“Nosotras Como Mujeres”: The Environmental Activism of Indigenous Women of the Ecuadorian Amazon

Rowan, Leta (2019) “Nosotras Como Mujeres”: The Environmental Activism of Indigenous Women of the Ecuadorian Amazon. Undergraduate thesis, under the direction of Kate Centellas from Sociology and Anthropology, University of Mississippi.

Preview

Text Rowan Thesis Second Draft2.pdf Download (568kB) | Preview

Abstract

Across Latin America, indigenous organizations have mobilized against environmental destruction inflicted upon their communities. Environmental destruction brought about by climate change and extractive industries has been especially devastating in the Western Amazon- the most biologically diverse region of the Amazon and home to a diversity of indigenous populations. The efforts of indigenous organizations in the Western Amazon, notably the Ecuadorian Amazon, have been successful in affecting progressive environmental policies as a means to protect their natural environments and standards of living. Indigenous women specifically have played a significant role in addressing the climate injustices affecting their communities and have employed rhetoric that distinguish themselves as indigenous women living in the Amazon as a means to advocate for environmental justice. Through the use of symbolic boundaries and collective consciousness raising, the subjects in question advocate for political and social change by employing the stereotypes associated with indigenous women of the Two-Thirds World. Their intersectionality plays a role in their disproportional subjection to environmental destruction in relation to dominant social groups, but is also employed as a means to assert their connection to their natural environment and authority in protecting it from exploitation.

Actions (login required)

View Item