Indigenous environmentalism: For a political economy where people (and planet) matter

Abstract

This article investigates how well E. F. Schumacher’s ideas travel beyond his own time and place. To do so, I contrast the environmental critique offered by Schumacher in Small is Beautiful with contemporary forms of everyday environmentalism provided by Indigenous communities in Latin America that form part of a response to processes of ongoing territorial dispossession. In exploring how well Schumacher’s ideas travel to Latin America, I argue that there are seemingly a significant number of similarities between these forms of environmental politics. However, they can be understood in two different registers. I submit that Schumacher’s environmental critique and political project remains at the level of idealism and contains a variety of elements that remain contradictory for a progressive praxis. By contrast, Indigenous environmentalism in Latin America offers a materially-grounded, structural critique of colonialism that concomitantly offers a new notion of a community-based revolutionary subject. It therefore provides a stronger basis for realising many of the goals Schumacher had in mind. Nevertheless, I conclude that whilst important and necessary, this mode of resistance remains insufficient on its own to achieve an alternative political economy where people and planet matter. For this to be realised, a more encompassing counter movement remains vital. The mantra of ‘small is beautiful’, therefore, still needs to grasp the scale of the ecological crisis.