LMN is delighted to announce the launch of the first Resisting Mining Book Club with special guest speaker Thea Riofrancos who will be speaking about her recently published book Resource Radicals: From Petro-Nationalism to Post-Extractivism in Ecuador (Duke University Press, 2020).
Register to join the launch event here
About the book
RESOURCE RADICALS explores the politics of extraction, energy, and infrastructure in order to understand how resource dependency becomes a dilemma for leftist governments and social movements alike. Thea Riofrancos offers an ethnographic account of extraction politics in Ecuador, where grassroots activists engaged with a leftist government under President Rafael Correa (2007-2017) to shape the political and economic consequences of resource extraction. She draws a distinction between two leftist positions on extraction: radical resource nationalism, which demands collective ownership of oil and minerals, and anti-extractivism, which rejects extraction entirely. For Riofrancos, Ecuador’s commodity-dependent economy and history of decolonial and indigenous activism make this country a particularly interesting case for understanding the state’s role in development, democracy, and the ecological foundations of global capitalism. RESOURCE RADICALS demonstrates that the Ecuadorian left’s shift from calls to nationalize resources to a radical anti-extractivist politics provides a new model for grassroots responses to environmental crisis.
RESOURCE RADICALS is of interest to scholars working in Latin American studies, political science, political theory, anthropology, and environmental studies, as well as to those interested in activism and radical politics.
Thea Riofrancos will give an introductory lecture which will be followed by a Q and A. You do not need to have read the book to attend this meeting.
If you want to read it, the book is available to buy in the UK. You can also read a few selected chapters on line here
If you are a student with access to jstore you can log-in to read the book here https://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctv14t48kg
About the Author
Thea Riofrancosis an assistant professor of political science at Providence College, an Andrew Carnegie Fellow (2020-2022), and a Radcliffe Institute Fellow (2020-2021). Her research focuses on resource extraction, renewable energy, climate change, green technology, social movements, and the left in Latin America. These themes are explored in her book, Resource Radicals: From Petro-Nationalism to Post-Extractivism in Ecuador (Duke University Press, 2020), her co-authored book, A Planet to Win: Why We Need a Green New Deal (Verso Books, 2019), and academic articles in World Politics, Perspectives on Politics, and Cultural Studies. Her writing has appeared in The New York Times, The Guardian, Boston Review, The Baffler, n+1, Dissent, Jacobin, among others. She is a member of the Democratic Socialists of America and serves on the organization’s Green New Deal
Campaign Committee.