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“If they are going to kill us anyway, we might as well die in our lands.” With these words and a shrug of shoulders, a leader of the Unified Peasant Movement of the Aguán (MUCA) explains their decision to occupy more than 20,000 hectares of oil palm plantations in the Bajo Aguán region in Northern Honduras after the military coup that ousted President Manuel Zelaya on June 28, 2009. The Coup under the Palm Trees interrogates the Honduran present, through an exploration of the country’s spatiotemporal trajectory of agrarian change since the mid-twentieth century. It tells the double history of how the Aguán region went from a set of “empty” lands to the centerpiece of the country...
The Routledge Handbook of Latin America and the Environment provides an in-depth and accessible analysis and theorization of environmental issues in the region. It will help readers make connections between Latin American and other regions’ perspectives, experiences, and environmental concerns. Latin America has seen an acceleration of environmental degradation due to the expansion of resource extraction and urban areas. This Handbook addresses Latin America not only as an object of study, but also as a region with a long and profound history of critical thinking on these themes. Furthermore, the Handbook departs from most treatments on the topic by studying the environment as a social iss...
This book marks a critical contribution to the intercultural dialogue about immigration. Each year, thousands of Central Americans leave their countries and walk across Mexico, seeking to reach the United States. The author explores the dispossession process that drives these migrants from their homes and argues that they are caught in a kind of trap: forced to emigrate, but impeded to immigrate. This trap is discussed empirically through the analysis of immigration policies implemented by the United States government and ethnographic fieldwork carried out in some of “albergues” (shelters).
Without the State explores the 2013–14 Euromaidan protests – a wave of demonstrations and civil unrest in Ukraine – through in-depth ethnographic research with leftist, feminist, and student activists in Kyiv. The book discusses the concept of "self-organization" and the notion that if something needs to be done and a person has the competence to do it, then they should simply do it. Emily Channell-Justice reveals how self-organization in Ukraine came out of leftist practices but actors from across the spectrum of political views also adopted self-organization over the course of Euromaidan, including far-right groups. The widespread adoption of self-organization encouraged Ukrainians t...
Launched in 2004, the Latin American regional institution of ALBA (Alianza Bolivariana para los Pueblos de Nuestra América: Bolivarian Alliance for the Peoples of Our America) sought to overcome the historical legacies of neocolonial domination by consecrating the values of cooperation, inclusive development, and popular power. As part of a region-wide effort among states and social movements to break out of the the destructive effects of capitalist agriculture, the elevation of food sovereignty—based on the protection of rural livelihoods, land redistribution, and sustainable agricultural production (agroecology)—became a cornerstone of ALBA’s development policy. And yet, these regio...
In 1986 the Compact of Free Association marked the formal end of U.S. colonialism in the Republic of the Marshall Islands, while simultaneously re-entrenching imperial power dynamics between the two countries. The U.S.-RMI Compact at once enshrined exclusive U.S. military access to the islands and established the right of “visa-free” migration to the United States for Marshallese citizens, leading to a Marshallese diaspora whose largest population resettled in the seemingly unlikely destination of Springdale, Arkansas. An “all-white town” by design for much of the twentieth century, Springdale, having nearly quadrupled in population since 1980, has been remade by Marshallese as well ...
The future of Honduras begins and ends on the white sand beaches of Tela Bay on the country's northeastern coast where Garifuna, a Black Indigenous people, have resided for over two hundred years. In The Ends of Paradise, Christopher A. Loperena examines the Garifuna struggle for life and collective autonomy, and demonstrates how this struggle challenges concerted efforts by the state and multilateral institutions, such as the World Bank, to render both their lands and their culture into fungible tourism products. Using a combination of participant observation, courtroom ethnography, and archival research, Loperena reveals how purportedly inclusive tourism projects form part of a larger neol...
"Green City Rising is an ethnographic account of collective organizing for environmental justice in an era of growing concern about environmental and climate challenges. The conventional sustainability paradigm promises improved environmental conditions for all, such as fresh air and clean water, walkable and bikeable neighborhoods, green space access, and protection from climate crises. Yet, without particular interventions, the pursuit of such environmental amenities often contributes to displacement and further harm for communities that have historically borne the brunt of land theft, racial capitalism, and toxic industries. Drawing on the work of an alliance of grassroots organizations called the Portland Harbor Community Coalition (PHCC), Erin Goodling shows how communities have come together across lines of race and class to work for a more just, green future in Portland, Oregon. Green City Rising reveals that the violence of settler colonialism and white supremacy are far from endpoints: a collective vision for a better future is emerging, and ordinary people are building the understanding, skills, and relationships necessary to usher it in"--
"The Coup under the Palm Trees interrogates the Honduran present, through an exploration of the country's spatiotemporal trajectory of agrarian change since the mid-20th Century. It tells the double history of how the Aguán region went from a set of "empty" lands to the centerpiece of the country's agrarian reform in the 1980s and a central site for the palm oil industry and drug trade; while militarized process of state formation between the military coups of 1963 and 2009 took place. Rather than a case of "failed democratic transition", the book shows how the current Honduran crisis, exemplified by massive outmigration towards the US, blatant narco-state links and the 2009 coup, is better understood within longer historical processes in which violence, exclusion and dispossession became the central organizational principles of the state"--