Cited by 0Afro-Latin American StudiesLatin American Cultural PoliticsIndigenous Studies in Latin America

The DOI matches its Crossref record; 8 of the 8 references it cites were found in a registry or an index; none of the 13 sources its claims cite is checked for support yet.

La ‘política del lugar’: la Comuna afrodescendiente Playa de Oro, Esmeraldas - Ecuador

Open access
Lobo, Janaina·2015·Universitas Humanística

Abstract

El artículo versa sobre los agenciamientos territoriales de la Comuna afrodescendiente de Playa de Oro, localizada en Esmeraldas, cerca de la frontera colombo-ecuatoriana. Situada en márgenes del Rio Santiago, en los límites de la Reserva Ecológica Cotacachi-Cayapas, Playa de Oro tiene paradigmas emblemáticos de gestión del territorio, los cuales apuntan hacia otros modelos culturales sobre la ‘naturaleza’ y sus usos y resguardos. Por medio de una reflexión sobre las ‘perspectivas del habitar’, el objetivo es una comprensión de esa ecología de vida, la cual se ocupa de esos decisivos procesos de compromiso histórico con el paisaje. Esa proposición busca comprender marcos conceptuales operados por los playadoreños en la gestión del territorio, traducidos a una ecología política de acción. Estos esfuerzos son significativos para comprehender los procesos realizados por los playadoreños para invertir la lógica de invisibilización de los pueblos afrodescendientes en América Latina y refrenar la usurpación de sus recursos naturales

Overview

AI snapshot

Written from the paper’s full text.

TL;DR

This article examines how the Afro-descendant Comuna Playa de Oro, on the Santiago River in northern Esmeraldas, Ecuador, has historically defended its ancestral territory against logging, mining, and palm-oil expansion through what the author calls a "politics of place" (*política do lugar*). Drawing on ethnography conducted between 2011 and 2013, it argues that local ecological governance precedes and exceeds state preservationist frameworks such as the Cotacachi-Cayapas Ecological Reserve and the Socio Bosque program.

Key findings

  • Playa de Oro's separation from the Comuna Río Santiago-Cayapas (a roughly five-year struggle, completed about sixteen years before the 2012 fieldwork) was driven by the need for autonomy over territory management, since the parent cabildo was oriented toward commercial timber extraction; residents report that under the parent commune "arrasaron con todo" (they wiped out everything).
  • Local resource governance is articulated through the figure of the Mulato Bamba, "king of the animals," who punishes hunters who kill beyond subsistence; the guiding principle is to "occupy only what you need" (*ocupar apenas o necessário*), which the author treats as a normative ecological framework operating before formal legal devices.
  • In 2011 the commune signed an agreement with the Ministry of Environment's Socio Bosque program, receiving $55,244.50 annually for protected hectares; the communal budget allocated $4,800 to four people for trail clearing and a guarda-bosque at $20/day, $18,000 to agriculture/fish-farming support, and smaller sums to education, emergency funds, and organizational costs.
  • The commune holds over 10,000 ha but had only one forest guard, attached to the RECC, which residents deemed insufficient; the assembly deliberated hiring an additional playadoreño guard and installing signage reading "ÁREA DE CONSERVACIÓN - PLAYA DE ORO."
  • Contextual figures cited: Esmeraldas province has 43.9% of afroesmeraldeños (2010 census, of 534,092 inhabitants; 39.1% in 2001); 9.8% illiteracy; 9% Afro-Ecuadorian unemployment (ENEMDU-INEC 2006); Ecuador's deforestation rate ranks ninth highest globally per FAO (Potter 2011), with at least 60,000 ha lost annually per the Ministry of Environment.

Methods

  • Ethnographic fieldwork conducted in Playa de Oro between 2011 and 2013, including participant observation in communal assemblies (e.g., the October 2011 meeting with Fundación Altrópico) and interviews with communal leaders Don David Arroyo, Clemente Arroyo, and Manoel Ayoví.
  • Theoretical framing draws on Tim Ingold's "dwelling perspective" and "education of attention," Arturo Escobar's "politics of place" and "territory-region," and Mignolo's notion of border thinking; the author also engages Taussig's "moral topography" and Restrepo's critique of the "ecologist by nature" stereotype.
  • Analysis is interpretive and qualitative, reading local narratives and practices as a situated "political ecology of place" rather than measuring deforestation quantitatively.

Limitations

  • The paper explicitly states it does not intend to present a monolithic collective consciousness and refuses to stereotype the discourse as a univocal thought common to all commune members; it draws heavily on the narratives of two leaders (Manoel and Clemente) who are at the forefront of government-project discussions.
  • The author notes a historiographic gap on the "ethnic variable" in the region and describes her topographical account as incipient.
  • Evident from the text: the study is a single-commune case with no quantitative deforestation measurement, and the account of pre-state ancestral conservation rests largely on oral testimony rather than documentary evidence.

