Affect, Ecofeminism, and Intersectional Struggles in Latin America: A Tribute to Berta Cáceres 1433159090, 9781433159091

Table of contents :
Cover
Contents
List of Illustrations
Acknowledgments
Introduction: ¡Berta no ha muerto, Berta se ha multiplicado! Paving the Way for an Affective Journey
Chapter One: Preserving the Affective Being: Reconsiderations of Affect from a Non-Western Perspective
Chapter Two: Indigenous Ecologies: The Relevance of Affect in Ecofeminist Movements
Chapter Three: On Violent Affects: A History of Extractivism and Criminalization in Central America
Chapter Four: From Outrage to Resistance: Social Movements in Honduras
Chapter Five: Affective Solidarity and a Politics of Care: Reflection and Action Beyond Borders
Chapter Six: On Mourning and Hope: A Transformational Path Toward Social Justice
Conclusion: Utopia: An Affective Work in Progress
Index

Citation preview

Affect, Ecofeminism, and Intersectional Struggles in Latin America A Tribute to Berta Cáceres

Irune del Rio Gabiola

Affect, Ecofeminism, and Intersectional Struggles in Latin America: A Tribute to Berta Cáceres examines the power of affect in structuring decolonizing modes of resistance performed by social movements such as COPINH (Civic Council of Popular and Indigenous Organizations of Honduras). Despite a harsh legacy of colonialism, indigenous communities continue suffering from territorial displacements, dispossession, and human rights abuses due to extractivist projects that are violently destroying their land and, therefore, the environment. In particular, the Lenca communities in Honduras have been negatively affected by Western ideas of “progress” and “development” that have historically eliminated ancestral knowledges and indigenous ecological cosmologies while reinforcing Eurocentrism. Nevertheless, by reflecting on and articulating strategies for resisting neoliberalism, COPINH and its cofounder Berta Cáceres’ commitment to environmental activism, ecofeminism, and intersectional struggles has contributed affectively and effectively to the production of democratic encounters in pursuit of social justice. In homage to Berta, who was brutally assassinated for her activism in 2016, this book takes the reader on an affective journey departing from the violent affects experienced by the Lencas due to colonial disruption, contemporary industrialization, and criminalization, towards COPINH’s political and social intervention fueled by outrage, resistance, transnational solidarity, care, mourning, and hope. In this way, subaltern actors nurture the power to—in line with Brian Massumi’s interpretation of affect—transform necropolitics into natality with the aim of creating a fairer and better world. The volume is an ideal contribution to environmental studies, cultural studies, and Latin American studies courses focused on social movements, activism, ecofeminism, and postcolonialism.

Irune del Rio Gabiola is Associate Professor of Spanish at Butler University. She is the author of Resistant Bodies in the Cultural Productions of Transnational Hispanic Caribbean Women: Re/imagining Queer Identity as well as numerous articles on feminist, postcolonial, and queer studies in the Caribbean.

ADVANCE PRAISE FOR

Affect, Ecofeminism, and Intersectional Struggles in Latin America “Irune del Rio Gabiola’s powerful exploration of the ongoing struggles against extractivism in Latin America opens our eyes to the importance of affect in challenges to power. This book maps out the incredible violence of modernity on indigenous communities in the region. But the concepts that stand out here are solidarities, outrage, care, mourning and hope—all the modes of being-together that animate resistance and practices of decolonization. At once historical and richly theoretical, del Rio Gabiola’s account of the work of Berta Cáceres and the Civic Council of Popular and Indigenous Organizations of Honduras provides an important addition to our understanding of the ways in which extractivism is confronted by those communities most impacted by the endless quest for profit and progress. Essential.” —Imre Szeman, University Research Chair of Communication Arts, University of Waterloo and co-author, Petrocultures “Irune del Rio Gabiola’s book is a timely intervention into the politics of extractivism in Latin America. Not only does it pay tribute to the importance of Berta Cáceres and her legacy, but it also effectively mobilizes the hope and activism that have emerged as a collective response to Cáceres’ assassination. Ecological cosmologies and ancestral knowledges function as powerful affective structures that collectivize indigenous communities in the face of continued extractivism in the region. In her powerful examination of these precarious communities, del Rio Gabiola shows how a politics of care works towards the decolonization of women’s bodies and ancestral lands and empowers an active coalitional resistance.” —Eva-Lynn Jagoe, Latin American Studies, University of Toronto

Affect, Ecofeminism, and Intersectional Struggles in Latin America

This book is part of the Peter Lang Regional Studies list. Every volume is peer reviewed and meets the highest quality standards for content and production.

PETER LANG

New York • Bern • Berlin Brussels • Vienna • Oxford • Warsaw

Irune del Rio Gabiola

Affect, Ecofeminism, and Intersectional Struggles in Latin America A Tribute to Berta Cáceres

PETER LANG

New York • Bern • Berlin Brussels • Vienna • Oxford • Warsaw

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: del Rio Gabiola, Irune, author. | Peter Lang Publishing. Title: Affect, ecofeminism, and intersectional struggles in Latin America:  a tribute to Berta Cáceres/Irune del Rio Gabiola. Other titles: Tribute to Berta Cáceres Description: New York: Peter Lang, 2020. Includes bibliographical references and index. Text in English, with some text in Spanish. Identifiers: LCCN 2019052432 | ISBN 978-1-4331-5909-1 (hardback: alk. paper) ISBN 978-1-4331-6555-9 (ebook pdf ) ISBN 978-1-4331-6556-6 (epub) | ISBN 978-1-4331-6557-3 (mobi) Subjects: LCSH: Ecofeminism—Latin America. | Affect (Psychology)—Political aspects. | Cáceres, Berta, 1973?–2016— Influence. | Environmentalism—Honduras. | Intersectionality (Sociology) Classification: LCC HQ1194 .D45 2020 | DDC 304.2082098—dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019052432 DOI 10.3726/b15070       Bibliographic information published by Die Deutsche Nationalbibliothek. Die Deutsche Nationalbibliothek lists this publication in the “Deutsche Nationalbibliografie”; detailed bibliographic data are available on the Internet at http://dnb.d-nb.de/.              

© 2020 Peter Lang Publishing, Inc., New York 29 Broadway, 18th floor, New York, NY 10006 www.peterlang.com   All rights reserved. Reprint or reproduction, even partially, in all forms such as microfilm, xerography, microfiche, microcard, and offset strictly prohibited.

A mi aita Iñaki del Río Bilbao (1947–2010) Desde lo más hondo de la tierra, tus aguas siguen fluyendo en el río de mi vida …

Table of Contents

List of Illustrations ix Acknowledgments xiii Introduction: ¡Berta no ha muerto, Berta se ha multiplicado! Paving the Way for an Affective Journey 1 Chapter One: Preserving the Affective Being: Reconsiderations of Affect from a Non-Western Perspective 25 Chapter Two: Indigenous Ecologies: The Relevance of Affect in Ecofeminist Movements 47 Chapter Three: On Violent Affects: A History of Extractivism and Criminalization in Central America 69 Chapter Four: From Outrage to Resistance: Social Movements in Honduras 95 Chapter Five: Affective Solidarity and a Politics of Care: Reflection and Action Beyond Borders 121 Chapter Six: On Mourning and Hope: A Transformational Path Toward Social Justice 143 Conclusion: Utopia: An Affective Work in Progress 169 Index 177

List of Illustrations

Book Cover Top: Berta Cáceres with COPINH and Río Blanco community members honoring colleagues killed during the two-year struggle. Honduras’ violent climate is well known to many, but few understand that environmental and human rights activists are its victims. (Photo: Goldman Environmental Prize) Bottom: Berta Cáceres and the Lenca community’s efforts successfully kept construction equipment out of the proposed dam site. In late 2013, Sinohydro terminated its contract with DESA, publicly citing ongoing community resistance and outrage following Tomás’ death. Agua Zarca suffered another blow when the IFC withdrew its funding, citing concerns about human rights violations. (Photo: Goldman Environmental Prize)

Introduction Fig. Intro.1 Berta Cáceres, 2015 Goldman Environmental Prize Winner for South and Central America, receiving her award. (Photo: Goldman Environmental Prize). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3

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Fig. Intro.2 Berta Cáceres with her mother Doña Austra Berta in their home in La Esperanza, Intibucá, Honduras. Her mother, a midwife and social activist, took in and cared for refugees from El Salvador, teaching Berta and her siblings the value of standing up for disenfranchised people. (Photo: Goldman Environmental Prize) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5

Chapter 4 Fig. 4.1 Fig. 4.2

Fig. 4.3

Berta Cáceres, 2015 Goldman Environmental Prize winner for South and Central America, giving her acceptance speech. (Photo: Goldman Environmental Prize) . . . . . . . . . . . . . 99 Berta Cáceres founded the National Council of Popular and Indigenous Organizations of Honduras (COPINH) to address the growing threats posed to Lenca communities by illegal logging, fight for their territorial rights and improve their livelihoods. (Photo: Goldman Environmental Prize). . . . . 101 Berta Cáceres tapes a radio segment in the studio of Radio Guarajambala, a community radio station at COPINH’s office in La Esperanza, Intibucá, Honduras. (Photo: Goldman Environmental Prize). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 108

Chapter 5 Fig. 5.1

In 2006, community members from Río Blanco understood that an aggression against the Gualcarque River—place of spiritual importance to the Lenca people—was an act against the community, its free will, and its autonomy. (Photo: Goldman Environmental Prize). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 130

Chapter 6 Fig. 6.1

Berta Cáceres on the banks of the Gualcarque River in the Río Blanco region of Western Honduras. The river is a source of water, food, medicine, and spiritual identity for the indigenous Lenca people. (Photo: Goldman Environmental Prize). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 154

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Fig. 6.2

With mandates from local community members, Berta Cáceres filed complaints against the Agua Zarca Dam with government authorities, bringing along community representatives on trips to Tegucigalpa. (Photo: Goldman Environmental Prize) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 159

Acknowledgments

I have written this book through a myriad of conflicting affects accompanied by many thousand tears. The time devoted to the production of a book is often insurmountable due to extra life and work duties along the way. However, in this case, the timing was timely. The composition of this book was intermittently interrupted by social media and breaking news notifications on environmental disasters, on the increasing number of environmental activists killed, on more injustice enacted throughout Berta’s trial, on the burning of the Amazons, on climate change, global warming, and on the reality of unaffected governments characterized by tremendous greed and corruption. The main idea erupted for the love of an incredible woman whose power, persistence, brilliance, and devotion to social justice was suddenly shattered on the night of March 2nd, 2016. The tremendous affect of Berta’s death led me to embark on a personal affective journey that echoes the capacity to affect and to spread affection of social and environmental movements such as COPINH. During the process, I have often cried watching interviews with Berta and listening to her daughters’ words full of outrage and indignation because of the extreme levels of corruption and political impunity in Honduras. Nevertheless, their frustration often brought contagious energy and strength full of tenderness, love, care, and hope invested in their endless struggle for social justice. All the tears and sadness activated my desire to contribute, with this book, to action; to

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continue the legacy of Berta and to “move” and “touch” as many people as possible, so one day we can inhabit a better and fairer world. I am grateful to Butler University for the instructional and on-campus internationalization grants I obtained to develop courses on ecofeminism, allowing me the time to research what became the origin of this book. Similarly, the research grant was essential for in-depth reflection and the elaboration of the last chapters. I  am also fortunate to have had the constant support of friends and colleagues such as Mar Soria López, Sholeh Shahrokhi, Ann Savage, and Terri Carney whose trust, friendship, and acts of care are boundless. The talented insights of my students with thought-provoking comments constantly enrich my own interpretations of current events and illuminate new perspectives on diversity, and on challenging topics such as violence, environmental racism, neoliberalism, etc. I have been able to incorporate photographs of Berta, Austra, and copines thanks to the Goldman Environmental Foundation that granted me access to use as many pictures as I desired. Thank you Edwina Dueñas for providing me with these beautiful images of Berta because an image speaks a thousand words and its affective capacity moves far beyond language. My personal and intellectual affective journey would have never been possible without the unconditional love of my mother, Begoña, and my brother, Asier, whose daily words of encouragement fill the voids I feel, navigating an interstitial identity split between Bilbao and Indianapolis. I will be forever thankful for those endearing moments I spend with them during my trips back home and their visits to Indy; full of inspiring conversations and emotional support, they are the home I inhabit everywhere I go. Lastly, I am beyond thankful to my life partner Bridget O’Ryan; this book would have never seen the light without your infinite love and appreciation. Your tender, serene, and patient personality affects me in extraordinary and powerful ways I would have never thought possible. Thank you for irradiating so much abundance, and, above all, for sharing my passion for nature—my nature romantic.

Introduction ¡Berta no ha muerto, Berta se ha multiplicado! Paving the Way for an Affective Journey

“Berta no luchó por un río, su trabajo no era local. Murió por algo de lo que todos somos responsables: por la biodiversidad del planeta. No podemos dar la espalda a su causa.” (Berta did not fight for a river, her work was not local. She died for something we all are responsible for: the Earth’s biodiversity. We cannot turn our backs to this cause.) –G ustavo  C astro

“Berta, esta casa no es segura” (Berta, this house is not safe) was Gustavo Castro’s first utterance when the two of them reached Berta’s house on the night of March 2nd, 2016. A humble green structure protected by a perimeter fence on a barren plot of land in La Esperanza was about to witness a tragedy. That morning, Gustavo arrived from Mexico to organize a workshop for COPINH (Civic Council of Popular and Indigenous Organizations of Honduras) followed by a brief visit to Austra Berta—Berta’s mother—and a quick dinner at a local restaurant. On the way out, Berta offered him the guest room at her house so he could access the internet and call his family back in Mexico. As he pointed out the lack of security, they sat on the porch and conversed, while Gustavo lit up a couple of cigarettes. They had not seen each other in five years. Around 11 pm, they went their separate ways into their rooms and, lying in bed, Gustavo started to review a talk for the following day. Suddenly, he heard a loud noise and Berta’s frightened voice. Right at that moment, Gustavo knew what was happening. Two men had broken into

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the house through the kitchen. Gustavo heard several shots coming from Berta’s room and, after a few seconds, he was shot by the man approaching his. Luckily, it did not reach his head but his ear and, as his blood started to flow on the bedroom floor, the perpetrator assumed he was dead. Minutes later, Gustavo rushed into Berta’s room exclaiming “Bertita, Bertita, no te vayas” (Bertita, Bertitia, don’t go). In less than a minute Berta passed. She had been shot three times in her abdomen; gunned down in her own home. Those two men disappeared into the extremely dark night … Although the night of March 2nd, 2016 marks an unsurmountable tragedy, it represents a moment of global disruption and the rebirth of Berta, an activist committed to social and environmental justice and equality. Her assassination was condemned unprecedentedly all over the world, and her indefatigable work has since been commemorated and carried on by hundreds of social movements that demand justice, human and territorial rights, and a protected environment. In 2015, she was awarded the Goldman Environmental Prize and gave a moving speech demanding the end to patriarchy, racism, and environmental destruction. The Goldman Environmental Award recognized the value of Berta Cáceres in critically intervening to effect change and mobilize marginal communities across the globe.1 It also reflected a timely opportunity to be “moved” and “captured” by her face and her stories: by the face of a woman whose life had been in danger for years as a result of her incessant commitment to peace and to the preservation of nature; by the stories of subjugation and destruction that have tainted Honduras for centuries; by a life that ended tragically when those sicarios broke into her house on March 2nd, 2016 and assassinated her.2 Back in Washington a year before, she shined on that stage and was immediately immortalized. Berta Cáceres was born in the town of La Esperanza, in the region of Intibucá, Honduras, in 1971. Her mother, Austra Berta Flores López, raised her daughter and four older sons in a household that prioritized community building and socioeconomic awareness. Austra came from a family of political dissidents exiled in El Salvador in the 30s, due to governmental persecution. Consequently, she had always known the meaning of marginality and social ostracism resulting from an oligarchic and militarized nation that has historically terrorized indigenous and Afro-indigenous communities, and campesinos (peasants).3 Her family’s devotion to social justice and equality influenced Austra’s work in the Lenca community. She became a certified nurse and a full-time midwife, delivering babies in the area while spreading the value of the Lenca world. In a 2016 interview conducted by Rodolfo Cortés Calderón, Elías Ruíz and Fredy Melgar with Berta’s family members after her passing, which was published in a sixty-page biography titled Berta Cáceres: voz del agua—voz de la tierra, Austra mentions how she used to walk miles day and night to bring babies to this world “because kids do not wait.” At the age

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Fig. Intro.1  Berta Cáceres, 2015 Goldman Environmental Prize Winner for South and Central America, receiving her award. (Photo: Goldman Environmental Prize)

of 83, she names her profession “MAYEUTICA” in relation to a specific skill and aptitude for “giving birth to ideas, and to radiate consciousness.” As the authors of the biography affirm, Austra rose the consciousness of the Lenca people. Her commitment to the survival of indigenous cultures was widely spread in the community, which elected her on three different occasions as mayor of La Esperanza. In addition, she was the governor of Intibucá and congresswoman for the Liberal Party. Because of her political accomplishments, Austra was persecuted and temporarily incarcerated in the 80s, and her personal life was similarly disrupted by the violence of her ex-partner, a military man who abused her. As a result of systemic patriarchal domination, Austra decided to protect the women of Intibucá by promoting in the late 80s a subsidiary of the Women for Peace Committee “Visitación Padilla.” She also opened a human rights office led by the Committee for the Defense of Human Rights, CODEH. Not surprisingly, Berta inherited her mother’s rebellious spirit and willingness to fight injustices, inequality, colonialism, racism, and exploitation. At the age of 6, Berta joined her mother on her night trips to deliver babies, and learned to work with the needles. She also lit candles to help Austra perform her job. These birth-giving experiences exposed Berta to the harsh realities of the indigenous communities trapped in a historical continuum of poverty and

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precariousness. In the Flores household, Berta was the youngest of five and the only woman, along with her mother. Austra mentions in the biography how her sons teased Berta as a child asking her to undertake the domestic chores, to which she always said NO. This instance of machismo also prompted her, from an early age, to view sexism as an endemic cultural problem. Berta Cáceres’ upbringing was therefore shaped by community-based learning, and by a broad sociocultural and economic awareness of the injustices and discrimination undergone by the indigenous groups and women more particularly. Her rebellious and strong character was reflected in her collaborations and contributions to COPINH, the organization she co-founded in 1993. Before that period, Berta had already developed a political consciousness of the human rights violations all across Central and South America. The 80s were particularly tough times in this hemisphere, marked by military coup d’états upheld by the CIA. Critical-thinking college students, workers, campesinos and indigenous communities were violently repressed, killed and “disappeared.” The dictatorships imposed all over Latin American, Central America and the Caribbean were justified and argued by the US as necessary measures to prevent communism from spreading.4 However, they similarly translated into neoliberal practices aimed at concentrating the wealth in the hands of the few families running the nations. Military and law enforcement groups played a significant role in controlling the population by instilling fear and threats performed through acts of violence. Even though the Honduran dissident voices remained primarily unspoken during the 80s, its neighboring countries’ insurgent movements were suffering from state-sponsored tortures and assassinations. Nevertheless, the US occupied Honduras to contain Salvadorian refugees in Berta’s country. When she used to accompany Austra to deliver babies, Berta often went to the Salvadorian refugee camps to send messages and to help out. These experiences exposed her to the miserable conditions of the dissidents. As a teenager, Berta and her boyfriend Salvador—later husband and father of her children—joined the revolutionary movements in El Salvador to fight against the deep socioeconomic breach resulting from an abusive governmental power. Unfortunately, Berta was one more of hundreds of activists killed in Honduras during the last decade. Several years before this tragedy, two copines—Juan Vázquez y Sotero Chavarría—were shot while driving by two motorcyclists.5 Luckily, they did not suffer major injuries, but this was the first warning against an organization whose goals are to fight governmental and political impunity, inequality, state violence, racism, and extractivism. Twelve days after Berta’s assassination, copín Nelson García was killed after spending the morning helping the community of Río Chiquito where dozens of families were being evicted by military forces. These are just but a few examples of the suppression and eradication of voices

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Fig. Intro.2  Berta Cáceres with her mother Doña Austra Berta in their home in La Esperanza, Intibucá, Honduras. Her mother, a midwife and social activist, took in and cared for refugees from El Salvador, teaching Berta and her siblings the value of standing up for disenfranchised people. (Photo: Goldman Environmental Prize)

who demand land and human rights in contexts of poverty entrenched in natural wealth. According to Global Witness (2017), Honduras is the most dangerous country in the world for environmentalists. However, many other countries such as Brazil, Mexico, Colombia, and other African countries have similarly suffered the assassinations of numerous activists both women and men. Since the coup d’état of 2009 that overthrew the presidency of Manuel Zelaya, Honduras has been run by militarized governments that have sold the land, its wealth and the natural resources to transnational corporations.6 Protesting against mining, deforestation, or mega dam constructions has become a death sentence. In fact, 2017 was the deadliest year for environmental activists. National Geographic published a report in the summer of 2018 indicating the main reasons for the high toll activists are paying in defense of vulnerable communities and, ultimately, for protecting the Earth. Agribusiness is mostly associated with these killings due to disputes over large-scale agricultural projects, as are poaching and logging. Between these practices, 69 activists were killed. The oil and mining industries also accounted for 40 deaths. Global Witness draws its statistics from annual reports and national and international sources, although it is believed that many of the killings remain

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unaccounted for due to the restriction of free speech in countries such as China, Russia, or other parts of Central Asia. Africa, according to National Geographic, “had a deceptively low reportage that could be due to undocumented killings.” Of the 2017 reports, 60% of the killings happened in Latin America with the highest death toll in Brazil. In addition to the deaths resulting from the above-mentioned industries, other killings have been caused by the military and the police forces whose primary job is not only to criminalize protesters and the vulnerable communities but also to contain, surveil, and control them. Governmental violence responds to acts of corruption that are officially accepted. Interestingly, National Geographic found that Honduras was following an opposite trend in that particular year of 2017. The article concludes with a positive outlook on the future since, despite the massive violence that permeates communities in the Global South, environmental defenders continue to fight. Activists resist patterns of inequality and discrimination that continuously affect the most vulnerable communities across the world. The aforementioned National Geographic article opens up with a statement by nurse and anthropologist Isela González whose life is at risk for protecting the indigenous communities. She is executive director of the pro-indigenous nongovernmental organization Alianza Sierra Madre and receives death threats on a daily basis, which, in her own words “affects me morally and physically.” Affect, as I  will argue throughout this book, is a key concept to understand and fathom the dramatic consequences of events that involve two entities hierarchically structured—the West versus the non-West. If Isela is affected by the tremendous danger around her for helping indigenous cultures, how does affect condition the communities themselves, and how is affect mobilized? In what alternative ways can we think of affect as a resistance tool in order to achieve political and societal change? Is it time to consider affect not as a set of culturally expected emotional gestures but as a primordial orientation that is politically charged? I argue that we need to envision affect entwined with contemporary processes of ecological and human rights crises. In this context, affect absorbs an immense capacity to act in critical ways. As transversal and relational, affect, I add, allows for possibilities to rescue lands, cultures, and cosmologies doomed to exhaustion for the profit of the Global North and, ultimately, condemned to extinction. In its transitivity, affect demands reflection within a politics of ethics and responsibility of the dominant actors that have viciously imposed their own self-interest and profit. Understanding affect through indigenous cosmologies not only proposes new ontological approaches to affect but also opens up more democratic avenues for relating with the environment and with others. Affective relations with earth-beings in the Lenca community enable survival, sustainability, and, in general, life.7 In his book Guerras del interior

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(2018), Peruvian journalist Joseph Zárate delves into the lives of three environmental activists whose fate was determined by extractivist projects. Divided into three sections—Madera (Wood), Oro (Gold) and Petróleo (Oil)—Zárate relates each of these to the three individuals locally affected by the extraction of wood, gold, and oil. Following their lives, Zárate brings to the forefront the interior wars Edwin Chota, Máxima Acuña, and Osman Cuñachí have to fight to protect their families, their communities, their environments, and their own existences. Chota was unfortunately killed for attempting to stop and sue the corporations that were deforesting, on a large scale, areas of the Amazons that belonged to indigenous communities. Acuña has received multiple death threats, her family has been beaten up, and the house they were building was burnt down because of their determination to stay in the lands inhabited by their ancestors, where gold was found. Cuñachi has suffered from acute health issues due to his work as a child gathering oil for big corporations. Their lives have been completely affected by governmental concessions, political impunity, and corporate greed. In his epilogue, Zárate wonders why an electrician leaves his hometown to travel to the Amazons, becomes a leader of an indigenous community, and confronts death in his efforts to stop wood traffickers; why a woman decides to sacrifice her life and that of her offspring by resisting for years a mining company that wants to displace her; and why a child has to dive into a river contaminated with oil. All of his questions echo Berta’s efforts to preserve the land and identity of the Lencas, as well as her struggles for social justice. For Zárate, these resilient acts originate deep down in their souls, in their consciousness. And the feeling of losing something that belongs to them, to their community, and to their identity activates their agency and potential to reflect and work toward a democratic world. In Zárate’s book, “la madera, el oro y el petróleo no son sólo materiales: son metáforas que hablan de conflictos humanos causados por la colisión de distintas visiones del desarrollo. Estos conflictos revelan las contradicciones de nuestras sociedades, la trama de indiferencia y cinismo que rige nuestra rutina, pero también los actos extraordinarios de lo que somos capaces cuando sentimos que algo que nos define es atacado” (Kindle edition, location 1646) (wood, gold, and oil are not only material resources: they are metaphors that allude to human conflicts caused by the clash of different visions of progress. These conflicts reveal our societies’ contradictions, a story of indifference and cynicism that shapes our daily lives, and also the extraordinary acts we are able to execute when we feel something that has defined us is threatened). Their deep ability to feel used, abused, and completely erased turns them into active subjects. Therefore, the tragic affects indigenous communities undergo are transformed into new, positive, and enlightening affective forms that give us hope for a better future. I would add that it is not just the identity of these groups at risk, but also their

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livelihoods, their environment, and their care for socially precarious individuals and groups. Identity is dynamic and in constant transformation but the drastic identitarian changes imposed on these groups affect their quotidian practices, their sense of solidarity and collectivity, and their sustainable economies. However, the power of affectivity, affect in its transitivity, and affects as nouns proposed in this book is the essence of democratic change through coalitional work that moves beyond self-interest and individuality. Examining the work Berta Cáceres and COPINH have been doing for decades, I  felt profoundly compelled, moved, and touched to write a book about Berta. However, the more I thought about Berta, the deeper I understood affect as a cultural and political tool. Resorting to Baruch Spinoza’s notion of affect in its transitive form, as a movement that integrates different entities, I  started to reflect upon indigenous cultures, and vulnerable groups already affected as such due to an uneven and unfair distribution of wealth, of resources, of humanity and, ultimately, of life. For this reason, my purpose is to examine the ways affect opens up a vast arena for political agency, survival, the preservation of indigenous land, communities’ human rights, and the Earth. As objects affected by political and financial trade agreements, these groups become agents of change, doers of a new revolutionary sense of democracy that is reflective, rational, relational, ecological, and deindividualized. Since the beginning of colonialism, the Latin American soil has been affected by Christopher Columbus’ arrival in ways probably unimaginable at the time. The land has experienced rapacious invasions and transformations for the accumulation of capital in the West. Its indigenous and African populations were enslaved and rapidly violated. In multiple occasions, resilience and resistance emerged to preserve the pre-existing cultures and, as a major instance, Haiti became the first black republic of the world by the end of the eighteenth century. In this context, affect engineers a powerful trajectory of emancipation through thinking-feeling processes that encapsulate both the passive form along with the active form. Ecological activisms or ecofeminist movements are essential in the planning and organizing of vulnerable bodies in order to survive, to preserve their cultures and their land, and ultimately to save our planet Earth. Furthermore, these movements and organizations contest the hierarchically constituted passive versus active forms by mobilizing them; their fluidity allows for resistance and resilience to unfold. The Lenca community, to which Berta belongs, has similarly endured hardships throughout centuries of colonialism, including displacements and migrations in Central America. While the indigenous population in the sixteenth century in what is today known as Honduras was around 800,000, it was reduced to 80,000 by 1945, of which 49,300 were Lencas. Lenca was originally associated with a

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language spoken by indios from Guajiquiro (La Paz). Descendants of the Mayans, the Lenca people were grouped around different communities settled in the interior lands of El Salvador and Honduras. Under Spanish colonialism, the Lencas resisted assimilation through an arduous and prolonged fight led by the cacique Lempira. Little is known of this rebellion by the Lenca people, but the figure of Lempira symbolizes the national hero of the Honduran collective imaginary. Despite an almost complete extinction of their language, the Lencas are still attempting to preserve their cultural heritage and traditions through the implementation of educational programs disseminated across the country. The majority of the communities are found in the departments of La Paz, Intibucá, and Lempira. It is in these regions where we find social organizations defending their commons against human and land right violations committed by governmental concessions of transnational projects.8 As COPINH states, the Lenca people are a pueblo luchador (fighting people) “on their continuous historic struggle against powerful groups of people such as the Spanish inquisition, the Catholic Church, multinationals, banks and the Honduran government, among others” (De Strijcker, 40). In her anthropological research on the Lenca community, Ermersinde De Strijcker relates her experiences in Honduras while living with a Lenca family. The Lenca people grow fruit and vegetables that they sell in markets or exchange with other members of the community. They are known as the “feeders of the city” of La Esperanza due to the diversity of their produce. Being highly self-sufficient and sustainable, the Lenca are however criticized and constructed as inferior.9 As part of their traditions, they deliver in households—Austra’s expertise—but they are sometimes forced to go to hospitals. In this sense, traditional and modern practices collide and the Lenca people are stuck in between the demands of modernity and their own idiosyncrasies.10 Syncretism is their defining characteristic as a result of navigating colonialist oppression for centuries and a desire to preserve their identity. In this fashion, a new element emerges from Catholic influences and their own cosmologies. Because the community has suffered centuries of domination, some of these syncretic practices become secretive: “The spiritual relationship of Lenca with Mother Earth, the cosmovisión and composturas (sacred spiritual ceremonies) are less visible, or even ‘secret’ identity markers of Lenca indigenous identity” (41). They foster a horizontal relationship with nature through which the human being is an entity interconnected with the rivers, the mountains, the animals, the plants, the trees, the produce, etc. This sustainability model continues to be endangered by land expropriation and capitalist demands. Dispossession is, therefore, a consequence of the affective practices of corporate greed, which have tremendous communal and personal affects in the native populations. In this sense, organizations such as COPINH emerge to affectively

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and effectively look for viable solutions for the Lenca communities and other vulnerable groups across the nation. The alliances and solidarity formed between regional organizations have become imperative to promote change and to defend the commons. Similarly, the organization OFRANEH (Organización Franternal Negra Hondureña), led by Garifuna leader Miriam Miranda, prepares future generations of Garifunas through educational and sustainability programs that will enable them to defend their coastal territories. In this area of Honduras, the government has endowed numerous concessions to foreign corporations to build tourist resorts. Regardless of the transnational projects carried out on Honduran soil—deforestation, mining, coffee exports, soybean exports, green tourism, mega dam constructions, or energy extraction—Honduras’ centrifugalism or outward exposure continues to damage diverse populations and environments. The current tendency created by capitalism denominates these incursions under the euphemism “green economy” or in Spanish, economía verde, a widely criticized term due to its twofold intentionality. Green economy or economía verde is a capitalist and colonialist product that attempts to continue environmental invasions while promising the communities access to public services and a minimal natural impact. It follows the logic of failure articulated by the 90s idea of sustainable development, which promised new environmentally friendly technologies and renewable energies as a way forward. Years later, the United Nations’ commitment to a so-called green economy presents similar approaches to tackle environmental destruction and climate change concerns. While emphasizing a new economic paradigm “in which material wealth is not delivered perforce at the expense of growing environmental risks, ecological scarcities and social disparities” (UNEP 2011, 1), the underlying capitalist structures are not addressed by any national or international institution. The desire to decouple growth from natural capital depletion and “the potential to ensure the preservation of the Earth’s ecosystem along new economic growth pathways while contributing at the same time to poverty reduction” (UNDESA, 2011) have remained unexecuted goals. Ulrich Brand (2012) introduces several reasons that highlight the impossibility of conceiving a true green sustainable world unless production and consumption practices are radically transformed. In his article “Green Economy—the Next Oxymoron?” Brand carefully expands on the problematic nature of this label due to four significant factors. The first issue is related to the continuous promotion of free trade in a globalized world that allures more and more competitiveness among powerful countries with geopolitical interests. Second, the West celebrates a profit-driven development of technologies which do not promote sustainability. The third and fourth factors are marked by a sense of growth that implies the exhaustion of natural resources to maintain global

