Games of Power in the fight Against Extractivism in the South of Orinoco, Venezuela

Abstract

Transformation is in fashion in this climate of global environmental crisis. We are increasingly aware that if we want to guarantee the life of human beings and other species on the Planet, our way of life and the development model must change, and quickly. In this paper we focus on citizen led transformations by examining the role that socio-environmental conflicts and resistance struggles against extractivism play in the necessary socio-ecological transformation. We focus on a case study in Venezuela: the construction of a high-voltage power line between 1997 and 2000 to export electricity to Brazil, which had its epicenter in the Canaima National Park (PNC) and ancestral territory of the Pemon people and marked the beginning of the fight against the advance of mining in this area. We use an analytical framework focused on power to understand the successes and failures of the various resistance strategies carried out by the indigenous Pemon people, through the most dissimilar forms of intercultural negotiation with the Venezuelan State, to confront an era of neo-colonialism in their territories. We demonstrate that despite important changes in the political, legal and regulatory frameworks resulting from Pemon resistance struggles that give greater recognition to the rights of indigenous peoples, the Venezuelan State has ended up using the transformative power of conflicts to advance an aggressive extractivist agenda that threatens the physical and cultural survival of the Pemon and other indigenous peoples in the South of the Orinoco.