Learning: Exploring Post-extractivism
“Buen Vivir seeks to ensure people’s quality of life, in a broad sense that goes beyond material well-being (to include spiritual wellbeing) and the individual (to include a sense of community), as well as beyond anthropocentrism (to include Nature). Under Buen Vivir, the values inherent in Nature are recognised, and therefore also the duty to maintain its integrity at both the local and the global level. This perspective aims to transcend the dualism that separates society from Nature, as well as breaking with the linear idea of history that assumes our countries must imitate the lifestyles and culture of the industrialised nations.”
As a system of thought and action, post-extractivism offers an emerging, radical approach to the problems caused by mining, and the extractivist ideology more broadly, both of which undermine our relationship with Nature and each other. It encourages us to think from an Earth-centred perspective about our role and our place on a living planet, and draws upon indigenous thinking.
Post-extractivism is founded in philosophies of Buen Vivir (Good Living) and intersects with alternative development and economic theories/practices from de-growth to the commons. It critiques developmental and economic models that, through a myopic focus on GDP growth, support an oppressively extractive, non-reciprocal relationship between human societies and Mother Earth, as well as the plunder of ‘peripheral’ societies by wealthy ‘core’ societies.
Post-extractivism proposes radical alternatives to these current models of development thinking and explores fields of action for a just transition towards new, reciprocal ways of being present to one another and our living planet.
This growing and regularly updated collection of writings draws together the thoughts of scholars, activists, historians and social commentators on post-extractivism in different contexts. To our knowledge it is the only ‘library’ of free-to-access information on post-extractivism.
You never change things by fighting the existing reality. To change something, build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete.”
R Buckminster Fuller
- Transitions to post-extractivism: directions, options, areas of action – Eduardo Gudynas, TNI
- Latin America & Extractivism Debate: The new Left’s extractive model isn’t leading to development -Eduardo Gudynas, Europe Solidaire sans Frontieres.
- Transitions towards post-extractive societies in Latin America – Carlos Aguilar, IBASE-Rio.
- The New Latin American “Progresismo” and the Extractivism of the 21st Century -Carmello Ruiz Marrero, Americas Programme.
- Extractivism and neoextractivism: two sides of the same curse – Alberto Acosta, TNI.
- Post-growth and post-extractivism: Two sides of the same cultural transformation- Alberto Acosta, Alternautas
- Beyond extractivism: Debates and Practices around Post-Extractivism in Latin America– Alberto Acosta, Degrowth Conference Leipzig 2014
- Post-Extractivism: From Discourse to Practice—Reflections for Action– Alberto Acosta, International Development Policy
- Degrowth, postdevelopment, and transitions: a preliminary conversation– Arturo Escobar, Sustainability Science
- Beyond Development: Alternative visions from Latin America -Permanent Working Group on Alternatives to Development. Edited by M. lang and D. Mokrani
- Extracting ourselves from the extractivist mindset – Robert Jensen, Resilience.
- Re-contextualizing Anti-Extractivism: Buen Vivir and the New Left in the Andes – Matt Ford, Climate and Capitalism
- Buen Vivir and “post-extractivism” in Andean countries: notes on the search for a real alternative to “alternative development” -Roger Merino Acuna
- Neo-extractive Realities, Post-extractivist futures: Pacific Women and Feminist Development Alternatives -DAWN
- What Will It Take to Go Beyond Extractivism?-Federico Fuentes
- Latin American Development: Perspectives and Debates – Maristella Svampa
- Between activism and science: grassroots concepts for sustainability coined by Environmental Justice Organizations -Joan Martinez-Alier, Isabelle Anguelovski, Patrick Bond et al.
- The year 2015 is a year of intellectual triumph for post-extractivism– Joan Martinez-Alier, Entitle Blog.
- Revolutionary Extractivism in Bolivia? -Nicole Fabricant and Bret Gustafson, North American Congress on Latin America
- The intrinsic value of geodiversity– Haydn Washington, Ecological Citizen Journal
- Degrowth and post-extractivism: two debates with suggestions for the inclusive development framework– Ulrich Brand, Alina Brand, Tobias Boos, Current Opinion in Environmental Sustainability.