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status. These structural constraints, as Brand mentions, need to be taken seriously “to effectively [and I add affectively] deal with questions of wealth and social justice, environmental degradation and poverty” (32). Therefore, the Western model of production and consumption similarly called “the imperial mode of living” will always be at odds with an economy of sustainability. Only when societies reshape the consumer-driven model and new forms of wealth are envisioned, could we be facing a new radical environmental transformation. Another concerning aspect of the green economy is allowing corporations that subscribe to this type of economy to decide which species or elements need to be conserved and protected from human reach. A group of intellectual and activist women in Honduras have been denouncing the consequences of the green economy in the country. Compiled in the section “Ataques, políticas, resistencias y relatos” (2018), they affirm that the misnamed green economy reinforces gender inequalities affecting specifically women. Focusing on the forests, they argue how the green economy has assigned trees with an economic value, downplaying therefore the symptoms and impact of deforestation in the communities that inhabit these natural areas. At the same time, it undermines the active role native groups and particularly women have had in protecting these environments and living sustainably within them. By embracing a green economy model, conservationist projects implement restrictions on how to use the forest, and argue that traditional approaches are the main cause of deforestation. Similarly, communities are interrupted through the creation of governance and laws that prevent them from continuing their subsistence economy and symbiotic relationship with the forests. Restricting the traditional usage of the forest makes work more difficult for these communities to sustain themselves since water collection, agriculture, and gathering medicines become complex tasks. In addition, the rivers and soil become polluted, bringing violence and precariousness to households. Since women are the primary workers in the fields, their access to water, agriculture, and other resources is forbidden. For this reason, women are the most highly affected by these cultural disruptions. Because patriarchy has designed these caregiving jobs for women, the community depends on the produce harvested and gathered from the land. Once it is expropriated and altered, women find themselves in an extremely vulnerable situation that is intensified by institutional violence. The police force is given a green card to enter the houses in the communities and to surveil the households. These violent acts encourage resilience and an uprising of resistance movements and organizations. However, these affective expressions are counteracted by a more militarized presence and by criminalization. In the end, it is an arduous fight that has ended in tragedy on numerous occasions, such as the assassination of Berta Cáceres. As I have mentioned, affect structures a chain of events that starts with cultural and environmental disruptions within the

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native communities, primarily in the Global South. Once they mobilize to survive and to preserve their commons, an intensified use of violence explodes. Women, as well as children, are hit the hardest with “affecting” results and, therefore, I will articulate the need to utilize affect theories and a politics of affect within the indigenous communities to situate particular knowledges and experiences. This book is divided into six chapters that deal primarily with a politics of affect in the formation of personal, collective, and community lives of the Lenca people. Because of my interest in indigenous cosmologies and the ways they have been impacted by the West, I want to examine how affect can save us from a precarious sense of rationality stagnated in a European paradigm of thought. Affect shapes the lives of Berta, of COPINH members, of abundant indigenous social movements, ecology activisms, ecofeminisms, etc., in fascinating ways. As if struck by a tsunami, the grammatical direct objects of the “imperial I (eye)” have resisted for centuries the violence inflicted upon them not without tremendous losses recorded in the unthinkable deprivation and dispossession of humanity, territory, rights, and bodies. Thus, I  will immerse the reader in an affective journey that displays the potential found in cultures such as the Lenca, and in humans such as Berta, who by sacrificing her life for the sake of the commons and the preservation of the Earth left us with an immortal legacy, and with the power to affect and effect social transformation. Chapter 1 examines the history of affect in cultural theory and philosophy in the last centuries. Primarily discussed in Western narratives, affect was articulated as an overlooked and undermined aspect of the human condition that paradoxically informed much of ourselves through the deployment of passions, pleasures, feelings, and emotions. Resisting the supremacy of the mind and reason, affect claimed its significant status in explaining human behavior. Therefore, the science of psychoanalysis and intellectuals such as Sigmund Freud, Baruch Spinoza, Félix Guattari, and Gilles Deleuze reflected upon the connections between emotions, the construction of subjectivity, and processes of socialization. Many of the conventional studies on affect are similarly directed toward the self. On the other hand, contemporary analyses on affect have exploded as a response to the limitations of poststructuralism and individualization. In this line of thought, corporeality needs to be recuperated as significant to subject and community formation. Feminisms and gender studies scholars such as Sara Ahmed, Elspeth Probyn, and Lauren Berlant address the field of affects to question their value and to provoke a rethinking of emotions and feelings. From this perspective, affects are a Western cultural product that responds to certain expectations while reinforcing gender, sexual, racial, and class hierarchies. That is, as the authors mention, femininity has traditionally been associated with the body and emotions thus reduced to inferiority and negativity. In this sense,

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emotions are perceived as dangerous and a threat to projects of civilization and progress. Furthermore, certain emotions such as shame or happiness determine imperial ways of ontology and epistemology. Shame is stuck onto the bodies of others—those who do not fit in the Western, white, male dominant category. Likewise, happiness is defined by a capitalist and patriarchal understanding of success. While a growing number of scholars have addressed the problematics and the resemantization of affects, other authors have begun to view new and alternative approaches to the politics of affect. The Affect Theory Reader (2010) and Politics of Affect (2015) are two of the most outstanding works on affect that present a multiplicity of perspectives as well as a history of feelings and emotions. In The Affect Theory Reader, multiple scholars reconsider the field from eight different orientations that are culturally and politically driven. In all, they recognize the complexities of affect in subject and social formation, and problematize how culture has created hierarchies of feelings. Politics of Affect includes interviews with scholar Brian Massumi where he detaches affects from individuality by portraying them as relational, transversal, and most importantly political. He views the potential of affect in Spinoza’s transitivity, which involves two parties—the doer of the affect and the receiver of the affect—at an event. However, this relationship is not static since there is always the potential for the object to resist. My understanding and focus on affect theory relies on this consideration of affect, which translated politically involves processes of fluidity between the subject and the object. Despite the outstanding analyses on affect, emotions, and feelings, non-Western perspectives have been absent in these studies. In what she calls de/ colonizing affect, Indian scholar Sneja Gunew affirms that Eurocentric standpoints on affect do not reflect the particularities of subject, community, and nation formation elsewhere. Following this criticism, I move onto a contextualization of affect in the Latin American context to provide new lenses for viewing affective structures and affective solidarity within the indigenous Lenca community. Latin American scholars such as Roger Bartra have undermined the validity of sentimentalism that has constituted national imaginaries; passion and emotions have deterred rationality and, therefore, a sense of historical drama has been preserved. In this fashion, different vulnerable groups are isolated from each other in their demands for their specific injustices. Nevertheless, I  argue how Berta and COPINH’s affective journey has embraced an intersectional analysis of struggles that integrates difference in order to achieve social justice. I similarly explore how the Lenca community, affected violently by the transnational agreements signed between their local government and the foreign corporations, has ironically strategized planning through thinking-feeling processes to promote change. In a similar vein, affect’s potential for a ninth orientation based on an intersectionality of

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struggles, political work, and an affective rationale leads me to examine the connection between ecology movements and ecofeminisms, on the one hand, and affect theories, on the other. Therefore, in Chapter 2, I examine the significance of studying activism from the perspective of affect. In exploring the prevalence of ecofeminist active and theoretical frameworks, I celebrate the work of Vandana Shiva and Maria Mies titled Ecofeminism (1993) where the authors narrate the origins of action-based protests women all across different geographical locations have engaged in to denounce nuclear power plants and environmental disasters. Since women and children are the most affected by environmental waste and toxicities, they have been fighting for several decades to raise awareness on the effects and affects that industrialization and modernization have in our bodies and our territories. As they question discourses of progress and development, they trace the history of colonialism and the Enlightenment to showcase the white man’s aggressive desire to conquer and tame nature. Responding to the devastating consequences of predatory colonial practices, thousands of activists are mobilizing to stop extractivist projects that continue to exhaust the land and exercise a politics of death, because the Global North’s capitalist enterprises affect not only the Earth but also the poor, and the most vulnerable groups. Along with Shiva and Mies’ groundbreaking work, other studies that cover transnational and intersectional standpoints have contributed to the field of ecofeminisms and ecology movements. In all of these studies, the transitive, transversal, and relational capacity of affect structures and constitutes ecofeminist activism. The second part of the chapter explores Latin American ecofeminisms, focusing on colonial violence and the relationship between theology of liberation and the emergence of a gender, class, and environmental consciousness. Within the literary realm, Latin American authors have frequently represented the forces of nature and the land, in both positive and negative ways, following national discourses on nation formation built upon the civilization versus barbarism dualism. In this way, nineteenth-century intellectual criollos and the authors of the novelas de la tierra tended to view nature as feminine and negative, reaffirming the colonial discourse articulated by the conquistadores. Other contemporary literary works personify nature by providing a variety of elements such as trees and birds with the power to move and affect us. Thus affect is constantly blended with a care for the environment and ultimately for a horizontal and harmonious relation between humans and non-humans. I end up contextualizing Berta Cáceres and COPINH’s commitment to the environment and the strength of the Río Gualcarque, the essence of the Lenca community. In tracing Berta’s contributions to Latin American ecofeminisms, I examine the intersectional approach of her activism and the sacred rituals of the Lencas’; whose appreciation and respect for nature is expressed through affect.

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In Chapter 3, I analyze violence as a negative affect that in its transitivity has been imprinted onto bodies made vulnerable and precarious through colonialism. As I argue, violence, in the context of the Lenca community, is distributed through extractivist projects and criminalization. Brian Massumi refers to affect as an event where two elements meet asymmetrically and the dynamic between power over and power to unfolds. That is, the dominant actors, settler colonizers, or agents of colonialism associated with the Global North have historically subsumed the subaltern actors by exercising power over their land, their natural resources, their bodies and their minds. In this way, power over produces violent affects that alter the livelihoods of numerous communities through these traumatic interventions. Colonialism—as the event where both the North and the South meet—affected negatively, and distributed negative affects such as violence, to the bodies of indigenous and African groups. I discuss, in particular, the Lenca community and the ways in which power over has modified their idiosyncrasies, their economies, their cultures, and their commons. However, power to—in its capability to resist oppression and violence—offers alternatives to plan and organize through thinking-feeling processes and the intersectional struggles embraced by COPINH. Massumi’s analysis on power mirrors Hannah Arendt and Michael Foucault’s emphasis on the malleability of power intrinsic to an understanding of the possibilities minority groups and vulnerable bodies have in order to challenge systemic violence and to peacefully respond to acts of aggression, invasion, and effacement. By arguing how extractivist projects and criminalization are two violent forms that impose negative affects onto communities such as the Lenca, I  analyze Frantz Fanon, Hannah Arendt, Judith Butler, and Brad Evans’ reflections on the operational modes of violence to conclude that not only the Lencas are violently affected by neoliberal practices, but they are also targeted as violent and fearful. Fanon’s analysis on colonial struggles addresses the useful violence perpetrated by dominant actors as a productive mechanism to control and discipline the bodies of others—those who inhabit the zone of non-being—and because of their lack of humanity, any form of resistance they endure is seen as violent in itself. Since the Global North demonizes those bodies that do not matter, useful violence translated into systemic or institutional violence is not only normalized but also consensually validated. In Honduras, Juan Orlando Hernández’s corrupt government and the official media outlets present the Lencas, peasants, and the indigenous and Garifuna communities as bodies that need to be disciplined and surveilled for the continuation and preservation of modernization and progress. They are constructed as an obstacle to neoliberalism and the Western conceptualization of citizenship. As a result, criminalization operates to displace acts of violence onto those non-conforming bodies. In addition to inflicting violence through extractivist projects and criminalizing

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techniques, women are more prone to experience drastic levels of affective violence as their reproductive health worsens due to environmental toxicities, domestic violence, and lifestyle precariousness. For this reason, women’s participation in these environmental movements and intersectional struggles is fundamental in order to plan and organize affectively and effectively to produce positive social change. Chapter 4 scrutinizes the affects of violence in the form of outrage and resistance strategies. Exposed to centuries of violent practices, the Lencas have displayed moments of indignation derived from constant dehumanization and precariousness. I argue how outrage mobilizes the communities into action. As an affective resistant tool to enable radical transformation, outrage comes out of common disapproval of unjust and unfair life chances because of the Global North’s negative affectivity toward others. Based on Ofelia Roldán Vargas and Paola Andrea Agudelo Acevedo’s interpretations of outrage, I explore how Berta and copines’ manifestations of outrage aim at “touching” individuals and groups across the world to incentivize global awareness of the violence exercised upon bodies rendered disposable. Founded on the universal idea of love for the other, indignation articulates stories and experiences of shared vulnerability to affect as many people as possible to organize against injustices. Natality, as a result of outrage, envisions ethical modes of inhabiting the world coded through resistance. In this regard, an outlook on the history of COPINH, the documentaries Las Revoluciones de Berta (Berta’s Revolutions) and Rebeldía Inclaudicable (Unassailable Rebellion), and the collection of different articulations of injustice gathered by a group of human rights lawyers belonging to Dejusticia shows how feelings of indignation can successfully be turned into strategies to resist transnational dominant actors. Making reference to Chela Sandoval’s suggested tactics in Methodologies of the Oppressed, I  discuss how political action free from a totalizing way of thinking and focused on difference, oppositional consciousness, connection to reality, deindividualization, horizontality, and alternative ecologies is part and parcel of Berta and COPINH’s emancipatory practices. Among their strategies of resistance, solidarity and care become affective states to address collectivity, intersectionality, and inclusivity in a transnational platform in order to make their demands and their agenda more productive. In Chapter 5, I look into emancipatory modes of resistance through the solidarity and care carried on by Berta and COPINH. Some of the theories that inform this chapter echo Chandra Mohanty, Angela Davis, Carold Gould, and Clare Hemmings’ reflections on solidarity practices ranging from shared experiences of oppression, and intersectionality of struggles and stories, to transnational solidarity and affective dissonances. All these intellectuals distinguish between the ontology of womanhood and the epistemology of feminism underlying the importance of positionality and situationality, since location frames the

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multiple layers of marginality women suffer from. From this interconnectedness, solidarity moves beyond the boundaries of identity politics to celebrate a multiplicity of struggles that resist patriarchy, racism, capitalism, and neoliberal forms of exploitation. In this sense, affective dissonances that bridge the distance between ontology and epistemology encompass feelings of indignation and outrage that result in thoughtful and planned activism across borders. Drawing upon these theories, I explore the history of resistance since the destitution of Manuel Zelaya in 2009 through the stories of Dana Frank, a US history professor whose experiences in Honduras with Berta and COPINH illuminate the challenges faced on a daily basis due to governmental impunity, systemic violence, and criminalization. The stories she provides underline the importance of intersectional struggles and regional and transnational solidarity that nourish social and environmental movements in their peaceful fight toward social justice. Other forms of solidarity are displayed in COPINH’s website’s section on “solidarity” that reports on a variety of initiatives taken place in Chile, Spain, México, etc., to make visible COPINH’s goals, and the injustices transpired in Berta Cáceres’ ongoing trial. Solidarity practices are intertwined with reconsiderations of care that not only challenge biological essentialism and cultural constructivism but also focus on self-care and care for the Earth to preserve and to empower Lenca women. In order to imagine and embrace alternative ecologies, care becomes a social affect mobilized across precarious communities to decolonize their bodies and to emancipate themselves from Western scientific knowledge, from male abuse, and from patriarchy. A group of Lenca women published a book titled Sanar es Resistir in March 2019 that gathers educational tips and pedagogical tools on how to care for themselves, their environment, and their communities. Due to the lack of health care access and the discrimination they suffer, ancestral knowledge is an imperative resource for surviving and healing both their territories and their bodies. In this sense, care as an act of resistance empowers indigenous women. In Chapter 6, I explore reconsiderations of mourning, melancholia, and hope from a human and non-human perspective. Since Berta’s assassination, protests and manifestations all over the world have shown productive and affective forms of restituting and restoring her persona using art, music, performances, documentaries, and storytelling. These solidarity practices are, as I argue, articulations of “resistant mourning” and “activist melancholia.” Tracing the psychoanalytical studies on mourning and melancholia of Sigmund Freud, Michel Foucault, and Jacques Derrida and of more contemporary philosophers, such as Judith Butler, David Eng, and David Kazanjian, I explore depathologizing melancholia, and an inconclusive state of mourning to successfully address the loss of Berta, of numerous copines, environmental activists, and nature. Theoretical approaches to the affectivity of mourning and loss as processes

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that deal with the lost object have recuperated the potential of an etho-asthetic form of melancholia. Since culture has created a hierarchy of mournable and unmournable bodies, as Judith Butler has brilliantly exposed in Precarious Life, activist melancholia allows for the acknowledgment and recognition of lost objects (minorities) already erased within the contours of normative society. In order to affect and allocate grief equally, artistic manifestations and street demonstrations become necessary to restitute and restore marginal bodies and, in the case of environmental advocates, individuals such as Berta. In mourning Berta, it is important to create an understanding of grief beyond the human since her willingness and efforts to protect the Río Gualcarque and its sacredness from ecological disruption led to her death. The eloquent arguments made by Ashlee Cunsolo, Karen Landman, Glenn Albrecht, and Patricia Rae, demanding an extension of grief toward those landscapes, animals, and earth-beings dislocated or disappeared by human action, articulate new language for imagining how these losses affect us all. In this regard, Cunsolo and Landman pay special attention to climate change and the deterioration of nature. “Anticipatory grieving,” “solastalgia,” and “proleptic elegies” as depicted by Cunsolo, Albrecht and Rae, are feelings and affects that contextualize the dramatic foreshadowing of the consequences of human violence committed against the Earth. In this regard, Berta’s process of mourning the Río Gualcarque was not only anticipatory but it also projected feelings of homesickness in her own home (solastalgia) while highlighting its beauty, vitality, and force. All the modes of resistant mourning and activist melancholia are based on hopeful spirits and bodies that envision a better future. Thinking of hope as connected to crisis (Gayatri Spivak) and both in its actuality and potentiality, COPINH and social movements across the world are investing in affective and effective activism; by “moving” and “touching” as many individuals as possible, they are already paving the way toward social justice, equality, and inclusivity.

Notes 1. Berta was the recipient of multiple awards including the Goldman Environmental Prize known as the “Green Nobel.” Another important award was the Rothko Chapel’s Oscar Romero Human Rights Award which was received by Berta’s comrade and friend Miriam Miranda, main coordinate of OFRANEH (Black Fraternal Organization of Honduras). 2. The word sicario stands to identify men raised in the slums of Medellin, Colombia, by Pablo Escobar, who would turn them into assassins within the drug cartel operations. Sicarios grow up witnessing extreme levels of violence and, therefore, assassination becomes their main job. Washington started hunting them down during the War on Drugs in the 80s but new recruits have since sprouted reinforcing the tight connection with narco-trafficking. I use the term to refer to Berta’s assassination since they are killers hired by corporate businesses to erase those

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3.

4.

5. 6.

7.

potentially disruptive agents. In Chapter 6, I will focus on the aftermath of the murder in reference to the responsible entities. The Central American region developed somewhat differently from the rest of the Latin American continent. Thomas Skidmore and Peter H. Smith analyze in Modern Latin America (2000) how the export-import phase stood out around the 1960s while countries such as Argentina, Brazil, and Mexico had already started the import substitution industrialization (ISI) in the 30s. In other words, Central America remained very agrarian and rural, socially constituted by the 2% criollo and ladino landowners whereas the rest of the population was poor and indigenous. This economic structure favored the rising of a small oligarchy that occupied most of the nations’ wealth and land. By the end of the nineteenth century and beginning of the twentieth, the dominant group made up of conservatives and liberals promoted exports of coffee and bananas. In this time period, foreign investors came to play a very important role in the peasant economies of the region. North Americans Minor Cooper Keith and Henry Meiggs Keith bought land at very affordable prices and expanded the banana business through the creation of the Boston Fruit Company and the Tropical Trading Transport Company merged under the name of the United Fruit Company. It is at this moment when “the history of US investment, penetration, and control in Central America begins” (324). Honduras was characterized by liberal-conservative party rivalries holding power through a triangular alliance—land owners, foreign investors (United Fruit) and the military. Because of the strong military presence and its geographical situation, it soon became a US trustful client. Thus, during the US invasions of El Salvador and Nicaragua to stop political dissent and social subversives, Honduras was used as a “launching pad for Contra attacks” against the neighboring countries. While there has not been a predominant history of socioeconomic turmoil in Honduras, El Salvador and Nicaragua have constantly been under the radar of Washington supporting conservative dictatorships to maintain “law and order,” and to fight communism. In this context, Austra’s family helped the neighboring dissidents who were criminalized and tortured under dictatorial regimes and the US military presence. In Turning the Tide (1987), Noam Chomsky expands on the US intervention in Central America and the military support offered through the Carter and Reagan administrations to fight guerrilla groups in El Salvador and Nicaragua. Due to the increase in peasant mobilizations and the formations of guerrillas, the US invasion in the isthmus nations intensified with the goal of controlling politics, foreign monopolies and, as I mentioned before, to stall the propagation of Marxist ideologies. Chomsky argues how the US presence has not been fairly quantified or held responsible for the terror tactics, tortures, and atrocities carried out. From now own, I will refer to members of COPINH—Civic Council of Popular and Indigenous Organizations of Hondura—as copines since this is how they refer to themselves. With the coffee and banana exports and the monopoly of the United Fruit Company, Honduras underwent considerable deforestation projects. Following the legacy of extractivism that dates back to colonialism, large-scale projects such as mining and hydroelectric dams have proliferated. According to Christopher Loperena in “Settler Violence? Race and Emergent Frontiers of Progress in Honduras,” the concessions given once Zelaya was overthrown fulfilled the white socioeconomic imaginary through a narrative of national progress and development that immediately displaces and erases non-white groups. I will use the concept earth-beings in this book to empower and animate biodiversity and our natural surroundings as a way to decenter the human. In her book Earth Beings: Ecologies of Practice across Andean Worlds, Marisol de la Cadena re/inscribes the more-than-human debate within the field of geography to validate non-Western cosmologies that dismantle the hierarchical

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cultural binary human versus non-human. For this reason, the term earth-beings reappropriates the “being” traditionally assigned to “humanity.” 8. The commons refer to natural resources (air, rivers, land, etc.) shared by all members of society. However, the influential article written by Garret Hardin in 1968 entitled “The Tragedy of the Commons” has been unfairly adopted by neoliberalism to defend the privatization of land, arguing that it would prevent people’s misuse and overuse of resources. It is well known that Hardin embraced racism in his visualization of this global tragedy, that is, when the commons are shared by the community. Anthropologist G.N. Apell (1993) problematizes Hardin’s article because it reinforces the power of society’s dominant actors who have the ability to impose their own economic models and future on others while undermining the situated knowledge of communities that live in harmony with natural wealth. On the contrary to what Hardin envisions, the tragedy of the commons is the result of neoliberal greed, consumerism, and the deregulation of the economy. In this way, the Lenca people claim the commons as necessary resources—air, rivers, mountains, fields, etc. …—for sustaining the environment and preventing its destruction. The commons, therefore, are the essence of life and need to be preserved by communities. 9. According to De Strijcker, some ladinos presented the Lenca people as sucios (dirty) referring to their backward lifestyle in marginalized rural areas. This depiction has been contested by tourism institutions and COPINH who portray them as a pueblo luchador and luchadores (fighting people, and warriors). 1 0. Christian Wells and Karla Davis-Salazar published in 2018 an extensive piece on Lenca traditions and their environmental worldviews. The Lencas perform sacred rituals known as composturas to communicate to their ancestors their intentions to use their natural surroundings for the purpose of sustaining their communities. The environment cannot be altered without this communication, since the ancestors—protectors of the rivers and the land—could foreshadow a disastrous season. In this sense, “nonmaterial motives often drive economic choices at the expense of rational, utilitarian behavior” (190). The Lencas, therefore, respect nature and planet Earth as they respect each other. In this sense, they provide an alternative cosmology that disrupts Western binaries and the desire to conquer the land.

References Ahmed, Sara. 2010. The Promise of Happiness. Durham, NC: Duke University Press. Alianza Biodiversidad. ¡Berta vive, la lucha sigue! In “Revista ‘Biodiversidad, Sustento y Culturas’ Abril 2016.” Comité De Solidaridá Con América Latina. cosal.es/revista-biodiversidad-sustento-y-culturas-abril-2016/. Accessed May 10, 2019. Albretch, Glenn. 2017. “Solastalgia and the New Mourning.” In Mourning Nature: Hope at the Heart of Ecological Loss and Grief, edited by Ashlee Cunsolo and Karen Landman, 292–315. Montreal: McGill-Queens University Press. Appell, George N. 1993. “Hardin’s Myth of the Commons:  the Tragedy of Conceptual Confusions. With Appendix:  Diagrams of Forms of Co-ownership.” Working Paper 8. Phillips, ME. Social Transformation and Adaptation Research Institute. Arendt, Hannah. 1970. On Violence. Orlando, FL: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt.

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Brand, Ulrich. 2012. “Green Economy—The Next Oxymoron? No Lessons Learned from Failures of Implementing Sustainable Development.”  GAIA-Ecological Perspectives for Science and Society 21.1: 28–32. Buchanan, Ian. 2017. “Gilles Deleuze.” In Histories of Violence: Post-War Critical Thought, edited by Brad Evans and Terrell Carver, 107–123. London, UK: Zen Books. Butler, Judith. 2006. Precarious Life: The Powers of Mourning and Violence. London, UK: Verso. Butler, Judith. 2008. “Afterword:  After Loss, What Then?” In  Loss:  The Politics of Mourning, edited by David L. Eng and David Kazanjian, 466–475. Berkeley, CA:  University of California Press. Butler, Judith. 2017. “Jelke Boesten.” In Histories of Violence: Post-War Critical Thought, edited by Brad Evans and Terrell Carver, 124–141. London: Zen Books. Chomsky, Noam. 2015. Turning the Tide: US Intervention in Central America and the Struggle For Peace. Chicago, IL: Haymarket Books. Christian Wells, E., and Karla L. Davis-Salazar. 2008. “Environmental Worldview and Ritual Economy among the Honduran Lenca.”  In Dimensions of Ritual Economy, 189–217. Bradford: Emerald Group Publishing Limited. COPINH. Sanar es resistir. Issue. May 11, 2019. https://issuu.com/copinh/docs/sanar_es_ resistir. Accessed August 01, 2019. COPINH. “Solidaridad Archives.” COPINH. September 08, 2019. https://copinh.org/category/solidaridad/. Accessed July 10, 2019. Cortés Calderón, Rodolfo, Elías Ruíz and Fredy Melgar. Berta Cáceres: Voz del agua—voz de la tierra. Materiales de Educación Popular: Libros a la calle, 2017. Cunsolo, Ashlee, and Karen Landman. 2017. Mourning Nature: Hope at the Heart of Ecological Loss and Grief. Montreal: McGill-Queens University Press. Cunsolo, Ashlee, and Karen Landman. 2017. “Climate Change and the Work of Mourning.” In Mourning Nature: Hope at the Heart of Ecological Loss and Grief, edited by Ashlee Cunsolo and Karen Landman, 169–189. Montreal: McGill-Queens University Press. Davis, Angela Y. 2016. Freedom Is a Constant Struggle: Ferguson, Palestine, and The Foundations of a Movement. Chicago, IL: Haymarket Books. de la Cadena, Marisol. 2015. Earth Beings: Ecologies of Practice across Andean Worlds. Durham, NC: Duke University Press. Derrida, Jacques. 2017. The Work of Mourning. Translated by Pascale-Anne Brault and Michael Nass. Chicago, IL: Chicago University Press, 2017. Eng, David L.,  and David Kazanjian, eds. 2008. Loss:  The Politics of Mourning. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press. Evans, Brad, and Brian Massumi. “Histories of Violence: Affect, Power, Violence—The Political Is Not Personal.” Los Angeles Review of Books. November 13, 2017. https://lareviewofbooks. org/article/histories-of-violence-affect-power-violence-the-political-is-not-personal/. Accessed May 11, 2019. Evans, Brad, and Brian Massumi. 2017. Histories of Violence. London: Zed Books.

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Evans, Brad, and Natasha Lennard.  2018. Violence:  Humans in Dark times. San Francisco, CA: City Lights Books. Evans, Brad, and Saskia Sassen. “Histories of Violence: The Expulsion of Humanity.” Los Angeles Review of Books. January 7, 2019. https://lareviewofbooks.org/article/histories-of-violence-the-expulsion-of-humanity/. Accessed May 11, 2019. Fanon, Frantz. 2005. The Wretched of the Earth. New York, NY: Grove Press. Frank, Dana. 2018.  The Long Honduran Night:  Resistance, Terror, and the United States in the Aftermath of the Coup. Chicago, IL: Haymarket Books. Freud, Sigmund.  1971. Collected Papers. Early Papers:  On the History of the Psycho-Analytic Movement. London: Hogarth Press. Freud, Sigmund. 1990. The Major Works of Sigmund Freud. Chicago, IL: Encyclopædia Britannica. Gordon, Lewis. 2017. “Fanon.” In Histories of Violence: Post-War Critical Thought, edited by Brad Evans and Terrell Carver, 48–69. London: Zen Books. Gould, Carol C. 2007. “Transnational Solidarities.” Journal of Social Philosophy 38.1: 148–164. Gregg, Melissa, and Gregory J. Seigworth. 2011. The Affect Theory Reader. Durham, NC: Duke University Press. Grillo, Ioan, and Anne Most. “Sicarios: The Story Behind the Cartel Killers.” Time, October 26, 2015. https://time.com/4084337/sicarios-the-story-behind-the-cartel-killers/. Accessed March 10, 2019. Guardiana de los ríos. YouTube. Published by Audiovisuales | Radio Progreso, ERIC-sj, September 13, 2016. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lwwe4MOGfmo. Accessed January 23, 2018. Hardin, Garrett. 1968. “The Tragedy of the Commons.” Science 162.3859: 1243–1248. Hemmings, Clare. 2012. “Affective Solidarity:  Feminist Reflexivity and Political Transformation.” Feminist Theory 13.2: 147–161. Honduras: Blood and the Water. YouTube. Published by Al Jazeera, September 20, 2016. https:// www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Dbphren7E4&t=24s. Accessed January 30, 2018. “H.R.1945—116th Congress (2019–2020): Berta Caceres Human Rights in Honduras Act.” Congress.gov. March 28, 2019. https://www.congress.gov/bill/116th-congress/housebill/1945. Accessed June 05, 2019. Las Revoluciones de Berta. Cine, Mascaro. YouTube. April 12, 2016. https://www.youtube.com/ watch?v=K0zK2NvwB2A&t=1134s. Accessed February 10, 2018. Loperena, Christopher A. 2017. “Settler Violence?: Race and Emergent Frontiers of Progress in Honduras.” American Quarterly 69.4: 801–807. Massumi, Brian. 2016. Politics of Affect. Cambridge: Polity Press. Mohanty, Chandra T. 2003. Feminism without Borders: Decolonizing Theory, Practicing Solidarity. Durham, NC: Duke University Press. Rae, Patricia, ed. 2007. Modernism and Mourning. Lewisburg, PA: Bucknell University Press. Rebeldía inclaudicable. COPINH, Comunicación. YouTube. June 06, 2016. https://www.youtube. com/watch?v=eZvgt6HbJRg. Accessed February 20, 2018.

