Doctoral Dissertation Research: Fission and Fusion: Amerindian Environmental Politics and Resource Justice in Guyana

University Of California-Berkeley, Berkeley CA

Investigators

Abstract

This doctoral dissertation research project will utilize a political ecology framework to investigate the relationship between domestic racial conflicts, industrial and conservation globalization, and Amerindian political differentiation in Guyana. New mining, timber, and conservation development pressures are the basis for multiple legal and political actions of Amerindian organizations. In contrast to unified federations and ethnic based politics, however, the panoply of resource conflicts in Guyana has not catalyzed political unity among Amerindians thus far. The richness in this movement's diversification provokes a reconsideration of important meta-questions in debates of human and environmental change: What is the relationship between land and ethnicity? How do histories of environmental uncertainty affect the modes of social movements? What is the connection between environmental changes and political space that restricts ethnic discourses? Has the practice of development and conservation become more accountable to indigenous communities? In pursuit of the idea that different community histories of economic security and resource access since liberalization are the primary variables affecting political activity and organization, fieldwork will be conducted in the capital of Georgetown and two Amerindian regions in the interior. A blend of qualitative research methods drawing on archival documents, interviews, participant observation, and legal case analysis will be employed. The research findings will illuminate complex community associations that intersect contours of ethnic boundaries within the Amerindian movement of Guyana, perhaps reflecting more critical alliances based on specific histories of ecological change and economic security. This doctoral dissertation research will engage a variety of literature, including studies in political ecology, accountability in international development, the political economy of the Caribbean, and social movements of indigenous peoples and other marginalized groups. This research most distinguishes itself, however, from those cases and studies that collapse environmental crises with homogeneous ethnic politics. The research will reveal some general constraints and opportunities of alternative indigenous political strategies and approaches to survival, potentially illuminating unusual tactics for engaging the development-conservation nexus. It will also be a challenging discourse to dominant resource management agencies, international NGOs, and development institutions. As such, this research on the context of Amerindian politics in Guyana will also inform other marginal groups experiencing similar ecological, social, and economic marginalization in other countries. As a Doctoral Dissertation Research Improvement award, this award also will provide support to enable a promising student to establish a strong independent research career.