Counter-Hegemonic Narratives and the Politics of Plurality: Problematising Global Environmental Governance from Latin America through the Case of Bolivia

Michela Coletta,Malayna Raftopoulos

doi:10.16993/iberoamericana.429

Abstract

This article seeks to problematise current frameworks of global environmental governance by examining how the neoliberal model continues to rely on the state to suppress plurinational justice. Firstly, it discusses the creation of counter-hegemonic discourses through the emergence of new centres of epistemic production. Secondly, it analyses the ways in which these narratives interact, or fail to interact, with state policies on a local, national and international level through the case study of Evo Morales’ Bolivia. The article argues that one of main challenges confronting environmental governance will be to reformulate sovereignty as an epistemic and relational – as well as political and territorial – set of relationships.

Highlights

Durham and London: Duke University Press.Walsh, C. 2009
The article problematises current frameworks of global environmental governance by bringing to light some of the ways in which the neoliberal model continues to rely on the state to suppress plurinational justice and argues that, as Latin American decolonial movements show, a future challenge will be to reformulate sovereignty as an epistemic and relational – as well as political and territorial – set of relationships
While the decoloniality of knowledge opens up new possibilities for different epistemic and political conceptions of nature, there are, as Mignolo notes, many ‘issues that emerge from the analytic of the coloniality of nature and in decolonial thinking and doing on environmental issues’ (2011: 10)

Summary

RESEARCH ARTICLE

Counter-Hegemonic Narratives and the Politics of Plurality: Problematising Global Environmental Governance from Latin America through the Case of Bolivia. The article problematises current frameworks of global environmental governance by bringing to light some of the ways in which the neoliberal model continues to rely on the state to suppress plurinational justice and argues that, as Latin American decolonial movements show, a future challenge will be to reformulate sovereignty as an epistemic and relational – as well as political and territorial – set of relationships. While the decoloniality of knowledge opens up new possibilities for different epistemic and political conceptions of nature, there are, as Mignolo notes, many ‘issues that emerge from the analytic of the coloniality of nature (that is, its control and management) and in decolonial thinking and doing on environmental issues’ (2011: 10) It is questionable how ecological challenges, such as climate change and natural resource management, can be addressed when, according to western thought, they can only be framed within the Cartesian epistemological and ontological model which is grounded in the idea that nature is an unlimited resource, devoid of any rights (de Sousa Santos 2014). Morales himself sought to answer this question during the meeting by arguing that ‘it is our obligation to take care of the environment, to Mother Earth and with technology there are so many ways of taking care of the environment’ (Mamani 2018)

Conclusion

Agriculture and the Origins of the European World