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Sandoval, Chela. 2008.  Methodology of the Oppressed. Minneapolis, MN:  University of Minnesota Press. Schuerkens, Ulrike. 2017. Social Changes in a Global World (p. 247). London, UK:  SAGE Publications. Kindle Edition. Skidmore, Thomas E., and Peter H. Smith. 1997. Modern Latin America. New York, NY: Oxford University Press. Spinoza, Baruch. 2017. Ethics: Demonstrated in Geometrical Order and Divided into Five Parts. Translated by William Hale White. Los Angeles, CA: Moonrise Press. Spivak, Gayatri. 2002. “The Rest of the World.” In Hope: New Philosophies for Change, edited by Mary Zournazi, 172–191. Sydney: Pluto Press Australia. Strijcker, E. De. 2017. “The River Told Her So.” Narrating Human-Environmental Relations in Indigenous Lenca territory. MS thesis: University of Utrecht. [UNDESA] United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs.2011.“The Great Green Technological Transformation.”World Economic and Social Survey. New York: UNDESA. UNEP. 2011. Towards a Green Economy:  Pathways to Sustainable Development and Poverty Eradication.www.unep.org/greeneconomy. Accessed July 10, 2019. Vargas, Ofelia R., and Paola A. Agudelo Acevedo. 2017. “La indignación: resistencia al mundo individualista.” Ixaya. Revista Universitaria de Desarrollo Social 11: 87–106. Zachos, Elaina. “Why 2017 Was the Deadliest Year for Environmental Activists.”  National Geographic, National Geographic, July 24, 2018. https://www.nationalgeographic.com/ environment/2018/07/environmental-defenders-death-report/. Accessed September 5, 2019. Zárate, Joseph. 2018. Guerras del interior. Lima, Perú: Penguin Random House.

chapter one

Preserving the Affective Being: Reconsiderations of Affect from a NonWestern Perspective

In June 2018, the city of Bilbao in Spain hosted the Conference on Equality, Diversity and Inclusivity (CCRE–CEMR), bringing together regional mayors, elected members of municipalities, local councils, urban planners, and social activists who were seeking to exchange ideas and experiences on issues regarding gender equality, plurality, LGBTQ+ rights, migrants’ cultural integration, and citizens’ participation. Primarily held in Europe every four years, the CCRE–CEMR invites honorable guest speakers who have devoted their lives to social justice, sustainability, and urban progress. The 2008 conference theme was “Differences Unite Us” and it focused on equality, diversity, and inclusivity as vital practices to develop welcoming communities and to improve the well-being, living standards, and quality of life of all citizens. Particularly, the participants discussed how European regions can effectively move toward more diverse, equalitarian, and inclusive societies. Therefore, conversations on public services, employment, intersectional discrimination, UN sustainable goals, and the European Letter for gender equality were at the forefront of the conference speakers’ agenda. The invited guest and the most prominent “face” was Nobel Prize winner Rigoberta Menchú, whose discourse on poverty, inequality, and social injustice mirrored the negative consequences of neoliberal politics in the Latin American continent. Menchú urged the European agents to reconsider their policies regarding immigration, and to be conscious of the damage caused on non-Western soil

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during centuries of endless colonialism that continues through free trade agreements. In a newspaper article published by El Correo:  El Pueblo Vasco, Vizcaya the day following the conference, journalist Sergio García highlighted the global impact of Menchú owing to her enduring non-violent commitment to the rights of the dispossessed and the need to address inequalities at a local level, where politicians’ proximity to citizens encourages greater dialogue. In this article, García depicted her life as a map of suffering triggered by the torture and assassination of her parents and sister. They were all social activists who resisted decades of social militarization, repression, and state-sponsored violence in Guatemala.1 Menchú, her family, and thousands of indigenous peasants had for centuries been affected by colonialism and neoliberalism translated into exploitation of their labor and their lands, and the perpetuation of inequalities. The practices carried out by the West in conjunction with Central American oligarchs—who have sold and still do sell their countries’ natural wealth to transnational corporations—have had short— and long-term devastating effects and affects on these precarious communities. Consequently, rage, frustration, distress, and even courage define their livelihoods. Menchú argues that although rage often triggers social justice, impotence and frustration can open the door to intolerance due to the invisibility and underrepresentation of minority groups. Despite having been granted legal recognition, she adds, the law that acknowledges indigenous rights and their demands is ironically dismissed.2 Nevertheless, frustration can similarly pave the way for social transformation through the coalition and solidarity performed by social movements across the world that invest their energies into protecting their communities, the Earth, and a participatory social democracy. This flow of affects noticeably engineer and mobilize actions, thoughts, and feelings that, when shared communally, have the potential to intervene critically in a culture of genocide, ecocide, and capitalist greed. Similarly, Laura Zuñiga Cáceres—one of Berta’s daughters who initiated a legal investigation into Berta’s murder—expresses feelings of impotence and outrage in many of her interviews. She and Berta’s family members along with copines have spent months dealing with international lawyers, community and transnational allies, international trips to raise awareness of the pervasive violence in Honduras, and even lobbying politicians to demand rapid intervention. However, four years after Berta’s killing, the investigation is pending, and Honduras has been clearly sweeping corruption under the rug. Frustration, outrage, impotence, disappointment, and exhaustion stem, as a consequence, from the impunity enjoyed by the managers of the DESA (Desarrollos Energéticos S.A.) corporation and the national government who have been directly involved in threatening, criminalizing, and killing copines.3 Looking at the prevalence of affects in structuring the personal and collective identities of

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indigenous groups, I emphasize the need to contextualize affects within indigenous groups in order to envision the complexities of feelings-reflections-doings that are particular to communities in constant fear of depletion. Communities such as the Lenca, as I will explore throughout the book, are actively engaged in humanitarian projects not only for survival, but also because of their personal, collective, and political commitment to the environment, earth-beings, and any group suffering systematic oppression across the world. These communities trapped within a network of decision-making that is beyond their reach and that affect them directly feel and act upon their own vulnerability and precariousness in order to gain recognition. Articulations of affect have dominated recent scholarship on subject formation and cultural revisionism. Numerous scholars have adopted what Patricia Ticineto Clough coined the affective turn as they question poststructuralist analysis deeply embedded in social structures, identity politics, and language.4 From philosophers such as Thomas Hobbes, Baruch Spinoza, and Adam Ferguson who analyzed the role of passion in politics to feminist movements that emphasize or question care as naturally attached to women, structures of feelings, passions, and affects have been at the forefront of cultural theory discussions. The amount of potential found in the possibilities of an affective turn provides new ways to contest the status quo, to address inequality, and to challenge identity. Relying on theories developed by Baruch Spinoza, Gilles Deleuze, Félix Guattari, and Michel Foucault, Brian Massumi draws on affect to underline its structuring power in organizing capitalism and to demonstrate its significance not only in shaping the interiority of an individual but also in transforming politics and the collective. Furthermore, the affective turn demands a reconfiguration of affects since they have been legitimately constructed as positive and negative, creating therefore hierarchies that assist cultural expectations. As culturally uncontested constructs, emotions have unfavorable effects that reinforce subordination and play a significant role in discriminatory politics. In this sense, an affective turn that caters to both the body and language is necessary to critically intervene in society.5 In 2010, Melissa Gregg and Gregory J.  Seigworth edited the volume The Affect Theory Reader composed of a number of essays published by thinkers such as Sara Ahmed, Elspeth Probyn, Laure Berlant, Brian Massumi, and Ben Anderson, among others. These authors have conducted extensive research on emotions and affects over the last decades, showing the ways concepts such as happiness, shame, optimism, threat, and hope are but linguistic and cultural constructs experienced according to certain expectations of capitalist success. However, these ideas can be simultaneously resignified to their full potential in order to validate other ways to embody these affects. In the introduction to the volume, both Gregg and Seigworth

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trace the history of affect and immediately point out its relational idiosyncrasy. Affect is understood in encounters between humans and/or non-humans and it produces intensities that travel throughout bodies or among bodies and mental capacities. This group of scholars’ vision of affect is mostly revolutionary because of its uncertainty, convoluted nature, and sophistication. That is, there is no single absolute notion describing the meaning of affect but multiple interpretations that offer an enriching paradigm that goes beyond cultural expectations through thinking-feeling processes. In their study of affects, Freud and Spinoza stress the action engendered in affect and its promise of doing and affecting. I am particularly interested in the transitivity of the verb to affect since, as I  will show later, the Lenca community has occupied the direct object position of the verb to affect, pushed by Western capitalists’ doing of reduction. During the conquest, indigenous cultures became the objects of Europe, suffering from the detrimental consequences of a type of violence disguised as civilizing projects. However, the object immediately turns into the active subject after those affects have been experienced and caused tremendous damage. Once the object acquires subjectivity, productive action takes place. Influenced by Spinoza’s stress on affect as a verb, Deleuze and Guattari focus on its capability to become and to modulate across humans and/or non-humans, which is an important aspect I  will explore in relationship to the environment and the significance of earth-beings. These contributions to the field of affect are reworked in The Affect Theory Reader where eight affectual orientations are unfolded in order to reinforce affect’s unlimited capacities. The first two theorizations deal with the intimate connection between humans and non-humans along with “assemblages of the human/machine/inorganic such as cybernetics, the neurosciences” (Kindle edition, location 121) and research on artificial intelligence “where life technologies work increasingly to smudge the affectional line between the living and the non-living” (121). The third one is located within non-humanist and non-Cartesian traditions that focus on corporeality and matter/body as an ongoing process affected by different feelings and cultural situations. Similar to the third orientation, the fourth relies on psychoanalysis in its role to center desires as the prominent nuclei of intersubjectivity. If the fifth orientation is welcomed by queer theorists, disability activists, feminists, and subaltern people who focus on affect to challenge normativity, and to integrate the daily and nightly experiences of dispossession, the sixth usually turns away from the “linguistic turn” and the limitations of language while it retrieves sensatory feelings such as touch, smell, rhythm, etc., in order to counteract the often-unchallenged power of language. The seventh and eight orientations include, respectively, a multiplicity of marginal voices and practices of science that indulge wonder and perplexity surrounding our connected ideas and power relations.

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The elaboration of eight orientations does not aim to conclude or delimit the infinite possibilities of affects; they highlight different dispositions in modern philosophy around these theories but also look forward to new dimensions that incorporate productive views on affect. And by productive, I mean ways that allow us a more in-depth understanding of the lived experiences of groups that are politically immersed in conflicts, and in unequal relations of power engendered through transnational agreements and the local concessions of natural resources. I am invested in the remarks posited by some of the authors in The Affect Theory Reader, indicating that through affect “there is always a chance for something else, unexpected, new” (Kindle edition, location 3072). This sense of newness, which is prevalent in the ordinary paradigm of neocolonial relations, imagines affect as a “promise” (Massumi, 2002) to act reflexively and to envision the “how it affects and how it is affected by, other things” (Shaviro, 2007). In the case of Berta Cáceres and the Lenca community, the how explains more accurately the disastrous consequences of neoliberalism and its fatal affects on thousands of indigenous communities and the environment but, ironically, the how articulates the thinking-feeling process of planning involved in the work of social and environmental activists toward social justice. Not without controversies, the field of affect has undergone certain transformations resulting from critical inquiries into the lack of political mobilizations of some theorists at their early stages of thinking through feeling-affect. In her article “Invoking Affect: Cultural Theory and the Ontological Turn,” Clare Hemmings (2005) interrogates the validity of affect theory in the ways that it has been articulated by Eve Sedgwick and Brian Massumi due to their persistence in critiquing poststructuralist analysis of culture and underlining an idea of affect detached from social meanings, as well as ignoring experiences of precariousness as a result of material conditions. Hemmings summarizes the reasons why affect theorists feel compelled to interrogate poststructuralism by indicating how a limitation of the socially bound individual “leaves out the residue or excess that constitutes the very fabric of our being” (549) and dismisses “our qualitative experience of the social world” (549), and the embodied experience that has “the capacity to transform as well as exceed social subjection” (549). Besides, she adds, “affective ties have been theorized as offering an alternative model for subject formation” (550). Not only is affect able to account for emotional connections and is the hidden center of capitalism—such as unremunerated affective labor that tends to be feminine care—but it also has the potential to disrupt capital accumulation. Thus, by quoting the studies conducted by Adriana Caravero (2014), Michael Hardt (1999), and Frantz Fanon (1952), Hemmings acknowledges the potential affect offers despite remaining skeptical of its capacity to explain experiences or

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account for sociopolitical transformations. Her biggest concern lies in Sedgwick and Massumi’s theorizations, as I mentioned before, and the fear of an affective approach that instead of manifesting difference is presented as “a central mechanism of social reproduction” (551). Hemmings concludes, then, by affirming that the problem with contemporary affect theories is that they rely on a “fascination with affect outside social meaning, as providing a break in both the social and in critics’ engagements with the nature of the social” (565). Nevertheless, the ideas forged in The Affect Theory Reader revisit culturally ingrained affects by resignifying their value. In this way, studies on shame by Elspeth Probyn (2005) and Silvan Tomkins (1962) reinforce its positive reconsideration in providing new energies to envision more productive conceptualizations of a wide range of affects. In addition, Sedgwick’s work not only focuses on the material and the corporeality of the subjects but it does so within a poststructuralist framework that recognizes the importance of language and, what is more, applies the concept of performativity; emotions are learnt, communicated, and influenced by societal norms and hence, their performative force. Due to their performative character, affects are able to interrupt the public sphere. Elsewhere, Massumi details the autonomous capacity of affect, which is questioned and rejected by Hemmings. On the other hand, in his interviews compiled in Politics of Affect, Massumi’s views on ideology, affect, social activism, etc., are constantly intertwined. The book came out in 2015, although some of the interviews date back to 2008. Due to the detailed analysis on how affect alters and modifies politics, ideology, and the body, a detachment from autonomy and an encounter with social meanings is sought out throughout the different conversations. As mentioned in the introduction, the main aspects of affect deal with transversality, transindividuality, and relationality, reaffirming the main ideas articulated in The Affect Theory Reader. The importance of the in-betweenness where affecting and being affected is produced clearly indicates how the elements that participate in the process are neither passive nor active, but engaged in some degree of activity. Therefore, affect is the event that transverses subjectivity and objectivity, the result of an encounter or a relationship between different social actors whose affects are performative, causing a variety of polyvalences and impacts. In its origin, he continues, affect is political since “the formula ‘to affect and be affected’ is also proto-political in that it includes relation in the definition. To affect and to be affected is to be open to the world, to be active in it and to be patient for its return activity” (Kindle edition, location 209). In this way, “one always affects and is affected in encounters; which is to say through events. To begin affectively in change is to begin in relation, and to begin in relation is to begin in the event” (220). Considering this powerful statement, colonial relations have been historically composed of imperialistic nations and exploited territories

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claimed as their own without acknowledging and instead dismissing the civilizations and cultures that have already shaped these “uncharted” territories. Massumi fails to fully determine whether the two elements involved in the encounter, producing an event, are hierarchically structured, although he acknowledges that the elements meet at the encounter asymmetrically. However, from a postcolonial standpoint, the event of colonialism appropriately marked by violent processes has entailed a hierarchical binary articulated by a Westernized paradigm of rationality that deems the non-Western world to be a passive object subsumed into the control of Europe. In this sense, European nations have dangerously affected indigenous communities for centuries. Since the arrival of Christopher Columbus on Caribbean soil, the terms of the two elements meeting in the encounter that produces an event have been uneven. During the three hundred years of slavery of indigenous and African populations, many communities resisted and fought for what belonged to them, somewhat unsuccessfully, but in other cases rebellious processes resulted in their victory. Still, five hundred years after the colonizers began to drain the open veins of Latin America, numerous communities continue fighting for their land, their rights, and their identity. In the introduction to Cultura y cambio social en América Latina, Mabel Moraña (2018) refers to the idea of “crisis” as a common thread in Latin American thought—ideological, epistemological, and representational crises. In her opinion, moments of crisis are derived from unstable and changing realities subject to internal conflicts typical of postcolonial societies. These colonial/postcolonial societies depend on transformations that emerge in the West and the dominant groups. However, the periphery is mostly affected by such transformations. Therefore, she acknowledges that decision-making in the West affects primarily the periphery “con una fuerza sísmica” (10) (with seismic force). Dramatically affected by colonialism, extractivism, and erasure, the periphery continues struggling for social justice; these communities continue to “affect” in ways that are positive, communal, caring, and loving not just for their own self-interest, but also for the sake of the rivers (earth-beings) and precarious groups similarly affected by the imposition of traditional values, Western ideals of “development” and “progress,” and systemic violence. Berta Cáceres and the Lenca community are a great example of the need to resist the consequences of these affects by developing other sets of affects, and by creating new events to radically transform society. This line of thought unfolded by Massumi is essential in understanding the distribution of precariousness and affect in non-Western individuals. Although he mentions the indignados and the occupy movement as resilient groups that through affects have politically intervened in the status quo, Massumi’s

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lack of depth in portraying precariousness encloses affective practices within ethnocentrism. We cannot, however, ignore his groundbreaking contributions to the complexities of affects and the open dialogue held by scholars of affect theory over the last twenty-five years. Another important asset is his questioning of affect as opposed to rationality. Massumi bases the idea of “rationality” on self-interest, thus purporting a bourgeois understanding of power and structure established by hierarchies, which, in themselves, are completely irrational because the arguments for cultural binaries lack any common sense. Besides, power structures will always build other hierarchies. It is in his reasoning of this reiteration of a norm where he proposes that affect is understood as involving “feeling in thinking, and viceversa” (90). His view revisits the notion of rationality and self-interest, addressing the need of the collective instead of the individual. In this new affectivity process, resistance to powers of domination and control finds its platform through feeling in thinking. Massumi’s revolutionary idea can serve my purposes to explain how mega dam constructions, mining, deforestation, and other forms of extractivism encourage the evolution and response of social activism through the preservation of thought and awareness, while simultaneously producing feelings that structure the indigenous communities’ precariousness. I  will delve into these theories in greater depth in the next chapter. But for now, I will focus on the latest contributions to affect theory before jumping into affectivity within the Latin American contexts. Philosopher Karen Simecek has reviewed the work on affect published in 2016, 2017, and 2018, noticing a move toward the externality of affective life and considering the significance of others and community building. In her 2017 article, she analyzes primarily books published in 2016 such as Affect Theory and Literary Criticism edited by Adam Frank and Joel Faflack (2016), The Seduction of Fiction (2016) by J. Vernay, and Thought in the Act (2014) edited by Erin Manning and Brian Massumi. These works encapsulate research developed since 2014, all providing a phenomenology of affect that intersects neurobiology, neuropsychology, and their influence on cognition. These studies coincide in arguing how affect refers to what is left in us, and shapes both our identity and engagement with the world. While a phenomenology of affect tends to dissipate the focus on affective responses—that is, a fear of something—it attempts to emphasize non-intentionality. In order to do so, Simecek explores Obstruction (2016) by Nick Salvato and Paul Roquet’s Ambient Media:  Japanese Atmospheres of Self (2016). These books intertwine affective experiences with thought processes that transform cultural expectations, similarly analyzed by Tomkins and Probyn in their resignifications of shame. Salvato proposes five obstructions—embarrassment, laziness, cynicism, slowness, and digressiveness—as affective states overlooked and often criticized

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in Western culture. However, they all prepare the terrain for positive creation and imagination. As Simecek puts it, “although laziness can lead to a lack of productivity, it also has the potential to free up space for a different kind of thinking and reflection” (420). Similarly, digression can lead to another type of productivity. In the end, if culture fixates on these obstructions as negative, this can cause frustration and, I  would add, stall our mental and thinking processes. Her section on environment and affect in Ambient Media by Roquet uncovers a new concept coined co-subjectivity, derived from collective experiences that are not verbally shared or happening synchronically in individuals who are not related to each other. In the instance provided, Japan plays bird songs and natural sounds in public spaces to choreograph movement that can be soothing for individuals in stressful situations (on their way to work, embarking and disembarking public transport, etc.). This environmental communion enhances people’s states of mind and moods. However, these affective responses are not meant to build community and thus the term co-subjectivity is another contribution to affect theory. In most cases, this phenomenology of affect traced in past studies converses productively with Massumi’s conclusions in Politics of Affect. The final recapitulation summarizing all the interviews highlights the transindividual characteristics of affect, which make affective processes social, cultural, relational, linguistic, both corporeal and mental, and last but not least political. Despite the struggles to emphasize the political nature and situationality of affect, these contributions focused on obstructions as positive reconfigurations of certain affects do not fully capture the impact and production of affects as intensities in non-Western cultures. After carefully examining publications from 2017, such as The Ascent of Affect, Politics of Anxiety, Politics and Affect, and Spaces of Feeling, Simecek argues how these texts move away from psychology and neuroscience to conceptualize affect to, rather, emphasize politics and action. The Ascent of Affects analyzes the articulation of affective life within confined spaces, such as bedrooms or basements, in order to showcase the influence of others on acknowledging our own affects. In this exploration of affect, author Ruth Leys understands personal interaction as a significant asset to activate self-recognition. While this outstanding analysis on affect centers on the private lives of characters portrayed in novels such as Virginia Woolf ’s Mrs Dalloway and H.G. Wells’ The Invisible Man, she highlights the externality of affect structured in the protagonists’ interactions, since it is in these encounters that the characters become aware of their own affective states. Related to this idea of relationality, the rest of the texts examined by Simecek allude to the power of affects (anxiety, fear, hope) to initiate positive change translated into action. According to the author, affect theory may well direct its reflections toward this potential for activism instead of limiting affects to the confines of private life. It is these ideas of politics and

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relationality that shape my understanding and contextualization of affect, and the ways in which it operates in indigenous communities. Simecek’s review article on 2018 studies of affect encompasses texts that study affect and cognition, affect and narrative, and affect and social media. Some of the most significant publications from this year are Knowing Emotions by Rich Furtak, The Strange Order of Things by Antonio Damasio, Ducan Lucas’ Affect, Theory, Genre, and the Example of Tragedy, and Affect and Social Media edited by Tony Sampson, Stephen Maddison, and Darren Ellis. These books explore the connections between knowledge and affect, understanding the prevalence of affective states in reflective and thinking processes and as shapers and motivators of experience. Therefore, experience is situated at the core of affectivity in its interaction with biology, memory, cognition, and technology. In this regard, the experiences of disenfranchised cultures are conditioned by the affecting mechanisms of capitalist and neoliberal practices. I therefore see the need to study affect in its substantiation and in its transitivity to fully observe how affect operates. In this sense, the following section will examine how scholars in the Latin American context redefine affect, stressing the need to understand its potential in the formation and preservation of indigeneity, community building, and the environment.

Affecting Indigenous Cultures: Politics of Affect in the Latin American Context The ethnocentric approach to the numerous analyses of affect generates what Tomkins (1962) denominates “affect programs.” According to his theory, some limited emotions are basic and pancultural, therefore genetically determined. In this sense, reactions are universal and belong to all human beings despite temporal and cultural distances, and they translate into stereotypical behaviors learnt for self-preservation. Tomkins’ line of thought has influenced the work of multiple psychologists and psychoanalysts who have not taken into account the particularity of context and have developed their views within the Discrete Emotion Theory. In her study “From Affect Programs to Dynamical Discrete Emotions,” Giovanna Colombetti (2009) argues that despite the strong influential capacity of this theoretical field, it presents significant challenges that she discusses in her analysis. Colombetti examines how the dynamical systems view of emotions allows for context-sensitivity, which mostly signifies the polyvalence of affects and their socioenvironmental site of production. Although the eight pancultural affect programs identified by Tomkins (surprise, interest, joy, rage, fear, disgust, shame,

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and anguish) are recognized cross-culturally in similar facial expressions, their manifestations vary according to context and cultural expectations. In this way, the Decolonizing Affect Theory colloquium held in 2007 by postcolonial and feminist theorist Sneja Gunew put forward some thoughts on the need to attach affect theory to a decolonizing project in order to avoid a paradigm of apolitical humanism that reiterates ethnocentrism and power struggles. In the “About the History of Emotions” blog, Gunew mentions how the reading group and colloquium surrounding affect came together thanks to the collaboration of university professors and graduate students at the University of British Columbia who wanted to discuss alternative taxonomies to those from European traditions. The question of translatability arose when wondering to what extent we can think of affects outside of European psychoanalysis. In order to do so, Gunew refers to Indian cultural legacies to display the differences in conceptualizing emotions. For instance, she points out how “in the Western system we were taught that the catharsis we experienced in the theatre, for example, was supposed to ‘purge us of pity and terror’.” Interestingly, this feeling addresses a particular tradition that excludes non-Western cultural paradigms. She stresses the urgency to de-personalize emotions and affects and become more informed about other cultural contexts. Despite the fact that the Decolonizing Affect Theory group emerged in 2007, most of the studies on affect continue to focus on the self, on Western culture, and psychoanalysis. And some studies published in the last few years still reveal a singled-minded focus, projecting a monochrome vision of emotions, passions, and affects as markers of Western politics and individuality. Recently, however, the intellectuals Cecilia Macón, Giovanni Algarra, Andra Noble, Roger Bartra, and Isabel Moraña (2012) have published edited volumes on affect in the Latin American context that highlight the articulation of emotions in the organization of the subject and the nation. If Gunew wondered how we can think of affect outside of European parameters of thought, specifically outside of European psychoanalysis, Algarra and Noble open their study titled “ ‘Transportamos sentimientos’:  desafíos para el estudio de las emociones en América Latina” by asking a similar ontological and epistemological question:  what happens when concepts and terms migrate and move to the history and cultures of Latin America specifically? This valid question presents multiple challenges and opportunities to examine the differences and intricacies of ideas when reconsidered in such diverse contexts. According to Algarra and Noble, the tendency to universalize emotions, feelings, and affects is reflected in global indexes of happiness, depression, and other emotional responses, setting aside ideological and cultural experiences. For example, some reports have included Central American countries entrenched in state violence as the happiest places in the world; but how do we know what happiness means exactly, and how

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is it measured in these specific regions? Although the ability to experience emotions may be universal, we need to frame them within a situationalist perspective. Similarly, I argue that these indexes perpetuate the dualism between positive and negative feelings, and their role in political and cultural discrimination. Even if feelings, emotions, and affects are universal, they are culturally conditioned and articulated. Also, affects are not universally and equally distributed; the distribution of affects depends upon capitalism and neoliberalism’s ability to decide which individuals, and which lives, matter more than others. In this sense, the power “to negatively affect” marginal communities is contextually driven and based upon the traditional ontological hierarchy of the West (the human) versus the non-West (the non-human). Algarra and Noble started to investigate the role of affects in the Latin American context after two localized events that prompted questions about the translatability and migratory processes of concepts. In August 2014 they were both at the border between Argentina and Paraguay when they saw a bus with the following slogan:  “Transportamos sentimientos” (we move feelings). Encountering this promotional language, they decided to write an article focused on the abundance of affects in contemporary media production. The second event was a 2011 tourism campaign in Mexico, whose commercial slogan was “México se siente” (we feel Mexico) followed by a number of questions addressed to Mexican citizens regarding how they feel when they are united as Mexicans, when Mexico is at the top of the world, etc. These questions value feelings, emotions, and affects in the construction of national identity. But the distribution of affects, emotions, and feelings is not unique to contemporary cultural representations. At the time of the Spanish conquest of Latin America, a certain amount of emotional baggage was carried by the Europeans as they embarked across the Atlantic toward unknown land. Moreover, the Baroque period promoted the creation of hybrid spaces marked by different structures of feeling that erupted in each contact zone. Both Algarra and Noble emphasize this particular reality contextualized in a land occupied by numerous and diverse indigenous communities whose affects vary or differ from those brought by Europeans. I would add that, as I will show in this analysis, the violent encounters with the Western world mobilized the natives’ affectivity; they were conditioned not only by the affective realm of the colonizers but also by their aim to reconfigure Latin American thinking and feeling paradigms. Given the context of colonization, the aggression that framed modern Latin America produced feelings of fear and anxiety followed by subjugation, but also resistance and resilience. By resisting these violent forces, positively reconfigured affects such as courage and outrage have emerged and concentrated thus into political mobilization for social justice. Affecting these regions through unfair and unjust distribution

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of violence, torture, extractivism, land expropriation, and cultural erasure has provided a new scenario to reset affects and turn them into possibilities for growth and transformation. And this reiterates the imperative to de/universalize and de/ colonize affects to comprehend the socioenvironmental movements and activist groups that are predominant in the continent. It similarly stresses the need to frame affect in its transitivity, “as a promise: it increases in capacities to act (expansions in affectability: both to affect and to be affected), the start of ‘being capable’, being open to more life or more to life” (Massumi in Seigworth and Gregg, 12). While Algarra and Noble’s study on the complexities of affects in Latin America is a fundamental contribution to the “structures of feelings” in the construction of national and personal identities, an engagement with native communities through an affective lens is lacking. In a similar direction, the studies collected in the volume El language de las emociones: Afecto y cultura en América Latina (2012) do not do justice to the myriad and complicated ways in which indigenous communities’ affective structures have been deeply marked by colonialism. However, it is a major and central collection of research on affect in Latin America. In its presentation, Ignacio M. Sánchez Prado mentions the timeless presence of emotions and affects throughout the history of Latin America from the foundational romances of the nineteenth century to the popular soap operas that continue moving the public. Roger Bartra examines in his chapter “La batalla de las ideas y las emociones” the predominance of these very emotions that Sánchez Prado refers to, from a critical perspective. From the beginning of his essay, Bartra establishes a clear-cut dualism between ideas and emotions, framing them within the binary “la cultura de la sangre” (blood culture) and “la cultura de la tinta” (ink culture). His criticism is related to the readings and interpretation of the history of colonialism through the lens of a postcolonial tradition led by Eduardo Galeano, who in his Las venas abiertas de América Latina dramatizes not only the moment of the conquerors’ arrivals but also its long-term devastating consequences through centuries of violence and destruction of both the land and its people. For Bartra, the problem lies in an excess of narratives that have emotionally and passionately drawn a picture of a bleeding Latin America continent while demonizing modernity and Western imperialism. He continues by warning about the dangers of a legacy of irrationality through uncontested and celebrated emotions detached from ideas and rationality. Nation formation is, in this fashion, a direct consequence of affective obsessions: La cultura de la sangre gusta de invocar identidades éticas, nacionales o de grupo como si estuvieran inscritos profundamente en los cuerpos de sus portadores … ha avanzado durante los años recientes, en parte debido a la erosión de las grandes teorías y el retroceso de las ideologías tradicionales … Una de las manifestaciones de la cultura de la

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sangre se ha expresado como una interpretación fatalista y melancólica que contempla a América Latina como el aciago resultado del trauma fundacional de la conquista y la colonización. Desde los tiempos originarios, América Latina habría sido un cuerpo vampirizado por los colonizadores europeos, como lo expuso con gran vehemencia Eduardo Galeano en su famoso libro Las venas abiertas de América Latina. (Kindle edition, locations 261, 263) (Blood culture evokes ethical, national, or group identities as if they were inherent to our bodies …. it has progressed over recent years due to the dismantling of grand theories and the retreat of traditional ideologies …. One of its manifestations conceives of Latin America as fatalist and melancholic, traumatized by the foundational moment of the European conquest and colonization. Ever since its origins, Latin America would have been a body vampirized by European colonizers, as Eduardo Galeano vehemently argues in his popular book The Open Veins of Latin America)

