Body-territories of extraction: what Indigenous epistemology can teach us about oil extraction , territories, and human interconnection

Session: Environmental Justice, Environmental Work, and Resilience
Type: Mixed Paper Session

Abstract

Kichwa women living in the northern Ecuadorian Amazon resist oil extractive activities and state-sanctioned violence by producing and reproducing dreams and storytelling as survival and solidarity tools. Such ways of knowing blur the human-nature divide in ways in which women identify their bodies as extensions of their territories, while also recognizing the violence that oil extractive activities bring to their territories and other landscapes across regions.

I draw from post-colonial theory, feminist political ecology, decolonial praxis, and Indigenous thought to further elaborate ‘body-territories of extraction.’ I propose using this concept as a methodology to think about our bodies not only as extensions of our territories but also as constitutive of extractive practices that directly impact our livelihoods in urban areas. Body-territories of extraction allow us to become acutely aware of the links between urban survival, Indigenous survival, and oil extractive activities across regions.

Authors