Re-Imagining Latin America: Environmental Conflicts and Rural Societies

Dr. Luz Angela Rodríguez Ramirez, who earned her PhD at Duke, will join us remotely for a talk on Environmental Conflicts and Rural Societies. She will join CLACS in the fall as a Mellon Visiting Professor at Duke. Currently, she is an assistant professor at Pontificia Universidad Javeriana in Bogotá, Colombia.

Latin America plays a central role in the provision of environmental services at a global scale. For instance, the Amazon biome extends over an area of 6.7 millions of square kilometers, that belongs to nine countries and corresponds both to the larger humid forest in the world and the largest agricultural frontier. Different processes of accelerated environmental change are taking place in the continent which are rooted in economic and political drivers that are contested by rural and urban communities who frame their claims in an environmental justice language. Using the lens of the environmental justice framework we will explore cases of environmental conflicts in Latin America, their actors and the sectors involved and the implications of large scale development projects for local livelihoods' sustainability.