Bartra’s analysis alludes to the risk of setting Latin America up for failure due the narratological reiteration of an original tragedy unable to be overcome. Furthermore, he argues how populist discourses have been key to the construction of political and identity realms, from both right-wing and left-wing parties. By using emotions to “move” and “affect” Latin Americans, a melancholic and exalted sense of national identity has emerged. Similarly, he opines that contemporary social movements organized by ethnic groups, racial or sexual minorities, and ecologists have mistakenly embarked on a recuperative project that consists of recording ancestral identities through narratives of emotions and affects that defy modern rationality. As a result, these movements have reinforced a sense of dependence, backwardness, subalternality, and postcoloniality ingrained in an imaginary national consciousness. In this fashion, he attacks the mentality which appears to have exploded in populism, owing to an extreme rejection of Western capitalism and a melancholic embrace of poverty. This return to romanticism, as Bartra coins the contemporary Latin American obsession with national identity, which has gradually replaced ideas with sentiments, envisions a crisis of the left. In this way, progressive political parties stir up patriotic emotions, exalting phobic feelings toward rich countries and love toward the disenfranchised, in order to justify an ideological void (kindle edition, location 450). In his conclusion, Bartra continues his criticism of the left by adding that it has put an excessive amount of emphasis on difference instead of developing policies focused on the elimination of misery and poverty. Therefore, the left simply promotes change for specific groups: “La política deja de orientarse a la distribución de recursos para enfatizar en su lugar la creación de derechos especiales para cada segmento social” (Kindle edition, location 485) (Politics stops distributing resources to create special rights for each segment of society). According to him, the left has undermined the idea

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of equality to strengthen equity, a term more frequently used to refer to multicultural and relativist aspirations that practice affirmative action toward the most disfavored sectors. Although he acknowledges the need to resort to these “special rights,” he warns us of the risk of focusing too much attention on rights and forgetting about other struggles whose priority is the distribution of resources to put an end to the causes of discrimination and inequality, and of wealth. For Bartra, good feelings that include love for the nation and for the poor cannot replace reflection, study, and knowledge. In my opinion, Bartra’s dualism presents several problematic issues that can be solved by examining the role of Berta Cáceres and of COPINH. He shows an inability to conceive rationality and affects intertwined together on a critical dimension of the personal, the political, and the collective. If we explore carefully the work dynamics of social organizations such as COPINH, we realize that the articulation of an effective and affective program stands out as being the most important element in its structure. In several interviews, Berta recognizes the investment in reflection and thought before acting affectively and effectively. Her view on transforming society echoes Massumi and other contemporary scholars’ work on affect regarding the thinking-feeling process in order to be politically involved and to cause radical change that will not only affect a specific group historically disenfranchised but will also affect all those identities or groups whose precariousness sets them outside of the system. In fact, COPINH is an independent organization that has attempted, since its foundation, to not be identified with any political party in Honduras. Bartra trivializes the complex uses of affect theory by simplifying its potential and minimizing both its semantics and performativity. Similarly, he generalizes the practices of the left and questions the dramatization of colonialism. These problematic views render contemporary intersectional movements invisible. COPINH’s commitment to social justice exceeds any romantic or mythological idea of traditional ancestry and mobilizes affect as a means for collective and environmental preservation, and survival. Bartra’s lack of reference to the land expropriation and invasion that native communities face to this day is similarly concerning. A politics of affect that is transindividual, relational, political, and intersectional contests any conceptualization of sentiments, feelings, and emotions as inherently irrational and autonomous. When referring to the Zapatista movement in Mexico or other subaltern groups, Bartra only analyzes the populist rhetoric charged with myths and imaginary ideals that do not produce sociopolitical and economic change. However, a new model for organizing and outreaching, composed of affective solidarity, combines feelings, reflection, and action to prevent the constant criminalization of minorities, their physical displacement, their land expropriation, and environmental destruction. Given the significance of these practices, groups like COPINH also express urgency to

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recuperate millennial cultures doomed to perish. Yet, their attempt to keep their ancestral traditions is linked to the preservation of earth-beings:  rivers, mountains, the ecosystem, and nature in general. In addition, their demands are tied to regional, national, and transnational recognitions that affect gender, sexual, economic, racial, and ethnic minorities. In this regard, indigenous social movements produce and engage in regional and transnational solidarity that reinforces intersectionality. A clear example is the relational and transindividual affectivity with other groups such as OFRANEH. The Organización Fraternal Negra Hondureña has been organizing since 1978 in its endeavors to defend land and cultural rights. Similar to COPINH, OFRANEH celebrates an intersectional approach to identity politics and, therefore, their commitment to end domestic violence, gender and sexual discrimination are at the core of their agenda. Most importantly, both COPINH and OFRANEH work hand in hand to elaborate an agenda that includes reflection and thoughtfulness within thinking-feeling processes. The coalitions formed as a productive platform for responding affectively and effectively and for transforming society challenge Bartra’s myopic lens and skepticism toward the potential of affects. Furthermore, these ecoenvironmental, indigenous, and social movements are structured and founded upon alternative and decolonized affective cosmologies. And here is my contribution to a ninth affectual orientation that imagines newness, natality, and an affective dimension grounded in a horizontal and reciprocal relation between humans and earth-beings. The Río Gualcarque told Berta to continue the fight against usurpation and gives copines the strength to persevere. The territorial narrative of Berta, COPINH, and the Lenca people proposes a different ontology and epistemology of nature; not one built on domination and conquest, but one entangled in love, intimacy, connection, spirituality, and respect. As I have mentioned, and as I will argue throughout the book, Berta and copines structure not only their identity—embodying multiple marginalities—but also their peaceful commitment to the environment, to social justice, and to democracy using a series of affective responses and actions that intertwine, and that cannot be grasped in isolation or divorced from each other. In addition, affective responses such as fear or shame have historically and psychoanalytically referred to the white male universal experience of these affects responding to the presence of the other. Love, in its Westernized conceptualization envisioned similarly as universal, has prioritized a heteronormative model of coupledom and romance. It is precisely because of this universal and isolated experience of affects as white privilege that affectivity in indigenous communities has been erased. Furthermore, by understanding affects as intersecting, we will consequently be able to comprehend the complexities and sophistication of indigenous movements’ agendas and their efficiency in

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collaborating with transnational organizations and intervening in local, regional, and international politics. In 2013, Berta stopped the Sinohydro project from taking place in the Río Gualcarque because of the effective and affective use of her resources and the resources of the multiple communities she worked with. In what follows, I  will embark on an affective journey that attempts to value the thinking-feeling processes Berta and organizations such as COPINH create in order to protect the environment, their land, their livelihoods, and their survival. Their work is possible through affective solidarity and an intersectionality of struggles among local, regional, national, and international groups that have been othered and marginalized. It is never an easy and happy-ending journey; quite the contrary, Berta paid with her life, like thousands of activists around the globe. However, the frustration and rage Rigoberta Menchú mentioned during the Bilbao conference on inclusivity and diversity will turn into solidarity, care, and hope for those others whose precariousness has defined them. Women such as Rigoberta and Berta have become icons and references for non-traditional and promising platforms to transform societies across the world. If by conceptualizing affect from a complex indigenous standpoint we can achieve higher levels of consciousness and awareness, our mission for social justice could materialize. Therefore, despite the research and thorough analysis of affect carried out during the last decades, its potential resides in the envisioning of multiple collective and personal identities that have been traditionally marginalized while significantly affected by Western greed. Only when these groups are understood through affective lenses, the ninth affectual orientation I have referred to will illuminate the inclusion of bodies that will matter and affect others in candid, positive, and reinvigorating ways. Affects mobilize both inside and outside of subjectivity through relationships that can eventually transform our societies. After a careful review of the theories of affects and the affectual orientations provided in The Affect Theory Reader, I focus on Massumi’s intake of Spinoza’s reflection of affect as action and its potential as a verb. Considering an event caused by the encounter of two asymmetrically met entities, affect does and undoes both elements. On the one hand, the Europeans who arrived and conquered the native lands shifted indigenous paradigms in a violent form. On the other hand, they consolidated themselves as a powerful entity imposing Western cultural, social, political, and economic structures. This process known as colonialism is thus founded on action (affect as a verb) and on a set of affects (affects as nouns) precisely derived from such happenstance. In this way, affect in all its potentiality achieves an unprecedented force from which to perceive and analyze groups and communities that have been historically disenfranchised. In an attempt to decolonize affect from a psychoanalytical and Western standpoint, I contextualize affectual orientations within the ecological cosmologies of

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indigenous cultures and, particularly, on how they have been affected and how they can affect others through thinking-feelings processes embedded in social organizations such as COPINH. Although studies on emotions and affects are abundant in discussions of Latin American cultural productions and political narratives as I  have shown, there is still the need to contextualize the struggles of activists whose commitments are intersectional. While Roger Bartra speculates on the agony emerged from an overabundance of feelings and emotions dramatized within the history of colonialism, affects as a reflection of thinking-feeling processes like those articulated by Berta and copines are fundamental in balancing the binary between rationality and emotionality. In addition, the self-interest captured within capitalist rationality becomes detrimental to a more equitative distribution of resources and to the buen vivir resulting in larger-scale projects that, as I will demonstrate, have affected, damaged, and destroyed territorial and corporeal environments. My view on affect in both its substantiation and transitivity echoes recent studies conducted on affect theory moving away from psychoanalytical and private examinations of subject formation to focus attention on the politics, activism, and community formation that a broader and deeper sense of affective states offers.

Notes 1. Guatemala has undergone decades of civil war since the overthrow of President Jacobo Arbenz in 1944. His efforts to modernize the country and to propose more democratic agrarian reforms were not welcomed by the US. As part of his initiatives, Arbenz’s central politics strengthened the private sector while expanding public works and increasing social welfare benefits. In this fashion, he accepted communist support and enacted a bill in 1952 that expropriated only uncultivated land of large plantations, including his own. This bill disrupted United Fruit Company’s monopoly and the US intervened, framing it as Guatemala’s expansion of communism. Although the US justified this intervention as a precautionary method to prevent the spread of communism in Latin America, it was the actual agrarian reform that sparked the intervention of the US, who responded with violence to those considered subversive. From then on, Guatemala has seen multiple right-wing and military-supported dictatorships employing torture and extreme tactics. Besides political dissidents, the peasant and indigenous populations were the most affected by the political turmoil and social disparities. In addition, the US military trained and empowered the military forces, which became a perpetual threat to the civil population (Skidmore and Smith, 348–354). 2. The international agreement 169 signed in 1989 and enforced in 1991 is the first document that represents the rights and voice of indigenous populations throughout Latin America. Some of the nations involved are Bolivia, Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador, Guatemala, Nicaragua, Honduras, Panama, and Peru, although the participants that partook in the elaboration of the document were not indigenous but union workers, private sector representatives, and governments. Still,

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the indigenous populations consider the agreement to be indicative of human rights progress. Some of the main aspects of the document identify social justice and egalitarian globalization as projects to be accomplished. The rights articulated are related to territory and governance. Therefore, indigenous groups with land titles can keep their territories and must be consulted before the government implements any policies affecting their environment. Similarly, the agreement aspires to include indigenous communities in a participatory democracy and political processes. Unfortunately, many Latin American nations are overriding the 169 agreement through land concessions to multinational corporations. 3. As I will show throughout the book, DESA (Desarollos Energéticos S.A) is the Honduran company that, with the funds provided by European Banks, started to build the hydroelectric dam on the Río Gualcarque. Members of the company were involved in Berta’s assassination. 4. In her analysis of the collection of essays gathered in The Affective Turn: Theorizing the Social, Patricia Tricineto Cloud affirms how, in recent years, critical theory has turned to affect. According to her, the affective turn “expresses a new configuration of bodies, technology and matter that is instigating a shift in thought in critical theory” (2). This turn implies a rethinking of historical, social, and political changes through affect, which is primarily my focus in this book. By analyzing Lenca struggles for peace and justice, I emphasize the significance of affects in these bodies who are unified with nature and other organic life forms. 5. Scholars have largely discussed the differences between emotions, feelings, and affects. Laura Berlant, for instance, argues that both emotions and feelings are conscious, whereas affect is felt as a bodily intensity intertwined with mental processes. However, the three responses imply a sense of judgment or interpretation of the sensory information and a slow conscious reaction. In addition, affect remains primarily relational and transindividual (Massumi) since emotion returns to subjectivity. In her discussion of the Affective Turn, Patricia Clough refers to the primordial subjective capacity of emotions, whereas affects flow between the pre-individual toward other types of connection beyond the human body. I find this idea particularly appealing since I am invested in how affect operates within and outside of the body, and in the potential of its transitivity.

References Ahmed, Sara. 2010. The Promise of Happiness. Durham, NC: Duke University Press. Algarra, Giovanni, and Andre Noble. 2015. “Transportamos sentimientos: desafío para el estudio de las emociones en América Latina.” In Pretérito indefinido. Afectos y emociones en las aproximaciones al pasado reciente, edited by Cecilia Macón and Mariela Solana. Buenos Aires, Argentina: Título. 43–67. Anderson, Ben. 2012. “Affect and Biopower:  Towards a Politics of Life.”  Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers 37.1: 28–43. Bartra, Roger. 2012. “La batalla de las ideas y las emociones.” In El Lenguaje De Las Emociones: Afecto y Cultura En América Latina. Madrid: Iberoamericana, edited by Marisa Moraña and Ignacio M. Sánchez Prado. Kindle edition, locations, 189–564. Berlant, Lauren, and Jordan Greenwald. 2012. “Affect in the End Times: A Conversation with Lauren Berlant.” Qui Parle: critical humanities and social sciences 20.2: 71–89.

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Cavarero, Adriana. 2014. Relating Narratives: Storytelling and Selfhood. New York: Routledge. Clough, Patricia T. and Jean Halley. 2007. The Affective Turn: Theorizing the Social. Durham: Duke University Press. Colombetti, Giovanna. 2009. “From Affect Programs to Dynamical Discrete Emotions.” Philosophical Psychology 22.4: 407–425. Damasio, Antonio. 2018. The Strange Order of Things. New York: Pantheon Books. Deleuze, Gilles, and Martin Joughin.  2013. Expressionism in Philosophy Spinoza. Cambridge, MA: Zone Books. Faflak, Joel. 2006. “Introduction: Whose Guilt?” ESC: English Studies in Canada 32.1: 1–10. Fanon, Frantz. 1952.Black Skin, White Masks. London: Pluto Press. Freud, Sigmund. 1924. “Mourning and Melancholia.” The Psychoanalytic Review (1913–1957) 11: 77. Furtak, Rick. 2018. Knowing Emotions:  Truthfulness and Recognition in Affective Experience. New York, NY: Oxford University Press. Galeano, Eduardo. Las venas abiertas de América Latina. Madrid: Siglo xxi, 2004. Gregg, Melissa, and Gregory J. Seigworth. 2011. The Affect Theory Reader. Durham, NC: Duke University Press. Gunew, Sneja. 2009. “Subaltern Empathy:  Beyond European Categories in Affect Theory.” Concentric: Literary and Cultural Studies 35.1: 11–30. Hardt, Michael. 1999. “Affective Labor.” Boundary 2.26: 89–100. Hemmings, Clare. 2005. “Invoking Affect: Cultural theory and the Ontological Turn.” Cultural Studies 19.5: 548–567. Hemmings, Clare. 2012. “Affective Solidarity:  Feminist Reflexivity and Political Transformation.” Feminist Theory 13.2: 147–161. Leys, Ruth. 2017. The Ascent of Affect:  Genealogy and Critique. Chicago, IL:  University of Chicago Press. Lucas, Duncan A. 2018. Affect Theory, Genre, and The Example of Tragedy. Switzerland: Palgrave Macmillan. Manning, Erin, and Brian Massumi. 2014. Thought in the Act: Passages in the Ecology of Experience. Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press. Massumi, Brian. 2016. Politics of Affect. Cambridge: Polity. Moraña, Mabel, and Ignacio S. Prado. 2018. Cultura y cambio social en América Latina. Vol. 1. Madrid: Iberoamericana Editorial. “PRO 169 Español.” PRO 169 Español. Accessed March 27, 2020. http://es.pro169.org/. Probyn, Elspeth. 2005. Blush: Faces of Shame. Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press. Roquet, Paul. 2016. Ambient Media: Japanese Atmospheres of Self. Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press. Salvato, Nick. 2016. Obstruction. Durham, NC: Duke University Press. Sampson, Tony, Stephen Maddison, and Darren Ellis, eds. 2018. Affect and Social Media: Emotion, Meditation, Anxiety and Cognition. London: Rowman & Littlefield.

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Sedgwick, Eve K., and Adam Frank. 2003.  Touching Feeling:  Affect, Pedagogy, Performativity. Durham, NC: Duke University Press. Simecek, Karen. 2018. “11 Affect Theory.”  The Year’s Work in Critical and Cultural Theory 26.1: 205–224. Spinoza, Baruch. 2017. Ethics: Demonstrated in Geometrical Order and Divided into Five Parts. Translated by William Hale White. Los Angeles, CA: Moonrise Press. Territorioindigenaygobernanza.com. Accessed March 21, 2020. http://www.territorioindigenaygobernanza.com/convenio169oit.html. Vernay, Jean-François.  2016. The Seduction of Fiction:  A Plea for Putting Emotions Back Into Literary Interpretation. New York, NY: Springer.

chapter two

Indigenous Ecologies: The Relevance of Affect in Ecofeminist Movements

The call is for degrowth, communing and buen vivir.

–A riel S alleh , Foreword to Ecofeminism

Feminist scholars have substantially explored the cultural construction of affects in relation to gender binaries. In doing so, they aim to dismantle the biological essentialism that has trapped the female body within care practices. Whereas masculinity has historically been attached to rationality and to the mind, femininity has been reduced to emotions and irrationality. This uneven distribution of affects naturalizes hierarchies of power while associating negative affective states with bodies deemed precarious and marginal. In this regard, feelings such as fear and hate mobilize narratives that devalue others and justify their sociopolitical and economic exclusion. By stressing Spinoza’s idea of the power “to affect and to be affected,” the postulation of cultural hierarchies is already prescribed: those doing the affect have established themselves as cultural agents, desiring subjects, conquerors, and writers of history; whereas those whose grammatical and semantic position is the object of affective doings have been transformed by the action of affecting. However, the social construction of affects similarly allows for intervention through action. It is the transitivity and, simultaneously, the malleability and flexibility of affects that fascinates me and informs this book. The affected objects, despite their victimization, quite often rise up from a state of precariousness

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and find alternatives to distribute recodified affects in order to create alliances and transnational solidarity, and engage in activism. Given the grammatical and semantic placement of the vulnerable, ecofeminist movements, environmental justice movements, and social movements at large need to be rethought through affective lenses since, fundamentally speaking, organization, planning, and advocacy emerge from the precarious positions women, minorities, and the environment have occupied, and from the ways in which they have been affected. In what follows, I will contextualize ecofeminist movements from an affectual orientation so as to situate Latin American ecofeminist activism within this framework. I will close the chapter with Berta and COPINH’s contributions to the ecofeminist and social activist trajectories that are simultaneously intersectional. By embracing non-violent social action and feeling the urgency to expose the damage caused by white supremacy, women in the 1980s embarked upon a recuperative project aimed at demanding the rights of the dispossessed.1 Vandana Shiva and Maria Mies were the first leading scholars to theorize the relationship between women and the environment, and to compile a collection of essays titled Ecofeminism in 1993. Considering themselves “street fighters,” Shiva—an Indian scholar, theoretical physicist in the ecology movement, environmental activist, food sovereignty advocate, and alter-globalization author—and Mies—a German professor of philosophy and social scientist in the feminist movement— have regularly engaged in projects of social justice, participatory democracy, and anti-capitalist processes that keep on subjugating the so-called Global South. In the 2013 edition, Shiva and Mies examine the changes or lack thereof since they first published the book. Unfortunately, they experience regression, skepticism, and pessimism due to the world market system’s inability or passivity to effect social transformation, and unwillingness to dismantle the disparities it has created. They analyze how patriarchy and capitalism have continued subjecting vulnerable communities to oppression and violence, with disastrous impacts on the environment. In the 1970s they both took to the streets to protest against the construction of nuclear power plants and the commodification of not only culture, but also of the Earth and similarly of women, and even today they continue to highlight worsening socioeconomic inequalities, including unequal quality of life and wealth distribution. What has definitely changed is the intensification of neoliberal processes with more devastating results. Instead of finding creative remedies to start a new world order where human beings are part of nature instead of the “owners” and “makers” of nature, contemporary free trade agreements and deregularization have deepened these breaches.2 In their opening chapter, both authors examine the main reasons for writing this collaborative piece. Altered by events happening all around the world and

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affecting local communities and particularly minorities, Shiva and Mies strove to participate in ecological activisms that emphasized the common grounds that connected women remotely. Some of the instances brought to attention were local struggles against ecological destruction and deterioration in Germany following the construction of nuclear power plants, and similarly in the Himalayas against logging and chalk mining; the outbreaks of food contamination in Japan caused by industrial agriculture; and, in Ecuador, efforts to save the forests that have been bringing women to the forefront of social action and political intervention. These waves of mass colonization of land and of minorities’ bodies prompted Shiva and Mies not only to act critically, but also to articulate their reflections and thoughts on the multiple threats to planet Earth that our patriarchal capitalist system has produced throughout history. The global market-led system has undermined difference by reinforcing culturally and hierarchically constructed binaries, thus aligning itself with the global forces of capitalism. Within this political and economic system, difference and biodiversity are undervalued, while standardization and homogenization prevail. To this end, Shiva and Mies attempt to reclaim difference from a celebratory and survivalist standpoint in order to prevent the extinction of all life on Earth. In this regard, their project emphasizes an intersectional approach to experience, highlighting cultural and identity differences while retrieving the commonalities that have resulted from exploitation, injustice, and violence. While not all women are capable of realizing their subjugation—particularly urban middle-class white women who have applied themselves to the rules of the capitalist system—the majority of women around the globe and, specifically, in the Global South are constantly affected by capital accumulation in the North. They also propose an ecofeminist perspective that “propounds the need for a new cosmology and a new anthropology which reorganizes that life in nature (which includes human beings) is maintained by means of co-operation, and mutual care and love” (6). According to the authors, this is the only plausible way to preserve the diversity of all life forms, and their cultural expressions, in order to achieve well-being and happiness. And in doing so, Shiva and Mies emphasize epistemological transformations of the concept of freedom versus emancipation, cultural relativism, and universalism. Since the Enlightenment, white man’s pursuit of freedom and the path to liberation has meant conquering nature, colonizing people, and reinforcing the superiority of the white European man by way of technology and science. Some women have lived up to these cultural expectations of emancipation without being aware of how these new devices and technologies in the household were polluting the environment. Following the patriarchal capitalist logic of the economy, emancipation surpasses the limits of necessity in order to enter the field of commodities and consumerism to fulfill happiness. In response to this outlook

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on freedom, Shiva and Mies formulate an alternative and constructive path toward emancipation within the limits of necessity and not as a privilege of the few. These needs are understood in terms of care, love, dignity, identity for knowledge and freedom, and leisure and joy, which are common to all people. Their reconfiguration of freedom is based on the subsistence perspective that simultaneously defies the myth of “catching-up development” desired by women who want to be equal to men without analyzing the tragic repercussions of this model. The “catching-up” model leads to a homogenization of cultures subdued by Western imperialistic goals and imposes one (Western) lifestyle as the universally desired one. Similarly, cultural relativism may endanger non-Western cultures by acknowledging all differences as neutral and acceptable. For instance, Shiva and Mies refer to customs such as dowry, female genitalia mutilation, and India’s caste system as cultural expressions that require intervention and critique. Thus, the type of universalism they advocate does not entirely deny cultural relativism but rejects a dogmatic and totalitarian ideological universalism imposed by the West. They underline a universal approach to specific problems that are affecting isolated communities and vulnerable groups in the world. And this sense of universalism tries to envision “interconnectedness among women, among men and women, among human beings and other life forms, worldwide” (12). This universalism “does not deal in abstract universal human ‘rights’ but rather in common human needs which can be satisfied only if the life-sustaining networks and processes are kept intact and alive” (13). It is only at this level that freedom can be achieved, when survival is taken seriously as a valuable mission in life. In reference to the “catching-up” model, explored in depth in different chapters of this collaboration, Shiva and Mies propose the liberalization of the consumer as a goal that humans need to achieve in order to create a balance and a fair distribution of wealth without endangering the environment. Our patriarchal capitalist system based on rampant consumerism is seen as a point of reference for other cultures, presenting a standardized and uniform lifestyle as the most desirable one. Not only does this model threaten the living entities of non-Western cultures and gives rise to poverty, it also commodifies the cultural products particular to groups that have been marginalized. Thus, the global market erases these communities’ identities and disrespects their ways of life for the sake of “marketing” and selling elements that may have otherwise been sacred to them. Similarly, the “catching-up” model celebrates the independence and emancipation of women by outlining their autonomy as the result of this distorted understanding of progress, disregarding how, in many cultures around the world, women may not want to cut ties with family members, may depend on them, and may see collectivity as the optimal goal. In this context, the authors reappropriate the idea of liberation and emancipation not necessarily from one another, but

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from a consumerist model that is uniquely based on manipulation and waste: the manipulation of the Earth’s elements and the waste of products that will continue to pollute our waterways and our soil. Besides, the model aspired to in the West is only reserved to those in power because, otherwise, we would need five planets to accommodate such demand. Thus, the “catching-up” model functions only by excluding a large part of the population that will remain poor with limited access to even the most basic necessities—clean water, shelter, food, health care, etc. In order to present a viable world where subsistence is the key to survival and the preservation of life on Earth, Shiva and Mies reflect upon the ideas examined by intellectual Max-Neef who identified the following human needs: subsistence (health, food, shelter), protection (care, solidarity, work), affection (self-esteem, love, care, solidarity), understanding (study, learning, analysis), participation (responsibilities, sharing of rights and duties), leisure/idleness (curiosity, imagination, games, relaxation, fun), creation (intuition, imagination, work, curiosity), identity (sense of belonging, differentiation, self-esteem) and freedom (autonomy, self-esteem, self-determination, equality) (255). According to Shiva and Mies, industrialized societies have invested in specific satisfiers to fulfill these needs that are universal.3 However, these satisfiers are industrially produced, such as cars or material possessions like makeup, guns and new clothes, that is, unnecessary desires. They are destructive and do not end up satisfying human beings; rather, they lead to high levels of suicide and depression. They view social isolation as a result of this imposed lifestyle lacking in affection, one of the most vital aspects of our existence. For Shiva and Mies, “a deep human connection cannot be fulfilled by buying a commodity. Within a consumer liberation movement, new ways must be found or created, particularly non-commoditized ways, to satisfy this need for affection” (256). This reference to affection is particularly compelling because, to me, it shows the potential for ecofeminism to contain and produce affect in positive social and personal ways. It is similarly fascinating that Brian Massumi has observed how capitalism uses affect to make consumerism proliferate. Capitalism, in his opinion, mobilizes hate, fear, shame, and happiness in very detrimental ways: right-wing political discourses encourage hate and fear to maintain law and order, and the rule of divide and conquer upholds cultural binaries and hierarchies. As effective as these feelings can be, intellectuals such as Probyn, Tomkins, and even Massumi himself attempt to re-evaluate these negative affects by questioning cultural expectations. Hence, the enormous potential of affect is to present new alternatives and promises that may encourage ecofeminist alliances, transnational solidarity, intersectional struggles, community building, caring, and love. Massumi’s interview on ideology and affect, published in Politics of Affect (2015), targets precisely the endless power of affect to produce transformational activism.

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In this respect, ecofeminist movements and affect become complementary of each other when creating platforms and possibilities for the civic improvement of our societies. In the interview conducted two years earlier by Yubraj Aryal regarding issues of ideology, power, capitalism, and resistance, Massumi argues how the processes involved in the dominant culture that authorizes certain ideologies within a patriarchal capitalist system—as a response to “general interest”—are transferred through affectivity, thus making people believe that these motives mirror their own interests. In his own words, “the dominated classes must be induced to mistake their own interests for the mirage of the ‘general’ interest—and do so with passion” (84). And once passion is established through a variety of affective mechanisms, the subordinated will follow it unconsciously. Nevertheless, capitalism as a process or an open-ended system allows affectivity to produce resistance. He mentions the activist movements Occupy Wall Street and Indignados as two instances that utilized affectivity to voice demands and to claim social justice. Since affect involves the occurrence of an event through the asymmetric meeting of two elements— where one element is doing the “affect” and the other element is the “affected”— the vulnerable party has the power to resist and mobilize as a consequence of being affected. Thus, as he argues, to be affected implies an inherent capacity to enact change: “the affective event does not presuppose a passivity on one side and an activity on the other” (92), continuing “the power to affect is strictly coincident with the power to resist” (92). In many occasions, as Shiva and Mies outline, protests are organized to react against nuclear power plants, deforestation, rapid industrialization, mining, mega electric dams, etc., and like the Occupy and Indignados movements, these are examples of collective embodiments of democracy in action. Massumi considers all these types of movement as employers of affective techniques that are participatory and transformational, involving our powers of existence:  the power to act, think, and feel. Affect in these processes is interpreted as rationality converted into action due to a surplus value of life, or as Massumi himself puts it, “an enactively lived and immediately felt qualitative difference expressing a heightening of capacities” (100). Resistance encompasses, therefore, bodies that “think more actively and feel more thinkingly, towards acting differently together” (106). In this sense, ecofeminist movements or ecological movements—essentially transversal, collective, intersectional, and transnational— follow this conceptualization of affect as effective for social and environmental justice. In Ecofeminism, the term affect can be traced twenty-seven times. It appears seventeen times in verb form:  eight times in the passive voice (“affected”) and nine times in its active form (“to affect”). “Affected” as an adjective appears twice.

