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Abstract
The article scrutinises the struggles over prior consultation and free, prior and informed consent (FPIC) and analyses the divergent interpretations of what this right would entail in Bolivia. Similar contestations have played an important role in resource conflicts across Latin America. Using rich empirical data, the article discusses (1) disputes over legal norms regulating this participatory right, (2) related claims to territorial control and resource sovereignty, and (3) consultation participants’ constrained influence. In doing so, it focuses on the Guaraní’s diverse attempts to shape consultation processes and their outcomes according to their own ends and shows how many of these initiatives have been curtailed.
Acknowledgements
I would like to thank Magaly Barba and the Centro de Estudios Jurídicos e Investigación Social (CEJIS) for sharing their vast knowledge and experience on prior consultation and indigenous rights in Bolivia. I also thank Riccarda Flemmer for her useful comments on an earlier version of this paper.
Notes
1. Anaya, “Extractive Industries and Indigenous Peoples.”
2. See Laplante and Spears, “Out of the Conflict Zone”; Vermeulen and Cotula, “Over the Heads of Local People”; Walter and Urkidi, “Community Mining Consultations in Latin America.”
3. Sousa Santos, “Law: A Map of Misreading,” 297–8.
4. Benda-Beckmann, “Legal Pluralism and Social Justice,” 49. See also Weitzner’s contribution in this volume.
5. Flemmer, “Lost in Translation”; Fontana and Grugel, “Politics of Indigenous Participation”; Schilling-Vacaflor and Flemmer, “Conflict Transformation through Prior Consultation?”; Szablowski “Operationalizing Free, Prior and Informed Consent.”
6. Amparo Rodríguez, “La consulta previa con pueblos indígenas”; Bascopé Sanjínes, “Lecciones Aprendidas sobre Consulta Previa”; Flemmer and Schilling-Vacaflor, “Unfulfilled Promises of the Consultation Approach”; Schilling-Vacaflor, “Prior Consultations in Plurinational Bolivia.”
7. Haarstad, “Cross-Scalar Dynamics of the Resource Curse.”
8. Humphreys Bebbington, “Consultation, Compensation and Conflict”; Pellegrini and Arismendi, “Consultation, Compensation and Extraction in Bolivia”; Schilling-Vacaflor, “Rethinking the Link between Consultation and Conflict”; Schilling-Vacaflor and Flemmer, “Conflict Transformation through Prior Consultation?”
9. Cornwall, “Spaces for Transformation?”
10. Arnstein, “Ladder of Citizen Participation.”
11. Interview with Ribera Arismendi, NGO Liga de Defensa del Medio Ambiente (LIDEMA), La Paz, 5 February 2014; field notes from participatory observation, Santa Cruz, 13 November 2015.
12. Rodríguez-Garavito, “Ethnicity.gov.”
13. Ministerio de Hidrocarburos y Energía, Informes Finales.
14. Falleti and Riofrancos, “Participatory Democracy in Latin America”; Schumann, Interpreting Law.
15. Sarfaty, “World Bank and the Internalization.”
16. Barelli, “Free, Prior and Informed Consent,” 10–11.
17. Szablowski “Operationalizing Free, Prior and Informed Consent.”
18. Ibid.
19. Ibid.
20. Wilson, Human Rights, Culture & Context, 23.
21. Levitt and Merry, “Vernacularization on the Ground.”
22. Goodale “Locating Right, Envisioning Law,” 4–25.
23. Gaventa, “Towards Participatory Governance,” 34.
24. Hickey and Mohan, “Participation: From Tyranny to Transformation?”
25. McNeish, Logan and Borchgrevink, “Introduction: Recovering Power.” See also introduction, McNeish’s and Weitzner’s contribution in this volume.
26. Simpson, “Subjects of Sovereignty.”
27. Coulthard, “Red Skins, White Masks.”
28. Kohl and Farthing, “Material Constraints to Popular Imaginaries.”
29. Ibid.
30. Burchardt and Dietz, “(Neo-)Extractivism – a New Challenge.”; see also Gustafson, “Amid Gas.”
31. Andreucci and Radhuber, “Limits to ‘Counter-neoliberal’ Reform.”
32. Schilling-Vacaflor, “‘If the Company Belongs to You.’”
33. See contributions from Gustafsson and McNeish in this volume.
34. Postero, Now We Are Citizens.
35. Colque and Chumacero “Informe 2010.”
36. Hale, “Neoliberal Multiculturalism.”
37. Tockman and Cameron, “Indigenous Autonomy”; Kröger and Lalander, “Ethno-territorial Rights.”
38. VII Comisión Nacional, Anteproyecto de Ley de Consulta Previa.
39. APG, Anteproyecto de Ley Marco de Consulta.
40. Sousa Santos and Rodríguez-Garavito, “Law and Globalisation from Below”; Eckert et al., “Law against the State.”
41. VII Comisión Nacional, Anteproyecto de Ley de Consulta Previa.
42. APG, Resolución de la Nación Guaraní, https://www.servindi.org/actualidad/137,022.
43. Quotation from newspaper (Erbol, 12 July 2015).
44. Merry, “Anthropology, Law, and Transnational Processes,” 360.
45. APG, “Hacia la Asamblea Constituyente.”
46. Anaya, Extractive Industries and Indigenous Peoples, 6.
47. APG, Plan de Vida Guaraní, 60.
48. Interviews, Takovo Mora, November 2013 and November 2014.
49. Defensoría del Pueblo, Informe Defensorial.
50. Ministerio de Hidrocarburos y Energía, Informes Finales.
51. Interviews with national APG representatives, Camiri, November 2013; interviews in the capitanía Parapitiguasu, October and November 2013, and Takovo Mora, November 2014.
52. on Itika Guasu’s recent contentious history see Anthias, “Territorializing Resource Conflicts.”
54. See, for example, CLACSO, Cronología del Conflicto Social.
55. See articles from Leifsen, Sánchez Vásquez and Reyes; Lawrence and Kløcker Larsen; and O’Faircheallaigh in this volume.
56. Kirsch, Mining Capitalism, 127–58.
57. Field notes, Takovo Mora, 12 November 2013.
58. Gustafson, “Amid Gas.”
59. Ministerio de Hidrocarburos y Energía, Informes Finales.
60. McAdam et al., Dynamics of Contention, 7–9.
61. Humphreys Bebbington, “State-Indigenous Tensions,” 150.
62. Walter and Urkidi, “Community Mining Consultations in Latin America”; McNeish, this volume.