Honors Theses

Date of Award

2019

Document Type

Undergraduate Thesis

Department

Croft Institute for International Studies

First Advisor

Kate Centellas

Relational Format

Dissertation/Thesis

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.

Comments

A thesis presented in partial fulfillment of the requirements for completion of the Bachelor of Arts degree in International Studies from the Croft Institute for International Studies and the Sally McDonnell Barksdale Honors College.

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