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The other two variations are the noun “affection,” which appears seven times, and the adjective “affectionate,” which appears once. What does this mean and how do theories of affect or a politics of affect contribute to ecofeminist movements? Starting with the most predominant case, “affected” proves that one of the elements meeting at the asymmetrical encounter is negatively impacted by the event; but who are these passive subjects or objects in transitivity? This category is occupied by precarious groups such as women, children, and countries in the Global South, and the frequency of the term’s appearance reiterates their inferior position within a dualistic Western paradigm of thought. In the cases where “to affect” appears as an active verb, the subject position is assumed by dominant actors (i.e. processes of exploitation in a capitalist world system, radiation, the “catching-up” model, the pollution of water and soil, food crises, etc.). Evidently, these doers are the product of corrupt neoliberal practices that disempower and destroy the most vulnerable groups. “Affection” is similarly mentioned as an important act and set of feelings fundamental to human relationships and the survival of the Earth, as mentioned previously in reference to the liberating processes both Shiva and Mies present. Thus, this demand for affection is core to building new alliances grounded in solidarity and moving toward democracy and social justice. All these instances demonstrate the power of affect and its variations in understanding ecofeminist movements or other struggles organized to resist patriarchal capitalism. Although this book’s first publication year dates back to 1993, more contemporary research on ecofeminism continues to stress the significance of affect and a globalized standpoint in order to showcase how transnational events affect places and people despite their geographical distance. Ecofeminism and Globalization:  Exploring Culture, Context and Religion published in 2003 examines how processes of globalization give us a closer look at the different realities across the globe in relation to ecofeminist challenges, organization, mobilization, and planning. This globalized perspective focuses on intersectionality, taking into account multiple layers of analysis at the crossroads of race, class, ethnicity, socioeconomics, place, etc. Even if the term intersectionality is lacking, the studies collected in this volume explore cultural renderings of different geographies disturbed by ecological disasters and environmental destruction. Studying these distant realities carefully, the authors highlight the various challenges women face and the particular characteristics of their cultures embedded in their struggles; for example, in certain places, there is a sacred spiritual connection to the land, or in others, the Western paradigm framed within the dualism of nature and femininity versus culture and masculinity does not apply. While the editors of this book Heather Eaton and Lois Ann Lorentzen acknowledge the universal connection between “the domination of nature and the exploitation of women” (15), they also recognize

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the different cultural idiosyncrasies that exist in non-Western cultures. Eaton and Lorentzen’s main contributions to ecofeminism validate the three claims that seem central to a multiple-angle approach to the movement: the empirical, the conceptual, and the epistemological. The empirical claim scientifically demonstrates the fact that women are the victims hit the hardest by environmental destruction, and that “the poorer she is, the greater is the burden” (16). The second claim naturalizes Western paradigms of thought based on a cultural dualism that identifies women with the Earth, the body, sexuality, and materiality; and men with masculinity and the mind. And the third claim is a result of the second one: if women have that “natural” strong connection with nature, would they not be experts in solving environmental problems? Though somewhat controversial, the epistemological claim reconceptualizes and decolonizes the dualistic perspective since, as I  will point out in reference to Latin American cultures, some contexts have historically conceived this dualistic relation from a completely different standpoint. Interestingly, this collection also references the word affect quite frequently, highlighting the social groups mostly affected by the Global North’s decisions. A  common element among ecofeminist activism and theories is precisely this mention of affect in order to substantiate the detrimental consequences suffered by the bodies of the vulnerable, including the Earth. Being affected, from an ecofeminist perspective, means being altered emotionally, physically, and mentally toward a deeper level of precariousness where symptoms may lead to death. It also means being “moved” by agreements made by external agents out of the communities’ control whose consequences are disastrous for their personal, collective, and environmental well-being. These interventions in ecofeminism are accompanied by multiple readings on socioeconomic and environmental struggles all around the world since thousands of communities are experiencing land rights violations and high toxicity levels as a result of industrializing processes that favor development for some, and violence for others. In fact, “Development for Some is Violence for Others” (2009) is the title of a chapter included in the edited book Eco-Sufficiency and Global Justice:  Women Write Political Ecology. In this chapter, the author Nalini Nayak focuses on the damage inflicted on coastal communities by the fishing industry in areas such as Kerala and Tamil Nadu. Women used to have primary roles in the fishing trade by selling their products at local markets while earning an income. It all changed with modernization. Larger boats and a more capital-intensive fishing operation emerged, in turn pushing the local markets and the presence of women away. This is just one instance of transnational agreements and their affects in the most vulnerable groups. In a similar vein, scholars have started to use the concept of environmental justice within ecofeminism to clearly state the injustices suffered by the disenfranchised. In her introduction to New Perspectives on Environmental

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Justice, Rachel Stein (2004) examines how environmental atrocities similarly entail gender and sexual oppression because, throughout history, women, children, and the queer community have been the most affected by environmental ills. In addition, Stein urges us to rethink justice not only from a gender and sexuality standpoint but also along racial and class lines, because intersectional analyses are vital for understanding struggles, solidarity, and the need for social and environmental justice. For this reason, some of the main components of ecofeminist and ecology activism reside in analyzing affected communities from the imperative of intersectionality, and more and more studies are focusing on particular regions undergoing specific situations and experiences of environmental decline while connecting common circumstances across a politics of identity and affect. Within this context, I will explore the activist movements that originated in Latin America to finally situate Berta Cáceres and COPINH’s work within the paradigm of environmental and social justice.

Stolen Land: Latin American Ecofeminisms Since the beginning of the Spanish conquest in 1492, Christopher Columbus described the “new” land as exuberant, fertile, and rich. This time period marked the foundation of Europe’s invention of Latin America, articulated in narratives that emphasized the tantalizing prospects of the Earth alongside the easiness to domesticate its native populations. Centuries of rampage, decimation, slavery, and economic and human exploitation in the name of civilization justified the excesses of barbaric practices against the indigenous and African communities. And in the process, the feminization of the land was imagined through voluptuous corporeal metaphors that reinforced a hierarchical relation between white European men as civilized and cultured, on the one hand, and women as natural and primitive, on the other. Native people and the Africans forced into slavery were similarly caught in this Western narrative of exclusion and discrimination. In her book The Lay of the Land, Annette Kolodny (1984) carefully analyzes the comparisons between the textual articulations of the territory as feminine, implying that both the female body and the land were ready to be exploited to satisfy the white man’s desires and the financial advances of Europe. Thus, the symbiotic relationship between women and nature has had a particular significance throughout the history of Latin America. Although Europeans used these bodies—female and natural—as utilitarian tools to uphold the patriarchy, ownership, and property, indigenous cultures have cultivated a completely different relationship with nature—one characterized by harmony and interconnectedness. In Latin America, the women who

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started to raise awareness about the connections between gender, poverty, and land exploitation were affiliated with the liberation theology movement. Because of the significant impact of liberation theology in Latin America, ecofeminism roots can be found in some of its postulations: a Marxist analysis of class, a revision of Christian values, an emphasis on the poor, and a criticism of colonialism.4 Many feminists in the continent adhered to the principles of liberation theology not without raising concerns. Some of these women include Ivone Gebara, Elsa Tamez, and Mary Judith Ress who write extensively on their relationship between a faith-based activism, feminism, and ecofeminism. Despite their participation in liberation theology, these women contest the most prominent elements that have structured the movement in order to propose new alternatives for a post-patriarchal society. Aware of the androcentrism, anthropocentrism, and the patriarchal nature of theology, they bring a feminist perspective that empowers women through reconsiderations of the figure of God, references to strong Biblical female figures, and the imperative of a gender analysis of culture. An emphasis on poverty within liberation theology has doomed underrepresented women and, therefore, theology feminists attempt to identify the subjugation of women both in the church and in society. Gebara, a nun who has lived in the slums of Recife, Brazil, and who travels the continent on a regular basis, is very much attuned to the extreme conditions of poverty. Her trip around the favelas and other impoverished areas followed by her condemnation of socioeconomic, cultural, and environmental oppression is gathered in her book Longing for Running Water:  Ecofeminism and Liberation, where she identifies the unfolding of an ecofeminist consciousness intersected with liberation theology and Latin American feminisms. Published in 1999, Longing for Running Water narrates the hardships of daily life in the streets of barrios (neighborhoods) that have been completely neglected by the government. Gebara observes how the history of the conquest has created colonies—indigenous communities, groups of women, African slaves, and the environment—that have all been damaged by the Western white man located hierarchically above nature and above other bodies. A  nun herself, she attempts to revise the beliefs of liberation theology in order to appropriate the bodies of women and those of her neighbors affected not only by economic disenfranchisement but also by industrialization. For her, “the ecofeminist issue is born of the lack of municipal garbage collection, of the multiplication of rats, cockroaches and mosquitos, and the sores on children’s skin” (2). By sharing common fundaments with the origins of ecofeminism in general, a growing worry about health prompts these activists to act critically and politically (126). Health concerns have been a priority for poor women since they and their children are the most affected by deregulation, lack of social policies, and neoliberal practices. Gebara’s goal, then, is to raise a

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certain socioeconomic and environmental awareness, and its impact on the poor, at her workshops on ecofeminism. Her familiarity and commitment to the poor has become her particular agenda throughout Latin America. As someone who is well versed in Christianity and liberation theology, she acknowledges that the poor have an ingrained conventional understanding of religion based on sacrifice and a patriarchal conceptualization of gender that confines women to the private sphere. The ideology of sacrifice, as she mentions, “has developed in women a training in renunciation” (132), meaning that women must submit themselves to the authority of men, who are desiring subjects, because it is “God’s will.” Educating poor women on the disastrous consequences of this cultural construction helps them to conceive and realize other ways to understand gender. In this regard, men, women, and all natural elements will horizontally partake in the new cosmologies envisioned in assonance and harmony with the environment. The group Con-spirando, to which Gebara belongs, has had enormous influence on the ecofeminist movement in Latin America, as Mary Judith Ress (2006) argues in her book Ecofeminism in Latin America: Women from the Margins. Conspirando, a collective in Santiago, Chile, is characterized by its multiculturalism and non-hierarchical constitution with a strong focus on social justice. Some of the organization’s major contributions to ecofeminism are related to the celebration of the body as wisdom, of affect (feeling is a way of knowing), of new spiritualities that reconceptualize Western Christian culture, and of the belief in interconnectedness between humans, rivers, mountains, animals, etc. This idea of oneness resonates with indigenous cultures’ devotion to nature as sacred, whose “creative ways in which humanity tells its story” (68). Their cultures are being recuperated in order to offer alternatives that coalesce with nature and the environment. Since the 500th anniversary of the European conquest, there has been a resurgence of indigenous groups throughout the continent demanding the return of their lands usurped upon the arrival of the Spaniards. Far from retrieving a mythical land or paradise lost, these groups’ demands and requests are essential to the survival of their idiosyncrasies and Mother Earth. Furthermore, the ever-intensifying exhaustion of their natural resources in present the day urges immediate action, mobilization, and solidarity. Besides, many indigenous cultures assign the same gender value to nature, a dissimilar cultural construction to Western topography in which men are superior to nature, and women are essentially constructed as natural. In the early examples of ecofeminist theories and practices by Gebara or Ress, the question of affect and intersectionality is just as important: the feminine perspective within ecofeminism, and especially within the Con-spirando movement, alludes to “love” and “anguish” because life on Earth is endangered, and it is the most precarious groups who will deeply feel the catastrophic consequences.

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Simultaneously, “feeling as a way of knowing,” as I mentioned before in reference to Con-spirando’s agenda, produces what Massumi reconsiders as the capacity of affect to engage in thinking-feeling processes that contest Western paradigms of rationality. Although briefly mentioned in Gebara and Ress’ books, the word affect continues to establish a relationship between the two entities unevenly met, encapsulating colonial, patriarchal, and capitalist practices. Affect as a verb consolidates an important aspect of ecofeminism due to its permanent analysis of two entities affecting each other asymmetrically. As a noun, affect within ecofeminism has the potential to nurture love in multiple ways that create bonds, interconnectedness, solidarity, and care. Although the concept ecofeminism was introduced in the late 1990s, a deep commitment to ecology had previously existed in feminist circles that called for the interconnectedness of all elements on Earth and criticized anthropocentrism. On the other hand, the concept of intersectionality was similarly unexplored as such but frequently cultivated. It is precisely in the questioning of the Anthropocene age that Con-spirando activists stress the need to base their analyses on race, age, gender, and culture. Without the explicit articulation of these theoretical concepts, the activism in which numerous women were involved had been looking at multiple ways to conceive oppression at the crossroads of affects, gender, sexuality, race, culture, and class. In addition to ecofeminism’s presence in feminist theology and indigenous articulations, Latin American literature has also portrayed natural landscapes through the retelling of new national projects. Gloria da Cunha-Giabbi is the first scholar to formally consider ecofeminism within Latin American literature in her article “Ecofeminismo latinoamericano” published in 1996. In it, CunhaGiabbi traces the role of nature in Latin American cultural production in order to showcase the prominent protagonism of the environment. She refers to Mario Benedetti’s essay Sobre paisajes y personajes (1968) in which he examines two different stages in the literary representation of nature. On the one hand, the novelas de la tierra or indigenistas titled La Vorágine (1924) or Doña Bárbara (1929) show a strong connection between women and nature; the Earth is portrayed as having monstrous feminine features capable of destroying men, whose role, therefore, is to dominate it and civilize it. The civilization versus barbarism binary has been reproduced in the political and cultural discourses of the Latin American criollos and national ideologue.5 As a result, the image depicted in these novels responds to the concept of barbarism used to explain the political and economic failures of the region. In this fashion, men were responsible for leading the nation toward civilization and progress. On the other hand, Benedetti explores novels such as Augusto Roa Bastos’ Hijo de hombre (1959) and Mario Vargas Llosa’s La casa verde (1966) in which nature is presented as a safe space away from social injustices. Despite the

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fact that there is a clear commitment from the 1970s onwards to the condemnation of violence and oppression suffered by women and indigenous communities, concerns toward nature were not a priority. According to Leonardo Boff in his book Ecology and Liberation (1994), nature in Latin America was considered a luxury to be enjoyed by the rich, and environmental disasters primarily affected the poor and marginal communities. However, Cunha-Giabbi identifies the debut of an ecofeminist literature in the novel Desde el encendido corazón del monte (1994) by Renée Ferrer. In this collection of short stories, Ferrer details the lives of birds and other mammals, describing their actions and harmonious relationship with each other and with other natural elements. This balance in nature is disrupted by human intervention causing the trees to die. At this moment, Ferrer introduces a literary strategy by personifying nature and letting the reader hear their testimony. By giving them a voice, we witness their struggles to survive amidst human destruction, and we learn to understand the suffering they experience as they are being annihilated. Besides this, the author emphasizes the dependence of natural elements as they are all vital and connected parts of the environment. In this collection of short stories, Ferrer’s perspective is fundamentally ecofeminist in its aim to expose the harmonious cohabitation of diverse non-human entities, while revealing how marginal communities are similarly affected by industrialization. Nature—demonized in traditional narratives of nation formation—assumes civilized characteristics, as Cunha-Giabbi affirms, through solidarity, love, responsibility, and sacrifice (60). From a literary technique standpoint, the language used in the collection conveys tenderness, beauty, care, pain, and musicality. It is also accompanied by illustrations designed by Indian Chamacco Ogwa. The end result, following Cunha-Giabbi’s analysis, provides powerful images that awaken the reader and “move” them toward potential activism. Interestingly, this collection of short stories not only partakes in the trajectory of ecofeminism in Latin America but also employs affect to encourage thinking-feeling processes turned into action. And the prominence of affect reiterates my conviction that a variety of reconceptualized affects intervene within ecofeminism to envision new promising alternatives ultimately aimed at transforming society. In their introduction, both Ferrer and Ogwa ask the following question: “¿Será caso factible, frente a estos relatos e imágenes, sentir la presencia de nuevos mundos posibles, donde exista un equilibrio entre fuerzas naturales y las voluntades culturales?” (Would it be plausible, with these texts and images, to feel the presence of possible new worlds where there is a balance between natural forces and cultural volition?) This compelling question closes Cunha-Giabbi’s analysis of the short stories whose power is double; the authors are not the only ones who acknowledge the need to feel, to move and be moved, to affect and be affected, since Cunha-Giabbi also attempts to highlight the

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putative aspects of affect and feelings through thinking and reflection. And in this case, her focus on affect is primarily connected to the ecofeminist agenda. As literature continues to depict the forces of nature and their human disruption, ecofeminism becomes a more established, albeit convoluted, concept that reinforces both the feminization of social movements and of literature.6 Recent environmentalists have come up with alternative ways of identifying the sociocultural, economic, and environmental challenges faced in Latin America. Lucía Delbene-Lezama (2015) published “Extractivismos y mujeres en América Latina:  el ecofeminismo latinoamericano” (Extractivisms and Women in Latin America:  Latin American Ecofeminism) in which she employs the concept of extractivism to prove colonial history in the constant and exhausting activity of extracting the land’s natural resources and common goods for European profit. The extraction of human labor, human capital, and the Earth’s wealth has been the foundation of Western modernization, capitalism, and industrialization; in other words, the West has been draining the “veins of Latin America,” which still remain open for business. In this respect, Delbene-Lezama argues that feminisms in the continent have observed how the economy has always been connected not just to nature but also to women in very parallel ways. Capitalist and patriarchal processes have invisibilized nature and women, both seen as resources for male satisfaction. Because of the strong export economy in Latin America, due to its natural wealth, extractivism has expanded rapidly in the shape of agreements signed by local governments with transnationals located elsewhere—primarily in Europe, Asia, and the US. The most successful and popular supplies are minerals, soy, oil, energy, and wood, all of which have detrimental effects and affects on and in the environment, native communities, and their bodies. According to Colectivo Casa, “cuando un emprendimiento extractivo irrumpe en una comunidad, se suceden una serie de procesos de carácter retroalimentativo donde el ambiente y las mujeres son negativamente afectados” (Delbene-Lezama, 3)  (when an extraction project disrupts a community, a set of processes that negatively affect the environment and women emerge). Some of these processes include losing access to subsistence resources, health problems, and an increase in alcoholism, domestic violence, and sexual abuse. Given the circumstances, women lead the way in taking action to denounce the damage caused, and to protect their communities. I will delve further into issues such as violence, extractivism, and resistance in the next chapters while emphasizing how extractivist projects as “doers of affect” impact native populations and, in particular, the Lenca community. It is clear, though, that Delbene-Lezama’s connection found between the economy, nature, and women is established through an affective relationship involving specific events translated into extractivist enterprises. In her conversations with a Bolivian indigenous leader, Delbene-Lezama highlights the significance of affective responses:

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Una lideresa indígena, en Bolivia, señalaba que las mujeres “son las que sienten que la contaminación nos entra por todos los lados, sobre todo cuando estamos gestando. Los hombres llegan sucios de la mina y se bañan y ya está.” En este testimonio se observan ideas de conexión, entendiendo que el ambiente nos afecta y nosotros afectamos al ambiente, y también hay preocupación por las consecuencias, más allá de la mujer en sí misma, que la contaminación pueda estar generando en otras vidas. (4) (A female indigenous leader, in Bolivia, mentioned that women “are the ones who feel that pollution invades our bodies, especially when we are pregnant. Men come home dirty from working in the mines, they bathe themselves, and that is it.” In her testimony, we see how ideas are interconnected, understanding that the environment affects us and it is simultaneously affected by us, and there is also a concern for the consequences, that pollution affects other lives beyond those of women.)

Affective economies are therefore the origin and outcome of the unequal distribution of affect these women and these communities are part of, as I will demonstrate later on. Extractivism, as a result, is particularly immersed in manifestations of ecofeminism, along with other ideas articulated by Latin American environmentalists such as “ecofeminism of survival” or “communitarian feminism.” Maristella Svampa (2012) proposes an “ecofeminism of survival” constituted by the dismantling of the traditional concept of care associated biologically with womanhood. In her analysis of Latin American women’s efforts to demand social justice, she recognizes the increase in women-led public disruptions since the 1970s, with the Madres de la Plaza de Mayo and Mujeres Agrarias en Lucha demonstrations in Argentina. The role of these women is to expose the realities of hunger and unemployment, and their commitment to fight socioeconomic inequalities has been similarly performed by women leading indigenous and ecology movements. All these significant interventions develop into ecofeminist practices that link the position of women in the household, the community, and the nation at large with the economy. In this sense, their main concerns are human reproductive needs, healthcare, and emotional support while clearly disassociating themselves from essentialist notions of femininity and care. The main reason why these women assume tremendous responsibility for rearing children, domestic chores, social policies, and community organization is linked to self-preservation, the preservation of their communities, and their commitment to a safe and healthy future. From a long-term standpoint, their efforts and fights are necessary to save the planet. Similarly, “survival ecofeminism” underlines the codependency of men, women, and the environment that brought together make up the living and breathing elements of the Earth, thus deconstructing anthropocentrism and an individualized notion of the self. In the same way, indigenous ecofeminist activists explore the foundations of a “communitarian feminism,” the relationship between ecology and feminism, and the protection of their body-territory and land-territory for the development of a subsistence environment. These activists underline the need to

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emancipate women from the patriarchy, colonization, and capitalism since they have been traditionally owned by the state. “Communitarian feminism,” as referred to by Antonella Busconi in 2018, attempts to demonstrate how the extraction of natural resources and the violation of the land affects women’s bodies in a destructive manner since, particularly among indigenous and rural women, their codependence on the environment means the survival and preservation of their communities. In addition, “communitarian feminism” aims to recuperate the land and the female body in order to infuse it with energy, vitality, pleasure, and emancipated knowledge that enables free choice (4). For Delmi Tanya Hernández, “communitarian feminism” conceptualizes the body and the land as belonging to one another: “cuando se violentan los lugares que habitamos se afectan nuestros cuerpos, cuando se afectan nuestros cuerpos se violentan los lugares que habitamos” (when the places we inhabit become violent, our bodies are affected, and when our bodies are affected, the territories we inhabit become violent) (Mapeando el cuerpo territorio, 1). Women’s commitment to the environment has led to the scrutiny of transnational agreements that damage communities whose ancestral lands have been passed on from generation to generation, and have flourished through sustainable practices. Ecofeminism, extractivism, and communitarian feminisms are therefore different notions for conceptualizing the diversity of approaches, movements, and organizations established by women from multiple ethnic and racial backgrounds whose lives and lands are in constant danger of being erased. Thousands of women across the Latin American continent have connected and created a sense of transregional and transnational solidarity to expand their peaceful fight and to raise awareness of the continent’s perilous future. Their resistance, originated from violence and injustices, has empowered indigenous women and granted them with gradually more recognition in society as guardians of the land and of their cultures. Furthermore, by taking on this task, they deconstruct essentialist notions of caring and have instead a practical obligation and responsibility to care for their community and the land, with the aim of surviving and preserving the Earth. All these ideas unfolded in the Latin American continent echo Berta Cáceres and COPINH’s commitment to their own communities; a politics of affect central to projects set up to speak about and denounce a rapacious capitalist system set on destroying the commons. In what follows, I will explore Berta Cáceres and COPINH’s contributions to Latin American ecofeminism and how affectivity structures sociopolitical mobilization.

Berta and COPINH’s Contributions to Ecofeminism Berta Cáceres and COPINH’s commitment to social justice is formed of constructive mobilizations, planning, and action that constitute ecofeminism’s

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and—more concretely—Latin American ecofeminism’s vision to positively transform society. In line with the diverse perspectives and aims of ecofeminism, Berta and COPINH’s fight to preserve the environment is simultaneously a demand to emancipate women, LGBTQ+ groups, Afro-indigenous people, and oppressed communities in general. In an interview with Berta, she discusses the ideas of progress, development, and subsistence that I have examined in relation to Shiva and Mies’ work. Given that the Lenca community in Honduras is suffering the decimation of their livelihoods following the construction of the hydroelectric dams, “progress,” for them, equates to violence and rupture. In this respect, Berta mentions how ideas of desarrollo (development) endanger the non-Western cultures that supply the resources to boost capital accumulation in the West. She firmly opposes the Western conceptualization of development and progress, urging to look for other models that will bring about the foundation of a new society based on the voices and demands of the community—of the people. As the guardian of rivers, one of her strongest commitments rests on the urgency to practice a subsistence model that empowers indigenous communities as producers of the Earth’s commons. In fact, the Lenca community has performed subsistence practices for centuries, just like multiple indigenous and Afro-indigenous groups elsewhere in Central and South America. In reality, local government pressure and the powerful alliances of corrupted presidents and transnational corporations destroy these deep-rooted traditions. In this particular case, the Río Gualcarque is at the center of the Lenca community, whose members take care of its waters, respect its biodiversity, and have, for centuries, formed a sacred relationship with it. This idea of sacredness goes hand in hand with a subsistence economy that contests a free-market economy based on profits and environmental destruction in favor of a consumerist lifestyle. In her analysis of Native American cultures, Winona Laduke (2005) examines the value of the sacred for indigenous communities. According to Laduke, the concept of the sacred has been constructed within the parameters of the JudeoChristian tradition, since the existence of the Holy Land displaces and erases other sacred sites, and universalizes sacredness. As she mentions, “we have a problem of two separate spiritual paradigms and one dominant culture—make that a dominant culture with an immense appetite for natural resources” (14). In this way, the West has historically not only disrespected other sacred environments, but has also exploited the land, trees, rivers, streams, and mountains of non-Western cultures by extracting all their natural resources. The sacred is then constituted through a binary and a hierarchical structure that undermines, appropriates, and dominates non-Judeo-Christian conceptualizations. In this sense, indigenous cultures’ ideas of the sacred are invalidated. Berta similarly reinforces the need to re/evaluate the concept of sacredness by examining the Lenca world. The sacred is significantly

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linked with cosmologies that underpinned ancestral cultures. Therefore, Berta echoes the alternatives proposed by Latin American ecofeminists, such as Gebara and Ress, who envision new alternatives to Christianity. In the Lenca cosmology, the spirits of girls protect the rivers and the people living in harmony with them. They live off their waters and sustain their biodiversity, thus, their moral economy is based on a symbiotic and reciprocal relationship with the environment. Berta aims to convey the importance of these sacred spaces for the Lenca culture. Similar to the Dakota territories that are sacred to Native Americans, the Río Gualcarque is the essence of life. In her article The River Told Me: Rethinking Intersectionality from the World of Berta Cáceres, María José Méndez (2018) argues how the “spirits of young girls stimulate the forging of new global designs where subaltern peoples do not have to shed their identities and lose their territories for the sake of national unity or the accumulation of someone else’s capital. Berta’s desire to change systems and construct a new world found inspiration in them” (9). Not only is Berta’s ecofeminist vision founded on a subsistence economy that challenges capital accumulation, but it also recognizes and acknowledges the cultural value of the spirituality of the indigenous communities whose sacred places have been corrupted by the West, and are now acutely endangered. Her reflections on progress, subsistence, the sacred, and the importance of cultural cosmologies go hand in hand with her efforts to stop extractivist projects. In an interview conducted by Dick Emanuelsson in 2014, she warns us about the dangerous consequences of water contamination, soy and palm monocultures, deforestation, destruction of archeological sites, etc. As she expands on this environmental destruction, Berta acknowledges how violent extractivist practices are similarly destroying cultural communities. She relates the urgency to keep waterways and rivers intact as they follow their own course, because for centuries they have enabled life and sustained communities. Along with the sustenance and medicinal purposes of these waters, the sacred spirituality of the Río Gualcarque guarantees the preservation of the entire Lenca culture. Berta established a symbiotic connection with nature for the sake of these communities. In this regard, she proposes a new approach to ecofeminism based on subsistence and on the preservation of the commons to protect our livelihoods. Rivers, mountains, streams: all natural elements are interconnected and symbiotically related to humans. In this sense, cultural relativism is imperative to comprehend other world views and cosmologies. Also, an understanding of culturally situated indigenous communities will help us to comprehend the ramifications of extractivism and other neoliberal practices destroying their buen vivir. Berta’s intersectional ecofeminism was a fundamental part of COPINH’s agenda and the organization’s endless work to achieve social justice. As part of Latin American ecofeminisms, Berta and COPINH play a critical role in movements dedicated

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to extractivism, “ecofeminism of survival,” and “communitarian feminism.” Their location allows Berta and COPINH to unfold the affects of extractivism in the Lenca community, another episode in the history of colonialism that shows their land and ancestral cultures being increasingly exploited. Immersed in processes of displacement and violence, it is not only their environment that is in a very precarious position—so are their lives. In this sense, survival becomes a significant factor in their struggle and commitment to eradicate inequalities and dismantle capitalism. Similarly, increased collective action and engagement in transregional and transnational solidarity deconstructs individualism and highlights the suffering of these precarious communities. Freedom understood as detachment from and superiority to nature sparks a communitarian sense of emancipation from neoliberal forces and patriarchy. Berta’s intersectional analysis appeals to the vulnerable bodies oppressed and suppressed by a politics of exclusivity and domination carried out by the West. And last but not least, Berta’s fight to end poverty, inequality, and injustice embarks on an affective journey that projects the ninth affectual orientation where politics, identity, and culture are radically transformed. The remaining chapters of this book reconsider affect, therefore, as potential not only to survive and to preserve land and human rights, but also as the power to thrive, to be socioculturally recognized, and to promote positive change toward democracy. As I have shown in this chapter, ecofeminism movements around the world arise from protests against environmental destruction caused by “progress” and “civilization.” The pursuit of happiness is intertwined with an idea of success understood in capitalist terms, that is, the value of technology, and the rapid industrialization over bodies and territories that have been colonized and subdued. In fact, as ecofeminist activists expose, women and minorities are prominently the ones affected by consumerist lifestyles that bring about the pillage of natural resources. Toxins produced by modernization and technology similarly pollute indigenous territories, inflicting poverty and precariousness. In this sense, ecofeminism urges us to rethink cultural dualisms and to rally against transnational alliances and solidarity that prioritize the devastating consequences of political agreements between the Global North and South. Particularly in Latin America, ecofeminisms have had a strong presence since the origin of the liberation theology movement. Revisited by many scholars, liberation theology prompted the exploration of poverty through a critical lens, leading to a study of the land and environments inhabited by the poor. Since then, women activists have also connected the exploitation of Latin American soil with the female body as another colony conquered by the West. Within the context of colonialism, Latin American ecofeminist movements highlight the role of indigenous women and their communities in preserving the land and disrupting neocolonial projects. Some fights have been won as I will examine in the next chapter, but there is still a lot of work to be done.

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Notes 1. The term ecofeminism was first coined in 1974 by French feminist Francoise D’Eaudbonne, who urged women to lead ecological action in order to protest the negative effects of industrialization on the land and their bodies. She also proposed a new conceptualization of the relationship between women and nature, and women and men. It became a prominent movement from the 1980s onwards, both as activism and theory. Ecofeminism is deeply rooted in feminist and ecological thought. 2. In her book This Changes Everything: Capitalism vs. the Climate, Naomi Klein argues how the deregulation of the economy along with free trade agreements have devastating consequences for the environment and are the primary practices causing global warming and climate change. She outlines, “the Earth’s capacity to absorb the filthy byproducts of global capitalism’s voracious metabolism is maxing out” (186). She draws upon different cases, such as that of the island of Nauru, to highlight the rapid destruction of habitats and living organisms due to the extraction of minerals occurring in the last few years. 3. In his article “Development and Human Needs,” Manfred Max-Neef (1992) draws a distinction between needs and satisfiers. According to him, food and shelter are instances of satisfiers; they meet both existential and axiological needs. But while satisfiers may contribute to the satisfaction of different needs, a need can simultaneously depend on specific satisfiers in order to be fulfilled. Human needs can be universal and are culturally shaped through different means of satisfaction. 4. Determined by the violent circumstances surrounding the Latin American continent during the 1950s, Peruvian Gustavo Gutiérrez pioneered the liberation theology movement in the continent. After studying at seminary school and traveling throughout Europe, he observed the need to transform the principles of the Catholic Church to situate them within the realities of Latin America. Influenced by Marxism, Gutiérrez implemented revolutionary principles to protect poor and marginal communities, thus spreading a new theology focused on social issues. 5. In his famous Civilization and Barbarism, Domingo Faustino Sarmiento (1845) discusses the differences between the urban spaces in Argentina, as a representation of European modernity and progress, and the backwardness of the rural spaces inhabited by gauchos and peasants. This binary narrative has deeply influenced nineteenth-century Latin American foundational narratives in diagnosing the contours of national identity. 6. Distancia de rescate (2014) is a contemporary example of how literature addresses the fatal consequences of pollution and ecological toxicities. In this story, Argentinian writer Samanta Schweblin explores the relationship between the human being and nature by associating the transgenic soy plantations with human deformation. The author subtly employs natural symbolism to critique human intervention and, therefore, environmental destruction.

References Aryal, Yubraj. 2012. “Beyond the ‘Techniques of Domination’:  Affect, Capitalism and Resistance.” Journal of Philosophy 7.18: 64. Benedetti, Mario. 1982.  El escritor latinoamericano y la revolución posible. México, DF: Nueva Imagen.

