Gendering indigenous subjects: an institutional ethnography of corporate social responsibility in Ecuador

Abstract

Corporate social responsibility (CSR) programs are institutions of governance and development designed to respond to socio-ecological impacts of resource extraction. I argue that CSR programs are an overlooked tool of the neoliberal project of gendered indigenous subject formation in Ecuador. The article contributes to feminist political ecology through its use of institutional ethnography, a feminist methodology. It advances feminist commitments to everyday, embodied analyses of resource struggles, illustrating how gender and indigeneity are intersectional subjectivities provoked by the socio-spatial relationships of CSR programs. Postcolonial intersectional analysis of CSR programs demonstrates how power expands through gender and indigeneity contributing to indigenous women’s ongoing marginalization in Ecuador.

Keywords:

• Corporate social responsibility
• Ecuador
• gendered indigenous subjects
• institutional ethnography
• resource governance

Acknowledgements

I am grateful to residents of Pompeya for their support during field research. I want to thank Kelsey Hanrahan, Kate Coddington, Nancy Hiemstra, Zoe Pearson, and Katie Wells for reading earlier drafts of this article. Finally, I appreciate the detailed comments of three anonymous reviewers and editorial support of Margaret Walton-Roberts. Any shortcomings remain my own.

Disclosure statement

There is no conflict of interest to report.

Additional information

Funding

This research in Ecuador was supported by a National Science Foundation Doctoral Dissertation Research Improvement Grant (#0825763) and by an Inter-American Foundation Grassroots Development PhD Fellowship.

Notes on contributors

Emily Billo

Emily Billo is an Associate Professor of Environmental Studies in the Center for Geographies of Justice at Goucher College. Her teaching and research is rooted in political ecologies of resource extraction. A current project develops a feminist analysis of the state in resource governance in Ecuador. She employs an institutional ethnography to examine the social relationships of resource extraction, specifically gendered resistance to mining. Her research is published in geography journals, including Geoforum, The Professional Geographer, and Progress in Human Geography.