Model-written summary. Check it against the paper before relying on it.

Integrity signals

Registry

Crossref · 10.11144/javeriana.uh80.aplc

Cites

8 of 8 references verified0 citation errors · 0 not checkable

Statistics

Nothing to recompute.

Verification

Claims the paper makes

0 of 13 cited sources checked · 0 supported · 0 flagged

Show all 23 claims

  • Probably not a substantial claim. 47
  • It may state two separate claims as one. 42
70 of 70
  • The paper relies on this without support.

    O projeto Socio Bosque visa proteger as florestas, páramos e a vegetação nativa e reduzir as taxas de desmatamento da região.

    “programa do Ministerio del Ambiente do Equador (MAE) que visa proteger as florestas, páramos e a vegetação nativa e reduzir as taxas de desmatamento da região pela metadefoot_8 , meta prevista no Plan Nacional de Desarrollo do governo equatoriano.”
  • The paper relies on this without support.

    O projeto Socio Bosque prioriza comunas legalmente constituídas que sejam proprietárias de florestas nativas.

    “O benefício do Socio Bosque cedido à Playa de Oro só foi possível porque o projeto prioriza -ademais dos critérios já apontados -comunas legalmente constituídas, que sejam proprietárias de florestas nativas.”
  • The paper relies on this without support.

    A Reserva Ecológica Cotacachi-Cayapas (RECC) foi criada em 1968.

    “A criação da RECC, em 1968 e os mais atuais investimentos governamentais, como o Projeto Socio Bosque, não são os desencadeadores da proteção para a integridade do ecossistema dessa zona, no qual está incluído o território de Playa de Oro.”
  • The paper relies on this without support.

    A perspectiva ecológica local descrita é compartilhada pelos playadoreños em geral, e não apenas pelos interlocutores específicos citados.

    “Essa epistemologia local do estar-no-mundo assevera que é na figura do Mulato Bamba, o rei dos animais, que é enunciada a experiência desses vínculos dos organismos-mundo.”
4 of 4

Citations

Cites

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Show all 6 references

Research works printed but not linked: 5

  1. Ingold, T. (2000). The perception of the environment: essays in livelihood. London: Routledge.
  2. Ingold, T. (2012). Caminhando com dragões: em direção ao lado selvagem. Em C. Steil e I. Carvalho (Eds.) Cultura, percepção e ambiente. Diálogos com Tim Ingold (pp.15-29). São Paulo: Ed.
  3. Ingold, T. e Kurttila, T. (2000). Perceiving the Environment in Finish Lapland, Body & Society, 6(3-4), 183-196.
  4. Viveiros de Castro, E. (1992). O campo na selva visto da praia. Estudos Históricos, 5(10),170-190.
  5. Lobo, J. (2015). A 'política do lugar': a Comuna afrodescendente Playa de Oro, Esmeraldas -Equador. Universitas Humanística, 80, 237-262. http://dx.doi. org/10.11144/Javeriana.UH80.aplc

Cited by

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Metadata

Authors
Lobo, J.
Affiliations
Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul (BR)
Corresponding author
Lobo, Janaina
Venue
Universitas Humanística
Published
2015-07-01
Volume
80
Issue
80
ISSN
  • 0120-4807 (ISSN-L)
  • 2011-2734
OpenAlex
W1910575164
Cited by
0
References
6
FWCI
0.00
Type
journal article
Language
es
Open access
Licence
cc-by
Locations
  • Universitas Humanística (publishedVersion, cc-by)
  • LA Referencia (Red Federada de Repositorios Institucionales de Publicaciones Científicas) (publishedVersion, other-oa)
  • LA Referencia (Red Federada de Repositorios Institucionales de Publicaciones Científicas) (submittedVersion, other-oa)
  • DOAJ (DOAJ: Directory of Open Access Journals) (submittedVersion)
  • Redalyc (Universidad Autónoma del Estado de México) (submittedVersion)
  • Repositorio Institucional (Pontificia Universidad Javeriana) (submittedVersion)
Topics
  • Social Sciences › Cultural Studies › Afro-Latin American Studies
  • Social Sciences › Anthropology › Latin American Cultural Politics
  • Social Sciences › Cultural Studies › Indigenous Studies in Latin America
Keywords
Afro-descendant communities, territorial management, political ecology, natural resource exploitation, Santiago River, Colombian-Ecuadorian border, Esmeraldas

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