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Boff, Leonardo. 2014.  Ecology and Liberation: A New Paradigm. Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books. Busconi, Antonella. 2018. “Cuerpo y territorio: una aproximación al activismo ecofeminista en América Latina.” Anuario en Relaciones Internacionales (Publicación digital) 1–10. da Cunha-Giabbi, Gloria. 1996. “Ecofeminismo latinoamericano.”  Letras Femeninas 22.1/2: 51–63. de Arréllaga, Renée F., and Chamacoco Ogwa.  1994. Desde el encendido corazón del monte. Asunción: Axial. Delbene-Lezama, Lucía. 2015.“Les femmes et l’extractivisme en Amérique Latine: l’écoféminisme latino-américain.” Caminando 30: 13–15. Eaton, Heather, and Lois A. Lorentzen. 2003. Ecofeminism and Globalization: Exploring Culture, Context, and Religion. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield. Emanuelsson, Dick. “Entrevista a Bertha Cáceres, Coordinadora De Consejo Popular e Indígena De Honduras COPINH.”  YouTube, December 16, 2013. http://www.youtube. com/watch?v=Yiu_G9gdQ4g&t=2s. Accessed May 18, 2018. Gallegos, Rómulo. 1997. Doña Bárbara. Madrid: Cátedra. Gebara, Ivone. 1999.   Longing for Running Water:  Ecofeminism and Liberation. Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press. Klein, Naomi. 2015. This Changes Everything: Capitalism vs. the Climate. New York: Simon and Schuster. Kolodny, Annette. 1984.  The Lay of the Land: Metaphor as Experience and History in American Life and Letters. Chapel Hill, NC: UNC Press Books. LaDuke, Winona. 2005.  Recovering the Sacred:  The Power of Naming and Claiming. Boston, MA: South End Press. Ling, Chen. 2014. “The Background and Theoretical Origin of Ecofeminism.” Cross-Cultural Communication 10.4: 104–108. Llosa, Mario V., and Enrico Cicogna. 1970.  La Casa Verde. Rome: Einaudi. Max-Neef, Manfred. 1992. “Development and Human Needs.”  In Real-Life Economics: Understanding Wealth Creation, edited by Manfred Max-Neef, Antonio Elizalde, and Martin Hopenhayn. New York, NY: Routledge. 197–213. Méndez, María J. 2018. “ ‘ The River Told Me’: Rethinking Intersectionality from the World of Berta Cáceres.” Capitalism Nature Socialism 29.1: 7–24. Mies, Maria, and Vandana Shiva. 1993. Ecofeminism. London: Zed Books. Ress, Mary J. 2006. Ecofeminism in Latin America. Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books. Rivera, Jose E. 2006.  La Vorágine. Madrid: Cátedra. Roa Bastos, Auguto. 1996. Hijo de hombre. London: Penguin Books. Salleh, Ariel. 2009.  Eco-Sufficiency & Global Justice:  Women Write Political Ecology. London: Pluto Press. Sarmiento, Domingo F.1979.  Obras: Facundo; Civilización y Barbarie; Recuerdos De Provincia. Barcelona: Editorial Argos Vergara. Schweblin, Samanta. 2014. Distancia De Rescate. Buenos Aires: Random House.

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Stein, Rachel, ed. 2004. New Perspectives on Environmental Justice: Gender, Sexuality, and Activism. Rutgers University Press. Svampa, Maristella. 2012. “Resource Extractivism and Alternatives: Latin American Perspectives on Development.” Journal fur Entwicklungspolitik, 20.3: 43–73. Tamez, Elsa, ed.  2006. Through Her Eyes:  Women’s Theology From Latin America. Eugene, OR: Wipf and Stock. Tomkins, Silvan S. 1984. “Affect Theory.” Approaches to Emotion, 163: 163–195.

chapter three

On Violent Affects: A History of Extractivism and Criminalization in Central America

How might we better listen to those on the margins of existence who are forced today to live in conditions of unending emergency and vulnerability? (3) –B rad E vans

and

T errell C arver , Histories of Violence: Post-war Critical Thought (2017)

Affected by Western politics and Eurocentric global designs, pre-Columbian cultures and landscapes were touched, felt, and modified by the violent process of colonialism, which involved the enslavement of indigenous and African populations, and the exploitation of the environment for economic profitability in Europe. In this sense, colonialism brought together two worlds met asymmetrically. Notwithstanding, violence in the Latin American context is not a past memory but a temporal continuum that frames the lives of precarious groups that threaten national imaginaries and projects of progress. The extraction of human labor and natural resources has rendered these groups disposable and replaceable, affecting livelihoods and communities that are still to this day resisting large-scale invasions of their land. This chapter sheds light on the various forms of violence perpetrated against the Lenca community in Honduras, since extractivism and criminalization are operational modes that have inflicted psychological and physical harm on the bodies of Berta Cáceres, copines, and their land. After a careful review of theories of violence and a few instances of extractivism in Latin America,

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I will focus on Honduras to examine the “affects” of violence on local communities that on a daily basis feel the precariousness of their lives. I want to highlight how the constant violence experienced by vulnerable groups reinforces its naturalization and legitimization, while its affects call for, on the other hand, the need to embrace affective solidarity to create a sense of community, belonging, and hope for social and environmental justice. Thus, this chapter focuses on the construction of violence as operational in a two-fold way that includes the abusive power over and its productive response power to. As Brian Massumi unfolds in his interview with philosopher Brad Evans, “violence is a directly affective event, which diminishes a body’s expressive powers of existence even without actually lifting a finger. ‘Priming’ is a way of talking about what kind of event this entering into pre-operation is” (Los Angeles Review). Alternatively, power to implies the power of resistance or the power to change, consequently unlocking the potential to “create new sets of affective skills and tactics that are aesthetic and directly political” (Los Angeles Review). While the present chapter underscores systems of violence subsumed within the power over equation, the remaining chapters examine the different strategies copines elaborate to become effective and affective.

Violence in the Era of Capitalocene A thoroughly discussed concept, violence is unpacked from different perspectives whose myriad standpoints offer compelling insights into the topic. In Latin America, violence is endemic in the history of indigenous and African cultures. Altered by a new order imposed from across the Atlantic, both the land and non-Western bodies entered a new phase: the rapid and increasing physical and psychological violation of their livelihoods, traditions, customs, and freedoms. In 1961, psychiatrist Frantz Fanon published his groundbreaking book The Wretched of the Earth where he focuses on the process of decolonization as a political response to the structural violence of colonized nations.1 Fanon has wrongfully been accused of celebrating violence in order to achieve emancipation and liberation. However, he detested violence, as Lewis Gordon analyzes in his study of Fanon’s reflections on violence. Due to the hierarchical binary constructed through colonialism in which others—natives of colonized land and slaves—lack humanity, violence was legitimized. In the eyes of the colonizers, the violent acts committed in order to civilize others were justified as necessary action to promote progress and development. Thus, the land and the colonized were objectified during colonialism. In this regard, Fanon argues that any act of resilience to imperial powers will be perceived, therefore, as illegitimately violent. Since the other is reduced to

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the zone of non-being, he or she is considered savage, capable only of brutality.2 Consequently, any decolonizing project “is a violent phenomenon, though that may not be the perspective of those manifesting their agency in such a struggle. To demand non-violence results in maintaining colonialism—although that may not be the colonised’s or even the coloniser’s intent” (57). Fanon’s idea of the colonized as inhabitants of the zone of non-being is essential to understanding that, regardless of the project undertaken by colonized people, they will always embody savagery and otherness. Along these lines, Gordon mentions in reference to Fanon’s work that “since freedom must be fought for and because colonisers considered colonized people to be without a right to their freedom, to the point of even treating assertions of dignity as threats, then any assertion to their freedom would be considered violent. Thus the colonized must face violence, as the underside of the pursuit of freedom” (57). Fanon is similarly aware of the static reality formed following the emancipatory independence wars since the power relations between the new dominant class and peasants, indigenous people, workers, and black people still remained intact. He refers to the black bourgeoisie as reproducers of a colonized mentality. In the Latin American context, the criollo group continues to violently repress indigenous and Afro-Latin American cultures. Therefore, as Gordon mentions, “the postcolonial leadership becomes parasitic” (63), and any revolutionary effort toward decolonization aimed at structural and substantial socioeconomic and political changes continues to be framed as violent. Extractivist projects are the most recent examples of violent practices against disposable groups.3 In Honduras, the criollo-led political and economic class reinforces the self-other relationship Fanon refers to, displacing non-white cultures to the zone of non-being. Thus, the Lenca community’s efforts to keep their land and their rights are seen as violent whereas extractivist projects are not considered violent at all; and if so, the dominant classes would frame it as useful violence.4 This political tactic allows for and justifies the criminalization of the poor, which will be brought to the fore in my analysis of the ways violence functions politically. Another important intellectual whose discourse on violence seems pertinent to my reflections on the Lenca community is Hannah Arendt. Both Fanon and Arendt reveal incisive and promising approaches to violence situated in the cultural contexts of their work. Fanon witnessed a disenfranchised black population distraught over the violent uprooting of their livelihoods and their forceful relocation to new land to become slaves. Hence, revolutionary chants turned productive by transforming the status quo. Arendt, though not exactly a pacifist, conceptualizes violence from other perspectives that dialogue with issues of power, authority, strength, and force. Her philosophical work On Violence, published in 1970, analyzes violence in opposition to power, claiming that violence ultimately destroys

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power. Despite the controversies surrounding her work because of its accusations against African-Americans, racist undertones, categorical opinions, and elitism, Arendt’s reflections on violence encourage us to rethink resistance from a non-violent and empowering standpoint. In this regard, I am interested in how her definition of power opens up possibilities to organize collectively and affectively and effectively plan a more participatory democracy. In her own words, “power corresponds to the human ability not just to act but to act in concert. Power is never the property of an individual; it belongs to a group and remains in existence only so long as the group keeps together” (44). We can thus think of the acquisition of power as a tactic developed by minority groups to counteract governmental and institutional abuses that have erased or attempted to erase their voices, presence, and actions. For this reason, I find Arendt’s idea of power promising in its opposition to violence, which resonates with Foucault’s emphasis on the malleability and flexibility of power. However, she continues by saying that power cannot emerge from violence. COPINH and other social movements feel state-inflicted violence in their bodies, communities, and environments, creating the urgency to reflect, articulate, and mobilize in coherent, affective, and rational ways. As we can deduct, power and violence often come hand in hand, and while Arendt seems to celebrate all forms of power as completely detached from violence, she is aware of totalitarian governments and their use of violence to attain power. Nevertheless, Arendt denominates these regimes “states of terror” based on violence—not on power attained through popular support—and their ultimate self-destruction. Revisiting Arendt’s notions of violence and power, Brian Massumi clarifies the distinction between power over and power to. In his interview with Brad Evans, he acknowledges some of the ideas explored by Arendt in his desire to highlight the positive outcomes of power to. If power over is identified with dictatorships and colonial models that repress a large segment of the population, power to serves to resist oppressive systems and create a new political body. The notion of power to, in my view, leads to collective action amidst adverse political and environmental circumstances. On the other hand, power over associates any type of governance to violence, in opposition to what Arendt thought. As Gilles Deleuze argues, “it is inherent in the nature of government to exert violence and to enact social repression” (Ian Buchanan, 112). Judith Butler echoes Deleuze’s thoughts on violence by stating that mechanisms of power use violence against bodies that are not fully human. In her opinion, imposing restrictions on “being” and fabricating normative modes of subject formation is intrinsically violent. These various analyses of violence I  have referred to appear in Brad Evans’ volume Histories of Violence: Post-war Critical Thought (2017) and Violence: Humans in Dark Times (2018). With the aim of rethinking violence in both works, Brad

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Evans, Natasha Lennard, and all the contributors advocate an examination of humanity that will consequently lead to the development of mechanisms that will put an end to violence. Because violence has structured politics and day-to-day life, it has dangerously been normalized, socialized, spectacularized, and used as entertainment. In this fashion, both Evans and Lennard argue how “to accept violence is to normalize forms of coercion and domination that violate the bodies of the living” (3). Therefore, we need to commit to making violence intolerable and to “ethically develop styles of living that are suited to the twenty-first century” (2). By positioning ourselves against violence, humanity will display the values of the individual and of the collective to create new modes of being immersed in inclusivity, love, the environment, and life. Most of the remarks on the reconceptualization of violence that appear in the 2018 publication deal with establishing a sense of understanding, collaboration, and a participatory democracy aimed at achieving a politics of equality. Intellectuals such as George Yancy, Zygmunt Bauman, Adrian Parr, and Brach L.  Ettinger refer to art, solidarity, and communication among oppositional entities to come up with constructive and meaningful solutions to end cycles of violence. All of the contributors agree that violence is persistent and inundates our culture. Particularly, minority groups become disposable humans that can easily be disappeared when perceived as obstacles. Nevertheless, Evans states how in these moments of annihilation, the significance of the community and of activism becomes imperative to counteract such inhumanity. For the same reason, the humanitarian crisis we live in mirrors our ecological crisis. Professor of Environmental Politics and Cultural Criticism Adrian Parr focuses on the “environmental degradation as not only a form of mass violence but also a crime against humanity” (55). While the destruction of the climate is the result of violent human intervention to capitalize on the soil, water, land, etc., he acknowledges that not all humans are responsible for this. In fact, I would argue that the cosmologies that frame indigenous communities in Latin America prioritize the role and agency of the Earth as supreme and paramount in making sustainable choices. Similarly, Parr mentions that the wars being fought in Syria, Iraq, and Afghanistan exacerbate environmental degradation. Nevertheless, wars are not the only new phenomena to damage the planet; ever since the colonization of Latin America, the extraction of raw materials and the intensification of land use has contributed to an overwhelming ecocide.5 I purposefully use the term ecocide because it is in complete alignment with the genocide committed against indigenous populations. For Parr, the neoliberal economy has caused environmental degradation to worsen due to “a model of endless growth, competition, private property, and consumer citizenship, all of which combine to produce a terribly exploitative and violent structure that has come to infuse all aspects of everyday life” (59). His ideas align with ecofeminist

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scholars’ and activists’ questioning of the “development” standard humans are trapped in. Only when we dismantle Western expectations of progress will we be able to envision a healthier and fairer future for the Earth. Unfortunately, at this moment in time we are witnessing numerous wars of the interior—to use Joseph Zárate’s term for describing local wars—fought between big transnational corporations and precarious indigenous communities. Moreover, the violence triggered by sudden installations of robust and environmentally invasive infrastructure such as Caterpillar trucks, construction sites, and militarized posts is the product of agreements between different actors who remain unidentified. That is, our age of capital or Capitalocene incites indirect manifestations of violence caused by greed, money, and corruption that hide accountability.6 When capital is the force that designs politics and national progress, violence takes place in silence. The fact that the Lenca community is violently affected by the presence of abrupt industrialization in their communities is the result of extravagant loans provided by foreign banks to local governments and the private sector. At this point, finding those responsible for the displacement of local communities, their disposability, and the destruction of rivers seems to be an arduous task. In response to these global conflicts, Parr underlines two political strategies focused on the so-called greening of the economy, on the one hand, and on working from the outside to resist the green model, on the other hand. In this sense, creating a new form of political solidarity is necessary to survive: “the whole notion of solidarity needs to be deepened and expanded to include solidarities across different political practices, strategically switching between oppositional interventions from the outside and working from the inside to find a more effective path forwards” (62). Social movements such as COPINH and OFRANEH are the solution to environmental degradation since they embrace ethical practices, solidarity, and an ecological cosmology committed to responsible work. By stressing the violent affects communities such as the Lenca suffer from on a daily basis, I would like to contemplate Brad Evans’ important question in his introduction to Histories of Violence:  how does violence function politically? Violence causes physical and psychological damage, and fundamental destruction. However, it is extremely important to examine the ways violence is distributed, made legitimate, and politically mediated. In what follows, I will focus on the two violent practices that reinforce the precariousness and vulnerability of the Lenca community.

Extractivism and Its Violent Trajectory Revisiting Fanon’s stance on violence, Gordon highlights the colonial condition as endemically violent since colonial settlers became the owners of native land

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through legal transactions. They fabricated the idea of terra nullius—“empty land,” as Carole Pateman suggests. Envisioning a tabula rasa, Christopher Columbus and the cronistas’ narratives captured fertile and rich landscapes filled with gold. The Spanish conquistadores started to name the lands they encountered, conceiving them as part of the new geopolitical designs of the Peninsula once Queen Elizabeth of Castilla and King Ferdinand of Aragon sealed the union by defeating Islamism. This foundational moment marks the event brought about by two opposing world paradigms met asymmetrically, due to the technological power of the West. Becoming a Great Frontier or a commodity frontier, the Latin American natural landscape and its inhabitants’ labor were, therefore, the overriding condition of capitalism. This traumatic event, which modified and exterminated aspects of indigenous cosmologies, traditions, lifestyles, and their environment, exemplifies the term coined by David Harvey (2004):  accumulation by dispossession. The more the consquistadores and European explorers expanded their dominion over the land, the greater the displacement of native communities. During the colonial era, the acquisition of the soil for sugar cane production, which institutionalized the slavery-run plantation economy, had detrimental consequences for the environment and led to an increase in poverty. The exhaustion of natural resources through mining projects, such as the extraction of silver from the Potosi cerro, similarly introduced violence into Bolivian territory. Eduardo Galeano affirms that all the silver extracted from that particular cerro was the equivalent of a bridge stretching between the Americas and Europe. In this sense, the colonial period opened the veins of Latin America, as Galeano metaphorically writes, for the profitable expansion of Europe. Unfortunately, the violent origins of colonialism continued during postcolonial times up until present day. Since the Latin American landscape was a well-known site of natural wealth, the region and the subsequent enslavement of its native people and millions of Africans brought forcefully were reduced to intensive labor and production. The Latin American continent thus turned into a peripheral geographical environment due to environmental degradation. Moreover, extractivist projects escalated in the postcolonial era when the export-import economy that drove Latin America engaged in projects of modernity and progress. Latin American criollos embraced capitalism as the most functional economic model to provide rapid industrialization of their landscapes. However, in the nineteenth century, their export-import-based economy illuminated their dependence on Europe and the US, and the constant exportation of raw materials resulted in the exhaustion of the land. Guano for fertilizers, wood, soybeans, rubber, beef, minerals, energy, sugar, bananas, coffee, etc., shaped the Latin American economy while disturbing and disrupting nature, and its most vulnerable populations. As Mark Anderson (2016) eloquently pinpoints in his introduction to Ecological Crisis and Cultural Representation in Latin America, “Latin America, as

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a geopolitical region unified by the experience of Iberian colonialism, is itself the product of ecological crisis” (x) due to environmental toxicity and urban pollution caused by soil and water contamination, and colonial invasions. The criollos’ economic and political agenda clashed with the native populations that had settled in remote areas, enjoying non-Western lifestyles and a diverse range of traditions. Because of this, they were considered backward, non-modern, and disruptors of hegemonic paradigms of progress and development. Therefore, the occupation of their land has always been justified and validated for the sake of capital advancement. In the words of Anderson, “Latin America today is partially the result of catastrophic land cover changes wrought through dispossession and genocide of millions of indigenous people and the implementation on a massive scale of extractivist colonial land managerial practices such as large-scale mining, sugarcane monoculture, and cattle ranching” (x). Upon emancipation from Spain and Portugal in the nineteenth century, Britain and the US found an attractive opportunity to invest in the reconstruction of these nations shattered by wars of independence. Their alliances with the criollo class allowed the two countries to send over thousands of engineers and businessmen to build infrastructures such as the railroad system. Besides, this investment opened up new economic opportunities for the Western nations since they could access natural resources more directly. For instance, entrepreneur Andrew Preston, along with other businessmen, established the Boston Fruit Company (1855–1899), based in the port of Boston, to ship bananas from Central America to US consumers. They had bought extensive plots of land to grow the popular fruit. Another businessman, Minor Cooper Keith, was involved in the final stages of the railroad construction in Costa Rica, pioneered by his uncle Henry Meiggs. Along with his participation in the railroad, Minor Keith also had a stake in the banana industry, but due to trading concerns he merged with Preston’s Boston Fruit Company to establish the powerful United Fruit Company in 1899. Both the railroad and banana industries employed cheap labor from Jamaica—mainly black populations—and threatened the land and emergent local economies.7 Indeed, there were also local producers who participated in the banana industry, as John Soluri eloquently narrates in his book on banana cultures. But as he mentions, they were offset by the power of the US presence that despite building the infrastructure to enforce connectivity, often times, they abandoned areas whose lands had been exhausted by the banana production. In addition, they were more prepared to fight the Panama disease suffered in some plantations. Because of limited space, Central America’s extractivist projects have a huge impact on the land. During the colonial era, open-pit silver mines were widely exploited using indigenous labor through the enslavement of the native population. Even after independence, North American filibusters conceived of these

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geographies as productive areas to conquer for their own benefit, and financial monopolies were established in the nineteenth century before the introduction of the banana industry.8 Embracing the Manifest Destiny philosophy, individuals such as William Walker ventured into the region to intervene in its political system and the economy. Panama was similarly damaged by the construction of its famous canal, carried out by the US using cheap local and international labor exposed to the most precarious conditions. To this day, the economic benefits of intensive extractivism and the pillaging of resources motivates transnational actors to continue decimating and depredating the land. Nowadays, the number of projects differs from country to country due to their concrete environmental laws and social programs. For instance, Costa Rica has banned open-pit mining since 2010 and El Salvador has suspended these practices until further notice. On the other hand, Honduras and Nicaragua encourage foreign investment, arguing in favor of its economic benefits. In Panama and Guatemala, recent projects have created numerous social conflicts primarily affecting indigenous communities. The reality is similar in Honduras, as I am examining, since the consequences of transnational agreements have deepened socioeconomic disparities and resulted in dispossession and environmental loss. These are a few examples of the socioeconomic transformations in Central America during the first century of postcolonialism. Although some countries in the entire continent, including Argentina, underwent an economic boom at the turn of the twentieth century owing to cattle farming and the beef export industry, the post-Second World War crisis introduced a new economic paradigm that reinforced the traditional colonial binary through discourses on development. The West emphasized an idea of development based on economic growth and the improvement of quality of life. After a decrease in profits around the 1970s, large corporations moved to peripheral areas to reduce labor costs, and capital flows were allocated to sectors known for exploiting natural resources. The creation of the consumerist and materialist citizen became the goal of developmental theories that persuaded the neoliberal turn: a new economic market driven by globalized and transnational patterns. This restructuring of the economy implied a new form of national subordination to transnational capital, which granted transnational corporations power over Latin America (López and Vértiz, 153). In this context, the imperatives of global accumulation exposed the continent to a more aggressive approach to the exports of natural wealth, intensifying conflicts between dominant and subordinate actors. For López and Vértiz (2015), “the dominant actors will be extractivist transnational corporations” with a common strategy (154). On the other hand, the “subaltern class is a heterogeneous social group characterized by a subordinate relation in the process of economic/reproduction and is influenced/

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conditioned by the political and cultural vision of the dominant actors that, in general, are hegemonic in the political force that leads the state” (155). Latin American extractivism is generally performed by transnational corporations that respond to global demands instead of local needs, with most of the profit remaining in their hands. Because of high-energy demand, a multitude of infrastructures are built in peripheral areas, contributing to unequal geographic development. Their construction causes irreversible environmental atrocities such as the pollution of the air, soil, and waterways, as well as the loss of biodiversity. Even if corporations promise employment opportunities, labor is temporary, reduced, precarious, and mostly male-dominated. Furthermore, the re-primarization of Latin American economies weakens other economic sectors and causes fiscal vulnerability since demand for these materials changes and, therefore, their value becomes extremely uncertain. Unfortunately, foreign investment in Latin America—associated with extractivism—has been growing and made more attractive to countries such as Canada and China that have invested in mining, oil, and hydroelectric projects. Nevertheless, some Latin American nations are attempting to limit foreign presence and prioritize local needs. The Ecuadorian, Bolivian, and Venezuelan governments have started to envision new responses to extractivism that consider the importance of representing diversity and heterogeneity. They collaborate with “subaltern actors” to provide more inclusive alternatives that challenge the subordination of the nation to transnational powers. Ecuador and Bolivia have rewritten their respective constitutions to form plurinational states “opening a significant possibility of legitimately building decolonised societies and institutions that reflect this diversity in their structures, their production of knowledge and their practices” (Lang, 8). In part, due to the previous success of indigenous politicians such as Evo Morales in Bolivia, a turn toward the left seems to rethink the privatization of common goods. Despite looking for new alternatives to development narratives, the left still fails to untangle global demands and local priorities. In countries where the left used to be prominent, like in Bolivia or Venezuela, extractivism continues to lead their national economies.9 As Edgardo Lander (2013) argues in “Complementary and Conflicting Transformation Projects in Heterogeneous Societies,” “there are no significant differences between the so-called progressive or left-wing governments and the neoliberal governments. In almost all countries of Latin America, the share of primary goods in the total value of exports has increased in the last decade, in most cases significantly” (93). The differences rely on the level of awareness of their indigenous and heterogeneous communities and, the governments’ commitment to acknowledging their rights. Honduras obliterates these differences due to the absolute invisibility of its peripheral communities such as the Lenca and the Afro-indigenous garifunas.

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Standing on a conservative extreme, Honduras’s praise of the military, support of the criollo elites (ladinos), and neocolonial alliance with the US situates this Central American country on the edge of a human rights crisis paralleled to the ecological crisis that pervades the tiny nation.10 The veins of Honduras have been heavily spilling blood ever since President Porfirio Lobo Sosa hosted, in 2011, the “Honduras is Open For Business” economic conference that included projects paired with new legislation to encourage foreign and domestic investment. Since the 2009 coup d’état that overthrew President Manuel Zelaya, Honduras has been submerged in a deep sociopolitical and economic crisis. One of the solutions proposed by the oligarchic conservative President Lobo Sosa was precisely to intensify extractivist projects. In order to do so, the new legislation passed bills such as the Ley ZEDE (Zonas de Empleo y Desarrollo [Areas of Employment and Development]), Ley General de Aguas (General Law of Waters), Ley de Promoción a la Generación de Energía Eléctrica con Recursos Renovables (Law to Promote the Generation of Electrical Energy using Renewable Sources), the new Ley de Minería (Mining Law), and the Ley de Policía Militar del Orden Público (Law of the Military Police) drafted in 2015 to protect the interests of corporations (Fondo Acción Urgente América Latina, 25). Over 35% of the country has been conceded to transnational corporations for mining, hydroelectric, tourism, agribusiness, and ZEDE projects. The violent affects of these ordeals are deeply felt in the Garifuna, el Aguán and Lenca communities. The document “Extractivismo y Resistencia comunitaria en Honduras,” published in 2017 by Susy Nuñez, Fabricio Herrera, and Martha Flores, commemorates the life of Berta and situates these three communities’ cases within the larger context of extractivism in Honduras. The Garifuna people are located in the coastal area of the country and, for centuries, they have nourished an intimate affective tie with the sea to which they belong and call home, thus expanding notions of territory shaped by the public/private binary. Nature in this location is being threatened by the introduction of single-crop farming of palm oil, the sterilization of the soil, and the promotion of a monoculture-driven economic system. With the construction of a five-star tourist resort, as well as numerous restaurants and activities that cater to foreigners, part of the Garifuna population was deprived of their land, in turn increasing their poverty level. The organization OFRANEH has combined its efforts with COPINH to recuperate their land, their traditions, and their sustainable economies. Activism is also present in the community of el Aguán where the state failed to introduce agrarian reforms that would benefit the peasants. This area remained abandoned after banana production corporations moved their operations, and it was handed over to the military in the 1980s for training purposes. Around 1992, the state sold the land to elites and gave a

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portion to peasants who were primarily indigenous. However, the government has similarly rented the soil for the cultivation and production of palm oil, causing human displacement and environmental degradation. Another notorious case of extractivism is the Agua Zarca project, which COPINH and the Lenca community have been resisting for years. Nuñez, Herrera, y Flores show that, in 2014, COPINH presented forty-two charges against hydroelectric extractivist projects that would affect the hydrographic basins of Lenca territory, including dozens of waterways such as the Río Gualcarque. If these projects were to go ahead, we would witness an ecological suicide—ecocide—with disastrous consequences for the country and the entire region of Central America, as the authors of this report explain. The Honduran National Congress conceded the Río Gualcarque—where the Lenca community of Río Blanco is settled—under the “national waters” formula to the corporation DESA to implement the project without proprietary knowledge of the territory. Among the funding institutions that loaned money to DESA, we find the Banco Centroamericano de Integración Centroamericana (BCIE) that helped to finance the project with a contribution of $24.1  million and the Agencia Internacional para el Desarrollo de los Estados Unidos (USAID) that entered the Río Blanco community to “clean” the image of the projects by providing trading and a garden center. DESA and USAID co-signed an agreement in December 2015 in which USAID promised to donate financial aid to peasants in the community. Other foreign entities that supported the project were the Banco Holandés de Desarrollo (FMO) and the Finnfund from Finland. Together, these banks contributed $15 million. DESA belongs to one of the twenty-one most powerful families in Honduras— the Atala Zablah family. The company’s strength resides in its executive members’ friendships and personal relations with agents from local, national, and international governments. The Atala Zablah family’s political investment similarly granted the company access to military force and enormous amounts of financial aid. In 2006, a group of workers from DESA showed up unannounced and occupied the Río Blanco area where they started measuring the territory, installing construction cones, pouring concrete and building roads while destroying cornfields. These violent acts were deeply felt in the community, who attempted to talk to the individuals from DESA. Due to their lack of response, some of the community members came together and removed the cones in protest against the irregular occupation. These activities had violated the agreement the local community signed in 2011 with President Lobo Sosa, which stipulates, in accordance with Article 169, that any party interested in Lenca territories has to keep the natives informed and provide information to the community.

