intricate relation between activists and scholars are discussed at length.

This chapter includes the primary data collected on anganwadis in the NCR, and a study of the interviews of the anganwadi workers in selected areas of the NCR. The chapter is based on qualitative interviews with the workers and helpers of the anganwadis in the selected areas and also includes information and views based on the interviews with anganwadi union leaders. It has a critical analysis of the findings from the primary literature and from the field work. The chapter analyses the issues and concerns raised by the workers and discusses the honorarium, appointments, and issues around other benefits of the workers and also the politics of caste, class and gender around anganwadis, the issue of privatization and NGOization and the rise of Health Hub anganwadis, and so on to see the conditions in which anganwadis are functioning today in the NCR.

This chapter examines responsibility, motivation, and the professional positioning of women who work on gender issues or support women specifically, either for organizations that operate internationally or for local organizations with migrant women. The chapter argues that the women’s sense of responsibility is simultaneously articulated through sameness and difference, mirroring the contradictions around alterity in “global citizenship.” The chapter demonstrates that women’s desire to provide others with similar opportunities disregards global relations between privilege and marginalization. The chapter subsequently shows how they engage in (re)drawing the gendered boundaries between the public and the private to give meaning to their work practices and to position themselves as both passionate and professional workers. The final section discusses how decisions related to location are explained and justified by women who work in the global North to support women in the global South in the light of a broader discourse on distance and morality.