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The violence inflicted through extractivism not only affects the lifestyles, economic sustainability, and sacred traditions of the Lenca people, but also is detrimental to the environment, soil quality, and climate change. Extractivism is therefore a violent event resulting from two entities met asymmetrically: on the one side, the transnational corporation is the dominant actor collaborating with the government; on the other, the indigenous communities are the subordinate actors placed in the zone of non-being, as Fanon argues in his reflections on violence. The fact that the Lenca community inhabits a not-fully human or other location justifies any type of violent encounter perceived as useful and legitimate in the name of development and progress. Violence—in the form of extractivism—structures the relation of affectivity by means of transitivity—moving physical, psychological, and environmental damage through bodies that do not matter. Physical and territorial precariousness is therefore the result of a colonialist, capitalist, and neoliberal distribution of negative affects (violence) that upholds the power over the disenfranchised while reinforcing cultural binaries. But the imprints left on women’s bodies are far deeper and more excruciating, so how does extractivism affect women in the context of Latin America? As I mentioned in Chapter 2, women and children are more profoundly affected by neoliberal and capitalist practices since they are culturally vulnerable to patriarchal forces; in fact, colonialism was constructed on the feminization of the land, whereby nature was conceived as feminine and ready to be exploited for male profit. This normalization of a rhetoric that equates the richness and fertility of land with the female body is intensified during extractivist processes that focus on the utility and instrumentality of natural resources, which are key to the success of capitalism. The idea of land as a vessel from which men extract natural wealth mirrors the construction of women as reproductive objects. For this reason, environmental activism has been strongly led by women who experience the invasion of their bodies and their territory as combined struggles. This does not imply a natural connection between the female body and the environment derived from a colonial logic grounded in essentialized binaries, but it raises awareness of their affinity with nature due to their shared marginality. This connection compels women to act and acknowledge the multiple ways environmental destruction affects them specifically. According to Solano Ortíz and Miriam García Torres (2017) in Colectivo Miradas Criticas al Territorio desde el Feminismo, extractivism produces places shaped by masculinity, displacing the presence of women who are active contributors to the local economy in the same territories invaded by transnational corporations. Extractivist articulations of space demand primarily male labor. In this sense, the new reorganization of the territory undermines work dedicated to care and sustainability. Due to the privatization of the waterways, women need to walk greater distances to access clean

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water. Furthermore, they have to care for community members affected by environmental pollution. As the report by Fondo de Acción Urgente de América Latina y el Caribe mentions, the loss of access to common goods deprives women of financial autonomy. This causes vulnerability within communities and means that, ironically, they rely on capitalist forces to survive. They also suffer domestic violence and sexual abuse due to the worsening labor conditions of men. The degree of violence inflicted on women’s bodies multiplies as both the men in their family and the military men channel their dissatisfaction and authority that, in many cases, culminates in rape. Under these circumstances, extractivism poses a variety of setbacks to women’s participation at home and within their communities. When the men are hired to work on projects, women take on further unpaid labor, leading to higher levels of precariousness and health issues. When expressing the unfairness of these conditions produced by extractivist economies, their voices tend to be unheard in the public sphere as a result of a legacy of educational segregation. Similarly, female leadership creates an atmosphere of hostility and false accusations. At the same time, dominant agents do not examine the affectivity of extractivism from a gender perspective and are more willing to meet with male community members in case of negotiations. Moreover, state-sponsored violence through criminalization is imprinted on women’s bodies more intensely because of discrimination. These women embody not only gender marginality but also indigenous territories or zones of non-being. Berta Cáceres was very aware of the vulnerability of her position as both a Lenca and a woman coordinating COPINH and resisting the military forces of dominant agents. In a 2014 interview in Buenos Aires, Berta was asked about the presence of resistance in Honduras: for her, the resistance is everywhere and very diverse, noting that, “Desde los pueblos indígenas y negros, tenemos un planteamiento por los territorios, también compañeras de organizaciones de mujeres y feministas hemos logrado converger en ese gran tema de discusión de la defensa territorial en un concepto más amplio entendiendo que el territorio también son nuestros cuerpos, nuestra sexualidad, nuestro pensamiento y nuestras propuestas de vida (…) hemos creado redes para defendernos” (Women from black and indigenous communities have an awareness of territory; there are also women’s organizations and feminist ones that have successfully discussed the defense and protection of the territory as a broader concept because we understand that territory is also our bodies, our sexuality, our way of thinking and our ways of life). She acknowledges how women suffer misogyny and discrimination against the backdrop of violent extractivism and patriarchy, and how being a female leader brings further media discrimination and stigmatization. Consequently, the next section of this chapter discusses another powerful form of politically mobilized violence used to dispose of and disappear the lives understood as “bare.”

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Violence through Criminalization: How Dominant Honduran Actors Present the Lencas as a Threat In her groundbreaking anthropological research on Honduras, Adrienne Pine focuses on articulations of violence in Honduras examining the subjectification of gang members, alcoholics, and maquila workers primarily women, to conclude that structural violence brings about discipline for the success of capitalism. Therefore, according to her, violence “is generally understood as a direct result of a lack of bodily discipline among Hondurans” (134). In this respect, the marginalized population normalize the violence imprinted on them, and those who condemn it are rewarded with threats and even death. Similarly, Oscar Martínez argues in A History of Violence (2016) how Central American governments tend to criminalize peasants accusing them of narcos. These two significant studies on violence highlight my view that dominant agents employ a significant number of strategies to intensify violence against the bodies of the indigenous communities where extractivist projects are taking place. I  examine how emphasizing the criminality of the Lenca community not only upholds conventional modes of thinking but also normalizes and justifies governmental violence as a necessary tool to halt the emergence of cosmologies that contest projects of citizenship and modernity carved out by the West. Since the Lenca people are not considered fully human and occupy the zones of non-being, the violence perpetrated to support Western ideas of progress is framed as useful and legitimate. In addition, the criminalization of racialized bodies reinforces hegemonic narratives and mobilizes the ideology of national progress. The ways violence terrorizes the Lenca community dates back to colonial times and the settler coloniality that automatically expelled indigenous and black bodies from the land because of their otherness. Furthermore, their agricultural practices were considered backward and “unsuitable for market production” (Loperena, 802). This process of land dispossession similarly corresponds to labeling indigenous and black people “dirty,” “inept,” and “unfit.” The humiliation of these non-Western populations is another form of psychological violence deeply manifest within the contemporary extractivist context. So when their land is acquired for capital accumulation, violence runs territorially through industrialization, mechanization, and militarization. But how is violence distributed and when does the process of criminalization start? The Fondo Acción Urgente has listed the injustices that environmental defenders, indigenous, and Afro-indigenous communities experience. Some of the dominant actors’ tactics involve the criminal persecution of subordinate actors, illegal and mass detentions, rape, territorial dispossession heightening insecurity, persecution, threats, the physical assault of civilians, the revocation of civilians’ right to protest and to freedom of speech,

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the restriction of mobility, the violation of civilians’ right to gather and congregate, as well as forced disappearances. These practices have often been exercised in the Lenca community of Río Blanco since DESA entered the territory in 2006. In January 2017, COPINH drafted a testimony based on these terrorizing practices: “Antes, nosotros vivíamos todos en comunidad. Ahora ya, cuando comenzó a entrar esta empresa, ya empezó a comprar conciencias. Comprando. Pagando doscientas lempiras para hacernos a la parte de ellos. (…) Ellos siempre han estado en la división y nosotros hemos sido perseguidos” (Before, we all lived as a community. Now, when the company entered, it started to buy consciences. Buying. Paying two hundred lempiras to bring people over to their side. They have always wanted to divide us and we have been persecuted). Dividing the Lenca community is an effective tactic to create internal conflicts that never existed prior to the introduction of extractivist projects. DESA and the government take advantage of the communities’ socioeconomic vulnerability by offering an attractive short-term solution. Bribes are common in this context, unfortunately producing negative consequences for the well-being and organization of the communities. Yet, those who accept the bribes are not fully aware of DESA’s intentions since previous conversations with the community did not exist. DESA, as I mentioned before, showed up announced and attempted to convince people of the benefits of the hydroelectric dam. However, opposition increased as DESA started to invade the landscape, as well as resistance methods that were gradually ousted with repressive mechanisms: profiling and persecuting community members, creating hostile environments, and using physical violence. As the opposition grows, COPINH is stigmatized within a judicial framework of impunity that reinforces the systemic violence faced by indigenous communities. The state-sponsored media fabricates lies about COPINH, mentioning instances of street violence in a decontextualized setting with some videos showing copines acting violently in shots devoid of a storyline or a consequential narrative. In some footage broadcast by the news channel Frente a Frente, the reporter shows a live video of downtown Tegucigalpa where some copines appear on one side of a fence with the police force on the other side. The video selectively focuses on one moment when the copines take a police officer who is on the ground. The viewer is momentarily exposed to police violence, which is subsequently minimized as the reporter focuses on the aforementioned incident: “los copines están en los alrededores de la casa de gobierno, tomaron a un policía militar y lo llevaban arrastrado, tumbaron la cerca, e hicieron retroceder a la policía militar” (the copines are surrounding the presidential palace, they took a police officer and dragged him across the ground, pulled down the fence and forced the police officers back). The reporter’s words portray the copines as the aggressors by presenting them as the active subject while highlighting the

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inaction or passivity of the police officers. This narratological moment elucidates how any copines’ demand for freedom would be framed as violent. Following the live video, we hear another voice imploring for dialogue between the two opposing sides: “Bueno, ojalá la autoridad actúe en marco de las facultades que le da la ley que garantice el respeto a los derechos humanos pero también quien manifiesta respete los derechos de los demás” (I hope the authorities act within a legal framework that respects human rights, but I also hope the protestors [the copines] respect the rights of others). While the speaker acknowledges the failures of the system, he demands that the copines respect other people’s rights as well. This statement clearly underplays the copines’ struggles by ignoring the fact that their protests are a response to endless cultural, political, and social violence. Honduran news platforms have contributed significantly to the dehumanization of copines and social movements in general, due to their pro-authority stance and participation in the criminalization of minorities. Since the militarization of the Río Blanco area, soldiers have been harassing and profiling copines. On May 13th, 2013, while a group of them including Berta were in a truck, they were stopped by soldiers in DESA/Sinohydro vehicles. She was arrested for owning an unregistered gun they found in the truck. Berta was then charged with the illegal possession of weapons and held overnight. During the pre-trial hearing, she alleged that the gun was planted in the car to criminalize COPINH. The charges were dropped since the judge lacked sufficient proof but he granted prosecutors five years to uncover evidence. However, several weeks later the First Circuit court judge reversed the decision and proceeded with her prosecution. Berta therefore remained in preventive detention; although she was not in jail, she had to sign into court once a week until the trial. The trial was set for September 20th but she never showed up. This trial was one of many that Berta had to battle against, along with other copines, because Honduran authorities wanted to see her in prison. The threats and harassment continued into June 2013 at the time of the killing of Tomás García, whose 17-year-old son was also shot. The father and son were part of 200 Lenca villagers who gathered to have a discussion with the company but faced opposition from the soldiers. After the tragedy, DESA claimed that the community members had behaved violently in the company’s compound and alleged how the land reserved for the dam was illegally taken by the Lencas. In order to justify the assassination of Tomás, DESA announced that the villagers had been attacking the soldiers with machetes so Sergeant Jasser Sarabia had used his firearm in self-defense. Two months later, Desiderio Méndez, a witness to the killing of Tomás García, was kidnapped after the police broke into his house and took him to an unknown location. He was set free once an international announcement was made. In August, DESA accused Aureliano Molina, Thomas

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Gómez, and Berta Cáceres of instigating protests in Río Blanco, and public prosecutors charged them with land usurpation, coercion, and damage to company property. Víctor Fernández, the lawyer representing Aureliano, Thomas, and Berta, mentioned that “the trials and charges were all part of a strategy to force through unpopular mega-projects like dams, mines, and industrial monoculture. They want to terrorize and weaken the social movement’s leaders and criminalize the exercise of citizens’ rights.” In September, more charges against COPINH were formalized at the same time that Lenca leaders formally accused DESA of land usurpation, and the military forces and government functionaries of authority abuse. The pretrial was held on September 12th and 13th with accusations made against Víctor Fernández, by the mining company Las Victorias, and Río Blanco resident Jacobo Rodríguez, for threatening a DESA employee. On September 20th, Judge Lissien Lisseth Knight Reyes sentenced Berta—who did not show up—to imprisonment, while both Molina and Gómez were handed “alternatives to prison.” This level of repression underscores the arbitrariness and complicity of the judicial system with the authorities by failing to comply with the injustices suffered by indigenous communities, environmental activists, and any other dissenting voices. In addition to the local authorities, this repression has been upheld by the US government, which continues to intervene in Honduran affairs. Journalist Jeff Conant affirmed in his 2013 piece on institutional violence against Honduras activists how the US State Department and the Obama administration supported Lobo Sosa’s government, including military figures responsible for the 2009 coup. In 2014, copín William Jacobo Rodríguez was killed and his 15-year-old brother disappeared— they both had opposed the dam. The hostility and harassment that Berta faced escalated from 2014 until her assassination on March 2nd, 2016 when DESA’s finances increased thanks to international loans. These funds were not simply allocated to the construction of the hydroelectric project but were also used to “pay for activities to control, neutralize and punish persons who were considered ‘enemies’ ” (GAIPE, 16).11 The report written by international defense lawyers, hired by Berta’s family to investigate her death, indicates the collaboration of DESA and State Security Forces to criminalize the Lenca people and plan Berta’s assassination. DESA hired informants disguised as copines to obtain relevant information that could harm the organization. GAIPE (Grupo Asesor Internacional de Personas Expertas or International Advisory Group of Experts) includes the pieces of communication DESA employees and executives held in relation to copines’ meetings, location, plans, etc. The surveillance of copines therefore reached insurmountable and unimaginable levels and Berta was their prime target with informants monitoring her private and public activities. As reported in the GAIPE study, “To develop the smear campaign,

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DESA created and financed a team of experts and consultants, including paying journalists to spread misinformation and hide arbitrary actions against COPINH and Berta Isabel Cáceres Flores” (18). Days after Berta’s assassination, Nelson García was shot to death on his way back home from an eviction in the Lenca community by security forces. These violent tactics did not end with these murders but continue to this day. Furthermore, the frequent use of state violence translated into both environmental and racialized violence aimed at “disappearing” the lives of potential threats to socioeconomic hegemony, colonial logic, white spatial imaginaries of national progress, and accumulation by dispossession. In this respect, Honduras mirrors what Allen Feldman (2015) has coined “political regimes of disappearance,” counterinsurgent tactics and practices previously performed in Chile, Argentina, South Africa, Cambodia, Nepal, Sri Lanka, Kashmir, Bosnia, etc. Undoubtedly, Central America is familiar with strong histories of counterinsurgency, but the violence in Honduras has been invisibilized because indigenous struggles were completely silent until COPINH and OFRANEH began planning and organizing effectively and affectively. The potential of these social movements shows fragility in the system, which has prompted the development of underhand tactics—of disappearance and death—carried out by corporations, in this case DESA, in alliance with the Honduran government. Erasing the bodies of Tomás, Berta, and Nelson jeopardizes prospects of natality that would bring about new possibilities. As Arendt argues regarding “natality” and a politics of life, “the missing are not only abducted and vanished for what they have done or said or for who they are (and many times not even that), but [also] for what they can politically become” (298). However, the forces of COPINH occupy the empty spaces left by the disappeared and continue to organize and develop a more strategic kind of resistance for a hopeful future. As I have shown, violence in Honduras functions politically through extractivist practices and the criminalization of precarious groups that inhabit the zone of non-being. Extractivism—an extension of colonialism—is therefore a violent act that brings two parties together asymmetrically. Within this binary, the dominant actors in charge of extractivist projects maintain their power over precarious cultural communities, affecting their livelihoods, cosmologies, traditions, and economic models based on the sustainability of common goods. These communities feel physically and psychologically the pain and suffering of their land and their bodies. In its transitivity, extractivism inflicts violent affects on the communities’ territories and bodies. Brian Massumi highlights the significance of exploring affect as an event shaped by relationality and transindividuality and, in the case of Honduras, violence is the affect mobilized by an event where dominant and

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subordinate actors coincide. Among the rivers and mountains, conflicting and oppositional modes of thinking and feeling emerge, causing the dispensability and disposability of the native inhabitants whose territories are zones of non-being. However, extractivism resignifies these zones through environmental degradation, destruction, population displacement, and pollution in the name of endless economic growth for the Global North and vast accumulation of capital. Similarly, by criminalizing the resistance of these communities, whose cultural practices and rituals composed of ecological cosmologies promote life and the common good, dominant actors can justify and legitimize the use of government-sponsored violence in order to continue plundering Latin America’s natural wealth. The concentration of capital in the hands of the Global North at the expense of the Global South has produced uneven geographies leading to environmental destruction at the periphery. As Mark Anderson highlights, Latin America is the product of an ecological crisis that mirrors, I add, a dramatic level of human crisis that constantly reinforces the value of some bodies over others; the value of some territories over others. Violence, in this sense, affects these precarious communities in structural and intimate ways that alter their livelihoods to the point of disappearance. Settler colonial logic normalizes the perpetration of violence, as Fanon explores, because the others invented by the West are not and will not be fully human; regardless of the type of action they engage in, it will be seen as useless and illegitimate violence since otherness entails primitiveness and savagery. Colonialism has even dug a hole in their souls to such an extent that these others question their own humanity themselves. Fanon eloquently argues that “because a systematic negation of the other, a determined decision to refuse to the other all the attributes of humanity, colonialism forces the people it dominates to ask themselves constantly the questions: ‘In reality, who am I?’ ” (68). In line with Gordon, if we consider the question from the position of the zone of non-being that “lurks beneath the selfother relation,” the “who” is immediately transformed into “what,” “creating the reformulation ‘What am I?’ ” (68). Unfortunately, the national governments that lead countries such as Honduras are run by politicians who embrace neoliberalism while denying the subjectivity of minority cultures reduced to a mere object—the value of their territories—and destined to “disappearance.” Although they are permanently hanging in the balance, these communities devise mechanisms to defend and protect their human and territorial rights as well as the rights of minorities regardless of gender, sexuality, ethnicity, and national markers of identity. In this way, the conceptualization of power uttered by Arendt allows potential affective strategies to resist and combat domination. She mentions that power belongs to a group and that as long as the group sticks together, it remains in existence. This is reflected in groups such as COPINH whose participants at a local, regional,

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national, and transnational level have made visible the struggles Honduras has endured for decades and decades. In her commentary on Arendt’s views on power and violence, Kimberly Hutchings (2017) acknowledges spaces of power that envision a transformative future:  “In many ways power is treated by Arendt as equivalent to the categories of action and politics … and it is contrasted not only with the violence understood as an instrument but also with accounts that associate violence with natural or organic life forces” (39). This idea of power relates to the concept of power to attained by minorities to disrupt the hegemonic and violent affects that reinforce cultural binaries and settler colonial logic. Because power over results in affective violence experienced in the territories of those it attempts to dominate, it is possible to respond through the power to, in the same field it operates. When the Agua Zarca project began to demolish the Lenca community’s land in Río Blanco and contaminate the Río Gualcarque, the community politically mobilized, in turn creating the potential to effectively and affectively resist. Brian Massumi sees the logic of violence as potential to the concept of resistance. The idea of power to that COPINH embodies fulfills this potential of a promising democratic future. And this kind of potential that COPINH holds is illustrative of Massumi’s theories of affect and power: Affective attunement sets the conditions for a tactical power to improvise a response that is not dictated by the aggression as a reaction to it, in mirror-image form, but rather claims its own positivity, in eventful autonomy and relation, artfully playing to what is concretely being in-signed and enacted, refusing conversion by power-over while avoiding embodying its negative image. The emphasis then is on affirming counter-powers of moving, acting, perceiving, thinking that decide their own form as they enact themselves. This gives resistance a plastic power-to in the face of power-over’s ability to insinuate itself into every situation. It requires honing different modes of action, creating new sets of affective skills and tactics that are as aesthetic— because they are improvisational and affirm intensities of experience—as they are directly political because they are by nature relational and are all the more plastic and powerful the more relationally attuned they are and the more collectively they are mobilized. (256–257)

Copines feel the violence of extractivism and criminalization that have turned their lives upside down in zones of non-being. However, the mobilization of their communities—at first improvised and then organized—has created powerful ways to contest structural violence. These strategies range from protests to conferences, to art, poetry, songs, etc. The work of the copines, as I will explore in the next chapters, sheds light on the multiple possibilities to affect positively, and hence transform the world. In this sense, violence operates in a two-fold way that includes the abusive power over and its productive response power to. Within the Latin American

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context, understanding violence displays how “through violence and related sentiments, emotions and affects, new divisions of space, territoriality and communities are enacted. Violence is tied to the production of subjectivities, society and belonging, as well as to the articulation of forms of embodiment and corporeality” (Fotta, Posocco and Smith, 175). I am not suggesting that violence is a positive affect from which resistance emerges. However, as Fotta, Posocco, Smith, and other scholars who rethink violence in Latin America argue, dominant violence is interrupted, disrupted, and counteracted by the power to offer alternatives to life, not to death, and to promise peaceful futures where indigenous communities and their territories can dismantle Western notions of nature, and where extractivism and criminalization are kept in the past. However, we cannot forget, as Pine suggests, that those resisting violence many times end up constructed as threats or dying. In the following chapter, I will examine the different affective strategies that COPINH employs to achieve equality in non-violent ways, and explore new opportunities for subaltern resistance to the capital-driven model. As López and Vértiz mention, “the new expressions, concentrating at the local level, are related to classic peasant and indigenous movements that, confronting the new conjuncture, have ‘environmentalized’ their political and social struggles” (Leff in López and Vértiz, 160). Despite the fact that COPINH maintains its political neutrality, its work to preserve the cosmologies, territory, and rights of the Lenca people is framed within the environmentalization of its agenda, as well as the intersectional struggles for social justice.

Notes 1. In his analysis of Fanon’s use of violence, Lewis Gordon chooses the English translation (damned) of damné over “wretched” since they do not have the same meaning. From the Latin damnum, its etymology refers to injury, hurt and harm, while its archaeology connects to the Biblical reference of Adam made from dust or clay. According to Gordon, since the word Adam means “red”—adding the connotation of blood and soil—then the title The Damned of the Earth would directly speak to the core of human quest and humanity. Therefore, it would be more appropriate than “wretched” (56). 2. Frantz Fanon introduced the concept zone of non-being in 1952 to refer to the treacherous conditions black people inhabit in an anti-black world, where they are reduced to nonexistence. I articulate this idea more in depth throughout the present chapter. 3. Saskia Sassen uses the term disposable to effectively describe what rampant neoliberal policies have been reducing human life to. On a daily basis, precariousness is unfairly distributed creating expulsions, displacements, and narratives of violence that strip millions of people of their humanity. In addition, disposable life, she adds, is the multiplication of expulsions and once something is expelled, it becomes invisible (http://opentranscripts.org/transcript/disposable-life-saskia-sassen/). Accessed February 10, 2019.

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4. According to Ian Buchanan, “useful” violence is the type of violence a government views as necessary to maintain order. The electric fences in concentration camps and roll calls were installed to impose order and make escaping difficult (112). 5. The first use of the concept ecocide dates back to the 1970 Conference of War and National Responsibility in Washington D.C when American botanist and bioethics professor Arthur Galston proposed an international agreement to ban ecocide. It refers to the destruction of biodiversity and the loss of ecosystems in different territories caused by human action. It is widely used in ecofeminist theories to describe the direct elimination of earth-beings and to deconstruct the traditional binary and hierarchical construction that justifies men’s conquest of the land, where nature is treated as a subordinated object. 6. Jason Moore (2016) prefers to use the term Capitalocene to Antropocene since capitalism not only organizes the economy, but also organizes nature as a multispecies, situated, capitalist world-ecology (6). Criticizing the concept of Antropocene because of its cartesian dualism that creates a rift between human activity and nature, he proposes Capitalocene as a broader concept that dismantles the human-nature binary while highlighting capitalism as a system that determines our relationship with other humans and nature. 7. Skidmore and Smith (2000) mention how the merger of the banana companies that became the United Fruit Company, along with the railroad expansion, began a remarkable chapter in the history of US investment, intervention, and control in Central America (324). It had detrimental results because, from an economic standpoint, the managers and supervisors were from the US and the stimulus for Central America’s economic development was scant. Besides, the importation of black workers from Jamaica and the West Indies altered the racial composition of the eastern lowland population, creating enforced racial divisions within the company itself (324). 8. The term filibuster was used in the seventeenth century to identify those who plundered the wealth belonging to Spain in Latin America. As time went by, its meaning changed to refer to the adventurous Americans who wanted to claim areas of Mexico and especially Central America without US consent. Tennessean William Walker is probably the most famous filibuster from the nineteenth century: he briefly took power in Nicaragua and legalized slavery. The US government threatened filibusters with jail time because they were causing problems with England, almost leading the US into war. The filibuster movement ended at the outbreak of the American Civil War when soldiers were needed both in the north and south. 9. On November 11th, 2019, Evo Morales resigned as president of Bolivia. Once celebrated by Bolivians as an advocate of social reform and radical transformation toward democracy, Morales’ power ended up exhausting the hopes of thousands of disenfranchised people who had been experiencing further socioeconomic precariousness over the past years. Since his first election in 2006, Morales had stayed in power for longer than the two-term limit, granting himself more authority and empowering the military forces by offering them many benefits and state enterprises. To top it all off, he allegedly manipulated the October 20th, 2019 elections. His resignation is celebrated by the majority of the population, whose social demands have been ignored (Mounk, The Atlantic, November 11, 2019). 10. The term ladino varies from country to country. In the case of Honduras, ladino refers to non-indigenous and non-black, thus to the dominant social actors discussed here. In his work on indigenous resource struggles, Daniel Graham (2009) mentions that ladinos normally enjoy an elevated socioeconomic and political status (5). Even though Ermesinde De Strijcker (2017) affirms that La Esperanza is a town mainly populated by ladinos—that is, of mixed Spanish and indigenous descent—they show a discriminatory and exclusionary attitude toward the Lenca

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people, framing them as dirty and poor (40). However, some ladinos from La Esperanza also raised serious concerns about the contamination of the Río Gualcarque. 1 1. As I  will explain in the following chapters, Berta Cáceres’s family initiated an independent investigation with a group of international lawyers who have been working on Berta’s case in pursuit of justice. This International Expert Advisory Panel (GAIPE) was set up to analyze the context in which the attacks occurred, and then provide some recommendations. The group includes attorneys Roxanna Marie Altholz (US), Daniel R. Saxon (US), Miguel Angel Urbina Martínez (Guatemala), Jorge E.  Molano Rodríguez (Colombia), and Liliana María Uribe Tirado (Colombia).

References Altholz, Roxanna, Jorge E. Molano Rodríguez, Dan Saxon, Miguel Ángel Urbina Martínez, and Liliana María Uribe Tirado. 2017. “Dam Violence: The Plan That Killed Berta Cáceres.” Berkeley Law Scholarship Repository. https://scholarship.law.berkeley.edu/cgi/viewcontent. cgi?article=4021&context=facpubs. Accessed May 15, 2019. Anderson, Mark, and Zélia M. Bora, eds. 2016. Ecological Crisis and Cultural Representation in Latin America:  Ecocritical Perspectives on Art, Film, and Literature. Landham, MD: Lexington Books. Arendt, Hannah. 1970. On Violence. Boston, MA: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. Bird, Annie. “The Agua Zarca Dam and Lenca Communities in Honduras:  Transnational Investment Leads to Violence against and Criminalization of Indigenous Communities.” Washington:  Rights Action, October 3, 2013. http://rightsaction.org/sites/default/files/ Rpt_131001_RíoBlanco_Final.pdf. Buchanan, Ian. 2017. “Gilles Deleuze.” In Histories of Violence: Post-War Critical Thought, edited by Brad Evans and Terrell Carver, 107–123. London: Zen Books. Butler, Judith. 2017. “Jelke Boesten.” In Histories of Violence: Post-War Critical Thought, edited by Brad Evans and Terrell Carver, 124–141. London: Zen Books. Carvajal, Laura María. 2016. “Extractivismo en América Latina:  impacto en la vida de las mujeres y propuestas en defensa del territorio.” Bogotá: Fondo Acción Urgente. Evans, Brad, and Brian Massumi. “Histories of Violence: Affect, Power, Violence—The Political Is Not Personal.” Los Angeles Review of Books, November 13, 2017. https://lareviewofbooks. org/article/histories-of-violence-affect-power-violence-the-political-is-not-personal/. Accessed May 17, 2019. Evans, Brad, and Brian Massumi. 2017. Histories of Violence. London: Zed Books. Evans, Brad, and Natasha Lennard.  2018. Violence:  Humans in Dark Times. San Francisco, CA: City Lights Books. Evans, Brad, and Saskia Sassen. “Histories of Violence: The Expulsion of Humanity.” Los Angeles Review of Books, January 7, 2019. https://lareviewofbooks.org/article/histories-of-violence-the-expulsion-of-humanity/. Accessed June 10, 2019.

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Fanon, Frantz. 2005. The Wretched of the Earth. New York, NY: Grove Press. Fanon, Frantz. 2008. Black Skin, White Masks. New York, NY: Grove Press. Feldman, Allen. 2015. Archives of the Insensible: Of War, Photopolitics, and Dead Memory. Chicago, IL: The University of Chicago Press. Fotta, Martin, Silvia Posocco and Frank Dylan Smith. 2016. “Violence and Affective States in Contemporary Latin America.” Journal of Latin American Cultural Studies 25.2: 167–177. Galeano, Eduardo. 1982. Las venas abiertas de América Latina. México: Siglo Veintiuno. Gordon, Lewis. 1996. “Fanon’s Tragic Revolutionary Violence.” In  Fanon:  A Critical Reader, edited by Lewis Gordon,  T. Denean Sharpley-Whiting, and  Renee T. White, 297–308. Hoboken, NJ: Wiley Blackwell. Gordon, Lewis. 2017. “Fanon.” In Histories of Violence: Post-War Critical Thought, edited by Brad Evans and Terrell Carver, 48–69. London: Zen Books. Graham, Daniel Aaron. 2009. “Ghosts and Warriors: Cultural-Political Dynamics of Indigenous Resource Struggles in Western Honduras.” PhD diss. University of California, Berkeley. Harvey, David. 2013. The New Imperialism. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Hutchings, Kimberly. 2017. “Hannah Arendt.” In Histories of Violence: Post-War Critical Thought, edited by Brad Evans and Terrell Carver, 31–47. London: Zen Books. Lander, Edgardo. 2013. “Complementary and Conflicting Transformation Projects in Heterogeneous Societies.” In Beyond Development: Alternative Visions from Latin America, edited by Miriam Land and Dunia Mokrani, 87–105.  Amsterdam:  Rosa Luxemburg Foundation and Transnational Institute. Lang, Miriam, and Dunia Mokrani, eds. 2013. Beyond Development:  Alternative Visions from Latin America. Amsterdam: Rosa Luxemburg Foundation and Transnational Institute. Las Revoluciones de Berta. Cine, Mascaro. YouTube. April 12, 2016. https://www.youtube.com/ watch?v=K0zK2NvwB2A&t=1127s. Accessed June 20, 2018. Loperena, Christopher A. 2017. “Settler Violence?: Race and Emergent Frontiers of Progress in Honduras.” American Quarterly 69.4: 801–807. López, Emiliano, and Francisco Vértiz. 2015. “Extractivism, Transnational Capital, and Subaltern Struggles in Latin America.” Latin American Perspectives 42.5: 152–168. Martínez, Oscar. 2016.A History of Violence:  Living and Dying in Central America. Brooklyn, NY: Verso Books. Massumi, Brian. 2016. Politics of Affect. Cambridge: Polity Press. Mounk, Yascha. “Evo Morales Finally Went Too Far for Bolivia.” The Atlantic, Atlantic Media Company, November 11, 2019. http://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2019/11/ evo-morales-finally-went-too-far-bolivia/601741/?fbclid=IwAR2wk3Rc4h3kNTMEZH1NAA4N6cY-oPxmaeehqSv1YjGsThpPico2yztr1FA. Accessed November 12, 2019. Moore, Jason W. 2016. Anthropocene or Capitalocene?: Nature, History, and the Crisis of Capitalism. Oakland, CA: PM Press, 2016. Nuñez, Susy, Fabricio Herrera, and Martha Flores. “Extractivismo y Resistencia comunitaria en Honduras.” Transnational Institute, March, 2016.

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Ortiz, Solano, and Miriam García Torres. Colectivo Miradas Críticas Del Territorio Desde El Feminismo. 2017. “(Re)patriarcalización De Los Territorios. La Lucha De Las Mujeres Y Los Megaproyectos Extractivos.” Ecología Política, 54: 65–69. Parr, Adrian. 2018. “Our Crime Against the Planet and Ourselves.” In Violence:  Humans in Dark Times, edited by Brad Stevens and Natasha Lennard, 55–65. San Francisco, CA: City Lights Books. Pateman, Carole, and Charles W. Mills. 2007. Contract and Domination. Cambridge: Polity. Pine, Adrienne. 2008. Working Hard, Drinking Hard:  On Violence and Survival in Honduras. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press. Soluri, John. 2005.Banana Cultures:  Agriculture, Consumption, and Environmental Change in Honduras and the United States. Austin, TX: University of Texas Press. Strijcker, Ermesinde De. 2017. “ ‘The River Told Her So.’ Narrating Human-Environmental Relations in Indigenous Lenca Territory.” Master’s thesis. Utrecht University.

chapter four

From Outrage to Resistance: Social Movements in Honduras

It is essential to resist the depiction of history as the work of heroic individuals in order for people today to recognize their potential agency as a part of an ever-expanding community of struggle. –A ngela D avis , Freedom is a Constant Struggle

Extractivism and criminalization distribute violence along marginal groups whose bodies feel the effects of these neoliberal practices in precarious ways: corporeal damage, ecological disturbances, hunger, pain, loss, and ultimately the physical annihilation of the individual. In response to these destructive actions, resiliency operates as a means of survival, and as an oppositional mode of consciousness targeted at producing change toward democracy and social justice.1 The emergence of social movements such as COPINH attempts to provide the necessary resources to empower communities, not only for their self-preservation but also for the Earth’s protection and political intervention. This chapter thus addresses the generative capacity of the power to, as Massumi coins it, which equips the communities organized around COPINH with the ability to mobilize affects through life drives instead of death drives.2 As Berta Cáceres mentions in a series of interviews and workshops compiled under the title Las Revoluciones de Berta in April 2016, the Honduran government has historically invested in a politics of death by implementing neoliberal policies and selling the country to transnational corporations.

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Within the context of COPINH, Berta emphasizes the significance of thinking about life: Tener la posibilidad de pensar en la vida … en la vida, porque aquí lo que se impone es muerte; es muerte en todos los lados … si usted lo mira, ¿qué le propone una sociedad como ésta a los jóvenes? Le propone el narcotráfico, consumo de drogas, maras, miseria, desempleo. Esa es la propuesta de este sistema en este país … No hay propuestas de vida, realmente son de muerte … Y el poder transnacional aplasta todas las expresiones de vida que surgen desde las comunidades ya sean urbanas o rurales. (Las Revoluciones de Berta) (Having the possibility of thinking about life … about life, because death is imposed here; death is everywhere …. if you take a look, what does a society like this one propose to its young people? It offers them drug trafficking, drug consumption, gangs, hardship, unemployment. This is what our government offers. There are no life choices, all of them are death sentences …. And transnational power crushes all expressions of life that emerge in urban and rural communities.)

The desire for an existential ontological and epistemological paradigm based on life includes the transitivity of positive affects that counterbalance the negativity characterized by authority, extractivism, criminalization, militarization, and violence in general. The maneuvers carried out by the Honduran government to perpetuate colonial patterns of accumulation by dispossession imply and distribute death: the death of young people, the environment, earth-beings, indigenous communities and, to a large extent, all colonized subjects. In this sense, I explore how COPINH articulates a sense of outrage that, in turn, positively generates flows of life-energy that hold the power to shift normative thinking to alternatives coded as resistance. The first section of this chapter focuses on theories on outrage woven by Ofelia Roldán Vargas and Paola Andrea Agudelo Acevedo; theories on power and resistance by Michel Foucault, Brian Massumi and Hannah Arendt; and emancipatory methodologies unfolded by Chela Sandoval. Within this framework of outrage, I situate the trajectory of COPINH that has resulted from centuries of violence inflicted on Central American and, particularly, Honduran landscapes. Despite the complexities and controversies surrounding COPINH, the transformation of the organization and the changes it has undergone throughout the years show its strong commitment to planning and executing resistance strategies that enable affected marginal communities to improve their livelihoods and uphold their cosmologies.3 Resistance is therefore entangled with the power to open up spaces for emancipatory and decolonizing projects. In the remaining chapters, I continue the affective journey that Berta Cáceres and COPINH have been strongly engaged in toward life, solidarity, care, ecological cosmologies, mourning, and hope with the aim to envision a more just and better world.

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Outrage as an Affective Resistant Power to Transform the World Outrage in the context of dispossession, invisibility, and life refusal turns into a creative force that raises awareness about violence and injustices against bodies that do not matter. As Roldán Vargas and Agudelo Acevedo (2017) indicate in their article “La indignación: resistencia al mundo individualista,” since our capitalist consumer cultures construct and direct feelings, happiness is conceived within a teleological frame of individuality invested in materialism and capital accumulation.4 However, these authors argue that happiness needs to be ethically rethought. Therefore, ethics in the context of neoliberalism understands outrage as a feeling fortified by the shared disapproval of what is unjust and what harms the integrity of the other: “de ahí que la indignación como sentimiento moral, fundado en la idea universal de amor al otro, sea una de las vías expeditas de auto-regulación frente al desmedido interés propio y de los afectos personales para hacerle resistencia a un mundo que se ha instituido y se sigue configurando en el individualismo” (89–90) (hence outrage as a moral sentiment, founded on the universal idea of love for the other, is a fast lane for self-regulation amidst extreme self-interest and personal affects in order to resist a world shaped by individualism). I would add that outrage, as an affect in its transitivity and movement, has the power to transform into a collective awareness of the injustices and violence experienced by many others. It is this notion of outrage that I find particularly interesting, not only because of its detachment from self-interest and individualization but also because of its capacity to be transferred from individual to individual. Outrage emerges from external factors that perpetuate precariousness and slowly moves to the bodies of minorities who, in turn, will distribute this particular affect so that other bodies can understand and be moved by the damage caused by systems of oppression and domination. According to Roldán Vargas and Agudelo Acevedo, Arendt’s idea of natality functions to explore the outcomes of outrage since resistance entails the birth of something new and it is simultaneously founded on outrage; this something new also mobilizes individuals who may have remained apathetic previously because of the lack of direct affect on their bodies. When subjects experience natality as a result of outrage, which stems from personal or external suffering, they have the power to dismantle normative dominant paradigms in order to create ethical modes of inhabiting the world and configure a new horizontal social order that eliminates cultural binaries (Arendt in Hutchings, 92). In this way, Salvador Zuñiga and Berta Cáceres, as well as Austra Flores, Rigoberta Menchú, and Máxima Acuña—among thousands of other activists in Honduras, Central America, South America, and throughout the world—turn outrage into

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resistant action that not only positively affects marginal groups identified through a shared vulnerability, but also produces new affects felt by individuals who may have remained subjected to the status quo until this moment. Trapped in violent landscapes and politically abusive domains, activists like the aforementioned feel and inhabit the affect of outrage due to their past and present precariousness, involving the violation of their human and land rights or environmental destruction caused by extractivism. As a decolonizing affect, outrage is tied to a transindividual, transversal, and relational network rooted in an understanding of the humanity of others and in the possibility of amending the destructive nature of capitalism and neoliberalism. Thus, it calls for a new sense of humanity embodied by those condemned to death drives who, located at the intersection of damage and outrage, develop decolonizing and emancipatory techniques to promote difference, life drives, and an oppositional consciousness. Similarly, Roldán Vargas and Agudelo Acevedo argue that outrage conceived as resistance to indifference is a political body: “el cuerpo que se abre paso frente a la indiferencia, para decir ¡No más!, ¡Basta! a la insoportable realidad impuesta por la globalización neoliberal y el capitalismo global oferentes de vidas consumidas y relaciones interpersonales regidas por la lógica de la ganancia, la acumulación de riqueza y el poder” (94) (the body that forges its own path before indifference to say No more! Stop! to the unbearable reality imposed by neoliberal globalization and global capitalism, whose only offerings are consumed lives and interpersonal relationships controlled by the logic of profit, wealth accumulation, and power). This statement reminds me of Berta Cáceres’ display of outrage during her acceptance speech at the Goldman Environmental Awards in 2015: “¡Despertemos!, ¡despertemos humanidad! Ya no hay tiempo. Nuestras conciencias serán sacudidas por el hecho de estar sólo contemplando la autodestrucción basada en la depredación capitalista, racista, y patriarcal” (Let’s wake up! Wake up humankind! We’re out of time. We must shake our consciences free of the rapacious capitalism, racism, and patriarchy that will only assure our own self-destruction). Berta is spurring into action the minds of people previously indifferent and passive toward destruction by indirectly encouraging them to share the affect of outrage to promote a radical transformation of the predatory capitalist system. In reference to the triumphant political body, Roldán Vargas and Agudelo Acevedo assert how in outrage the physical body is similarly triumphant because of its refusal to forget; it acts as a reminder and latent evidence of the existence of humanity. In this regard, Berta Cáceres’ body, both in life and death, works as a permanent reminder of another possible humanity devoted to life, democracy, and justice. It also symbolizes resistance and a hope to reach a critical consciousness about life and the act of living. As a result, outrage and resistance are inherently

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Fig. 4.1  Berta Cáceres, 2015 Goldman Environmental Prize winner for South and Central America, giving her acceptance speech. (Photo: Goldman Environmental Prize)

intertwined, furthering a productive and generative idea of power. In his book entitled Discipline and Punishment (1975), Michel Foucault reconsiders power and resistance from the perspective of biopolitics by arguing that the relationship between the two concepts produces glimpses of generative and performative capabilities engaged in the distribution of life chances to bodies marginalized by normative paradigms of culture and politics. Instead of reinforcing the idea that power is static and dominant, Foucault explores its flexibility due to the resistant agency derived from colonized and peripheral subjectivities. Since power is not owned by a specific group of people, as I mentioned in the previous chapter, it can function as a strategy; its coercive status can be disrupted by alternative individuals or groups in search of social justice. Although the way power works in oligarchic societies evinces and reinforces death drives by annihilating sections of the population perceived as weak, numerous resilient and oppositional forces emerge not only to restitute human or land rights but also to administer life. As Berta mentioned in Las Revoluciones de Berta, a cry for the life of humans and earth-beings is at the core of COPINH’s project. In this sense, the power exercised by social movements such as COPINH furthers effective and affective possibilities able to produce qualitative cultural and social transformations. Power, then, has the ability to affect because as Reinaldo Giraldo Díaz (2016) expresses in his study on Foucault: “la resistencia,

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como respuesta al ejercicio del poder sobre el cuerpo, las afecciones, los afectos, las acciones, es consitutiva de las relaciones de poder (…) su objetivo primordial es administrar la vida humana” (118) (resistance, as a response to power exercised on bodies, affections, affects, is constitutive of power relations […] its main goal is to administer life). In his words, Giraldo Díaz conflates power with affect, resistance, and action: “Afectar es ejercer el poder, afectarse es la capacidad de resistencia, la cual aparece en todos los actos de ejercicio de poder. Así, pues, ejercicio del poder y resistencia son indisolubles” (118) (To affect is to exercise power, to be affected is the capacity for resistance, which manifests itself in every act of power. Thus, the exercise of power and resistance are indissoluble). Furthermore, affect is what ties together power and resistance. Because affect is action, as Spinoza eloquently examined in his Ethics, its transitivity moves through the power to resist strategically, resulting in alternatives for the disenfranchised. Along with Foucault’s view on the generativity of power, Massumi and Arendt similarly identify how positive and creative action emerges when subjugated groups are empowered: power over, which reifies cultural binaries of subordination, can be curtailed by power to, as Massumi expresses in his 2017 interview on violence, power, and affect. As Hutchings (2017) argues regarding Arendt’s analysis of power, it is “founded in the consent of a plurality of actors acting together and is the sole source of political legitimacy … In many ways, power is treated by Arendt as the equivalent to the categories of action and politics … contrasted not only with violence understood as an instrument but also with accounts that associate violence with natural or organic life forces” (39). COPINH, in this context, is constituted by a plurality of actors who critically respond and intervene to disrupt the coercive, manipulative, and violent ways the Honduran government, along with transnational dominant actors, have engaged in for decades. I will now center this analysis around the trajectory of COPINH to showcase the difficulties, challenges, and achievements the organization has experienced in order to resist affectively and effectively.

Weaving the Trajectory of COPINH: Reflections and Thoughts to Affect Positive Social Change The trajectory of COPINH reflects, nevertheless, a complex dynamic process that has experienced multiple challenges in order to meet the affective demands of different groups marginalized within colonial and postcolonial imaginary projects. Salvador Zuñiga and Berta Cáceres founded COPINH in 1993 with a commitment to social justice and to the environment. However, their practices evolved following a variety of controversies that reflect the obstacles and reconfigurations they

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Fig. 4.2  Berta Cáceres founded the National Council of Popular and Indigenous Organizations of Honduras (COPINH) to address the growing threats posed to Lenca communities by illegal logging, fight for their territorial rights and improve their livelihoods. (Photo: Goldman Environmental Prize)

have undergone. Firstly, I want to focus on the positive outcomes of COPINH, followed by the backroads taken along the way in order to fulfill the communities’ needs. In its incipiency, COPINH addressed land-titling rights for the indigenous communities that, for centuries, had been losing their territorial sovereignty through Spanish colonialism and the posterior domination of the local ladino elites. As a way of recovering their ancestral lands, COPINH mobilized effectively to collect land titles for the Lenca communities in Western Honduras. Specifically,

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COPINH accessed the titles for 270 Lenca communities and helped to create two new municipalities. The acquisition of land titles coincided with Article 169 of the Organization of International Labor signed in 1994 to recognize the rights of indigenous communities across the Latin American region. In Honduras, Austra Flores—Berta’s mother—played a significant role in persuading the government to accept Article 169 to improve the living conditions of the Lenca people. This bill similarly facilitated the land-titling carried out by COPINH, which, in negotiations with the president of the country Carlos Roberto Reina, was able to gain territorial sovereignty for the indigenous communities.5 After a three-year hiatus during which the government froze the process of land-titling, and in the aftermath of the killings of several indigenous leaders in 1997, COPINH’s outrage grew, and in order to repress such confrontation the government sought external funds to reactivate the land-titling program. By 1997 Japan had supplied the Central American country with the necessary funds, allowing a “full-fledged Lenca collective-titling initiative” (Graham, 82). However, during the period 1994–1998 only four more Lenca communities received titles under Reina’s administration. As this was happening, COPINH had got involved in an ecological polity that pressed the need to stop timbering in the Honduran forest. The founders of COPINH aimed to enact a ban on forest use to avoid illegal logging and the foreign extraction of timber. After a May rally in 1993 and other manifestations organized in 1994, COPINH achieved its goal of a state-enforced ban of all forestry activities in the Lenca area. In many ways, these actions displayed internal conflicts and challenges within the organization due to the multiplicity of viewpoints of its many members. Conceived originally as a left-leaning, anti-capitalist, and anti-imperialist organization influenced by insurgency, COPINH’s initial criticism underlines its limited vision on class struggles, erasing the particular positionings and contexts of indigeneity. Although COPINH was able to provide titles, there was no explicit commitment to preserving the material and cultural expressions of the Lenca people. In addition, land-titling proved problematic because it adhered to the Agrarian Modernization Law, a government initiative passed in 1992, whereby more infertile and waste land was granted to indigenous communities. At the same time, a turn toward indigeneity and an elevated political profile caused fractures in the organization, splitting COPINH altogether. Some of its members belonging to the Lenca Federation ONILH parted ways with COPINH although a few of its leaders stayed. ONILH became an independent Lenca Federation operating separately. Furthermore, COPINH’s success in banning all forestry activities had detrimental consequences for the communities’ economic sustainability and cultural rituals practiced in the forests. Overlooking the dependence of indigenous peasants on natural resources and focusing solely on anti-capitalist struggles,

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Salvador Zuñiga urged COPINH to rethink its resistance and lean toward flexibility and difference. Salvador, Berta, and other copines learned from their mistakes and short-vision agenda to become more intersectional in their values, to the point that, over the years, COPINH has developed the ability to embrace multiple struggles and layers of marginality. The extensive study carried out by Daniel Aaron Graham, based on his fieldwork in Lenca communities throughout the 1990s, concludes by recognizing COPINH’s power to transform indifference, exploitation, and abuse into affective and oppositional modes of consciousness despite the organization’s initial challenges. As Graham argues, copines realized that the articulation of an authentic Lenca identity built on a “foundation of static cultural attributes” (494) was unfavorable to their overall projects of social justice. More importantly, and according to Graham, “the organization has grounded its struggles not primarily in essentialist evocations of difference but largely in Lenca’s individual and collective memories of subordination and resistance. Additionally, COPINH’s leaders have sought to reach out across difference and across distance” (494). Graham’s dissertation was published in 2009 and since then the structure of COPINH has critically changed in response to more aggressive and violent intrusions of extractivist projects that place Honduras as an experiment of ultra-neoliberal policies. As COPINH addresses bigger and deeper challenges, it simultaneously reflects on its internal issues, such as the configuration of a base structured horizontally by erasing the concept of a leader and using more inclusive language. While COPINH immerses itself in these alternative modes of thinking, copines reinforce affectivity as a radical tool to impact marginality in a transformative and powerful way. COPINH was founded, as previously mentioned, as a left-leaning, class-conscious organization engaged in a political ecology and anti-imperialist ideologies, fighting “against the commodification of Lenca land and forests and the erosion of their collective control over those resources” (492). These capitalist practices immediately caused outrage within the communities. Simultaneously, COPINH understood and organized around “the historically sedimented structures of feeling that mediate Lenca’s perceived relationships to the land, its forests, and its rivers—and to each other” (493). Therefore, an understanding of affective ecological Lenca cosmologies translated into resistance in the form of action, intervening culturally, politically, and socioeconomically. By examining COPINH’s current website (www.copinh.org, 2019)—another platform of resistance—we can see that it identifies itself as an indigenous sociopolitical non-profit organization, composed of around 200 Lenca communities, that integrates pluralistic perspectives, collectivity, and solidarity as a popular and national referent.6 The foundational values of COPINH highlight a peaceful alternative to patriarchy, capitalism, and racism, and form part of a broader national

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and Latin American network of alliances with other organizations such as Red Latinoamericana Contra Represas (REDLAR), Articulación Continental de los Movimientos Sociales hacia el ALBA, Grito de los Excluídos/as Continental, and COMPA. According to the website, COPINH attempts to achieve social justice and the recognition of indigenous communities through a type of collaborative work premised on the principles of honesty, equity, autonomy, ethics, coherence, self-esteem, and loyalty. Copines are committed to finding alternative economic models to the neoliberal system of domination in order to preserve the lives of indigenous and Afro-indigenous communities. As mentioned in the English version of the website, the Lenca people have been successful in stopping recent deforestation and hydroelectric dam projects, both in Honduras and El Salvador. They have also pressured the Honduran government “to ratify ILO Convention 169 on the Rights of Indigenous People, which includes the right to free, prior, and informed consultation of Indigenous communities about projects that affect us” (http://copinhenglish.blogspot.com/p/who-we-are.html. Accessed, May 20, 2019). Similarly, they have obtained communal land titles to defend their territories against invasion and exploitation. Their outrage has been intensifying over the years due to the extreme radicalism of the right-wing neoliberal government led by Porfirio Lobo Sosa and reinforced by current President José Orlando Hernández, who continues conceding vast territories to transnational corporations. In contrast to its origins and formative first decade, COPINH asserts its pluralism and commitment not only to anti-imperialism but also to anti-patriarchy and anti-racism. The current language used by COPINH mirrors the organization’s capacity for self-reflection and self-criticism by underlining the significance of diversity: its activism encompasses struggles “for the rights of the LENCA people, including environmental, cultural, economic, social health, education Indigenous rights” (http://copinhenglish.blogspot.com/p/who-we-are.html. Accessed, May 20, 2019). It similarly reiterates COPINH’s commitment against the patriarchy by asserting that “COPINH has also taken a strong position on women’s rights and works to address machismo and promote respect for leadership of women in our communities and organizations” (http://copinhenglish.blogspot.com/p/whowe-are.html. Accessed, May 21, 2019). Their intersectional work similarly focuses on an “intersectionality of struggles” because of copines’ awareness of the multiple marginalities that have been made vulnerable and precarious. In Las Revoluciones de Berta, she emphasizes the need to approach resistance at the crossroads of difference, plurality, and also multiple systems of oppression: Tratamos de resolver todas las problemáticas que tenemos las mujeres. Somos una organización mixta pero también hacemos una labor fuerte por los derechos de las mujeres con un posicionamiento antipatriarcal, que todavía tenemos mucho tiempo

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que recorrer y lo importante es que lo hemos decidido como un posicionamiento político. También necesitamos espacios propios donde revitalizarnos, reafirmar nuestras luchas como mujeres y también reafirmar que estamos enfrentando una triple dominación, como le llamamos nosotros siempre, que es el capitalismo, el patriarcado y el racismo. Nosotras las mujeres llevamos esa triple lucha y quisiéramos que también los hombres la llevaran, ¿verdad?, para ir desmontando todas las formas de opresión. (We try to solve all the problems women face. We are a mixed organization but we work hard for the rights of women from an anti-patriarchal standpoint. We still have a long way to go, and what’s important is that we are doing it within a political framework. We also need our own spaces to revitalize ourselves, to reaffirm our struggles as women, and to also reaffirm that we are facing a triple domination, as we always call it, which is capitalism, patriarchy, and racism. Us women carry this triple fight and we wish men had to carry it as well, right? So that way, we can all dismantle all forms of oppression.)

Berta emphasized COPINH’s crucial commitment to multiple forms of oppression, diversifying its struggles and raising a more complex consciousness that incorporates multiple positionalities and subordinate agents. As we can see, the organization has evolved and progressed by way of careful reflection and analysis, making it more inclusive and enabling copines to take action to positively affect different vulnerable groups. In this complex journey, COPINH has been involved not only at a local level but also at a national and an international level, creating solidarity with multiple social movements across the globe. In the case of Honduras, the ratification of the 169 Convention, as listed on its website, marked a change in the visibility of indigenous communities. COPINH played a significant role in the 2007 United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. According to Berta, the fact that the Latin American continent has seen the rise of indigenous leaders such as Evo Morales is important in shaping local contexts.7 However, Berta outlines the mental and physical limits of the communities who are constantly threatened by the aggression of deadly transnational projects, which are centered on occupation and pillaging. In addition, years of COPINH’s struggles and endeavors have at times resulted in the assassination of some of its members by transnational dominant actors. Within the realm of education, over the last twenty years COPINH has been involved in revitalizing Lenca traditions that were erased under a colonial system, which has for centuries imposed Catholicism, and by the Spanish language. Unfortunately, the Lenca language is only spoken by older people due to the forced assimilation enacted by the criollos during the post-independence period. As indigenous communities were excluded from national projects, their culture started to vanish. When Berta was at school, indigenous epistemologies were

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expelled from the classroom and relegated to a mythical past. Similar repression affected their clothing and their composturas. Owing to deforestation in Lenca territories, Lenca art became defunct. Berta mentions how before the uprising of social movements such as COPINH, the composturas a la tierra (to the land) were prohibited. Nevertheless, the last years have witnessed a re-evaluation and revitalization of sacred and ancestral traditions. All these cultural practices are intrinsically embedded within nature and the environment. At the time of the interview, Berta underlines the importance of re-inscribing the origins of cultures in order to re/found a new world shaped by a horizontal, harmonious, and symbiotic relationship with nature and the environment. Berta and COPINH stress the relevance of solidarity and collectivity to achieve their goals. As Angela Davis argues in Freedom is a Constant Struggle, social movements’ power relies on the interconnectedness and intersectionality of their members working together for the well-being of the community and, in this particular case, for the preservation of the Earth. “Resisting and building” is the motto of COPINH, whose strategies for self-autonomy are the result of collaboration between hundreds of Lenca members, and the transnational solidarity created throughout the globe. On June 6, 2016—several months after Berta passed—COPINH published a documentary on YouTube titled Rebeldía inclaudicable. In it, several copines talk about its history, structure, and significant role in effecting change to preserve the life of the communities and the Earth. It opens with a statement reporting Berta Cáceres passing:  “La Esperanza, Intibucá, Honduras. 2 de marzo de 2016. Informamos con el dolor más profundo y sincero el vil asesinato de nuestra compañera, madre, guía, hermana, lideresa y amiga Berta Cáceres, fundadora del COPINH. Nuestra Berta fue asesinada por las balas de la injusticia, asesinada por el odio y el racismo que gobierna nuestro país” (La Esperanza, Intibucá, Honduras. March 2nd, 2016. With the deepest pain and sorrow, we report the despicable assassination of our comrade, mother, guide, sister, leader, and friend Berta Cáceres, founder of COPINH. Our Berta was murdered by bullets of injustice, killed by the hatred and racism of our nation’s government). These words are followed by an acknowledgment of those who still resist despite the violence inflicted upon them, and those who have lost their lives for the cause. By using these words, the documentary is not only dedicated to Berta and copines, but also to the thousands of grassroots movements that endlessly fight for social justice, showing once again the power of solidarity. The first clips display women marching and protesting in what appears to be a government institution, as well as demonstrations including a human chain claiming Berta’s presence. These are all resistance strategies in response to the assassination of Berta and to extractivist projects that are destroying Honduras. Some of these strategies include

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active yet non-violent manifestations in the streets with signs that read:  “por la defensa de nuestros derechos” (in defense of our rights); “Lempira vive, COPINH” (Lempira is alive, COPINH); “Berta no murió, se multiplicó” (Berta did not die, she multiplied); “Resistencia” (Resistance); “Por la vida NO a la minería” (For life, NO to mining); “Aquí nadie se rinde, COPINH” (Here nobody gives up, COPINH); “COPINH, fuera golpistas” (COPINH, away with coup d’état supporters). Tomás Gómez Membreño, Interim General Coordinator of COPINH, discusses the structure, vision, and mission of the organization, emphasizing its goal to end privatization of indigenous lands and to recover their common goods. COPINH’s challenges include dealing with the problems arisen through mining, land expropriation, extractivism, wind energy, dam projects, and privatization in general. Prosecutor and coordinator Francisco Gámez Gámez speaks about the significance of Lenca cosmology as a way of living and its connection to nature; every natural element is taken care of by indigenous people and it is the source of their sustainability. He similarly stresses the primary role of the grassroots organization in local, regional, and departmental matters. There are fifteen general coordinators, with varying responsibilities, who visit different communities to hear the concerns of the people. Pascualita Vásquez is the cultural coordinator who cares for elderly community members, collaborating with the oldest ones to organize socially in defense of their territories. They all practice Lenca rituals intimately connected to nature in order to raise the spirits of the people. Proposals to protect these communities emerge from different internal organizations, for instance, Marleny Reyes Castillo founded the educational program EIB (Educación Intercultural Bilingue) that focuses on intercultural bilingual education for training indigenous teachers. This educational program empowers women by transferring knowledge to the communities and raising awareness about the abusive and exploitative practices of transnational corporations and the government. As women, they denounce systems of oppression and racism. Liliam Esperanza López Benítez mentions COPINH’s struggles to make visible the work done by women who have their own casa (home) within COPINH, where they learn about historical injustices to the female body. Decorated with a beautiful painting of an indigenous woman with the words “no to the patriarchy; my body is my territory,” inside the casa, women articulate strategies for emancipation and decolonization; they are encouraged to denounce domestic violence inside and outside of their households, and to know their rights as women and human beings. However, the casa welcomes anyone who suffers from discrimination and abuse. Along with these strategies, copines have also promoted nursing schools to educate participants in the natural uses of medicine—a tradition that dates back to their ancestors’ intimacy with the land. But as Marleny points out, these practices are

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portrayed in a negative light since they challenge Western technological knowledge purely based on consumerism. COPINH uses the radio to disseminate important news stories affecting the communities. José Rolando Hernández Gutiérrez is in charge of the main radio station, employed as a strategic tool for sensitizing society and strengthening its fight. Through music and daily news of events constantly flooding Lenca communities, due to government-issued land concessions, COPINH aims to raise awareness of such deprivation at a local, regional, and national level. The government, in turn, retaliates threateningly by manipulating news stories and reinforcing levels of criminalization within these communities. The radio similarly announces strikes and demonstrations at key institutions and buildings in Tegucigalpa to make known Lenca demands. The relentless work of copines has also been necessary to recuperate the land of hundreds of dispossessed people who were first placed there due to its unproductivity. Once the licenses were handed over to transnational companies, the police force and the military seized the area and destroyed the houses of local residents. This happened specifically in the community of Río Lindo whose residents were about to receive their land titles. So far, COPINH has retrieved more

Fig. 4.3  Berta Cáceres tapes a radio segment in the studio of Radio Guarajambala, a community radio station at COPINH’s office in La Esperanza, Intibucá, Honduras. (Photo: Goldman Environmental Prize)

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than a thousand ancestral titles across all departments in the Lenca region. There is still, however, a long road ahead. When the Agua Zarca project was imposed in the Río Gualcarque without free, prior, and informed consultation with the community, COPINH occupied the streets and created road blocks to prevent the construction trucks from starting the demolition process. This area, which had never before been occupied by external forces, was all of a sudden taken over by constant police and military officers threatening, surveilling, and destabilizing the communities’ way of life. COPINH disputed the illegal and illegitimate privatization of indigenous land in a tour along the Río Blanco with a United Nations member, and Berta was the one to explain the precarious situation they had been forced into. The video presents footage of the police force’s conviction that Honduras is a peaceful nation even though they use violence to prevent copines from blocking the roads. Both David Castillo, CEO of DESA, and the mayor of Intibucá have visited the communities while completely ignoring their demands and ways of life. Castillo argues that Honduras needs energy and, therefore, the dams need to be built; while, similarly, José Martiniano Dominguez argues that the Lenca people have never used the river or its waters, so now is the time to do so. His patronizing and condescending tone fails to acknowledge the communities’ sustainable work and cultural practices. For centuries the Lenca people have used the rivers to swim and play in, feed the animals, harvest, fish, etc., and in return for nature’s offerings they celebrate the compusturas in recognition of the natural environment’s connection to humanity. For this reason, an intersectional analysis must include the environment and its connection with the communities’ struggles. Different members, including Francisco Gámez Gámez, affirm how two different types of cancer run throughout Honduras: impunity and corruption. These two governmental practices are responsible for making communities more vulnerable and have been normalized through state strategies to dismantle COPINH and criminalize the organizations that are defending the Earth. Right before Berta’s assassination, the board of Honduran private companies, run by Aline Flores, employed the media to accentuate how the resistance movement is terrorizing Honduras very publicly. According to Flores, US tax money helps to fund these “criminal” organizations. As she is sending this manipulated and distorted message, visual images of COPINH’s demonstration in front of the presidential palace are accompanied by a narrative of violence. DESA has attempted to bribe copines by offering them money, but these proposals have been unsuccessful. Indigenous communities are mentally, emotionally, physically, and rationally outraged at the abuse, invasions, and violence perpetuated by the state, and they are asking the US to stop financing Honduras’ military, which is supposed to be combatting drug cartels. The militarization of the communities’ territories have

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terrorized the lives of children, young people, and the elderly. However, COPINH continues to peacefully resist; the more threatened and criminalized they are, the more these communities resort to traditional Lenca practices, such as composturas, to find the strength to keep on fighting. The final shots of the documentary show Berta educating the community on politics and ideology just a few hours before she was killed. In the workshop, both Gustavo and Berta were finding ways to provide alternative energy sources. Gustavo’s presence in the communities highlights the significance of international collaboration in order to further their demands. It is precisely this global interconnectedness between organizations, which fight for social justice and in defense of the Earth that is the most relevant aspect of community building and international awareness. COPINH attended the Corte Interamericana de Derechos Humanos and visited both the Netherlands and Helsinki to make the case for the need to stop funding DESA. In all these journeys, COPINH has had the support of other grassroots social movements with the same ideals, mission, and goals. Globalizing the fight, raising humanity’s awareness, and including the voices of the most vulnerable have been essential to this arduous process; in the end, it is the power of solidarity that reaffirms the urgency to stand up and continue the fight, as I will examine in the next chapter. Rebeldía inclaudicable acts as an affective tool for portraying the stories of different copines who have been closely working to educate Lenca communities and inform them of the consequences of extractivist and hydroelectric dam projects. In addition, COPINH has created programs centered on inclusivity, equality, and social justice, thus defying patriarchal structures. The organization has also nurtured the sociocultural awareness of activists engaged in productive dialogues and collaborations with numerous organizations. During her lifetime, Berta forged a close relationship with Miriam Miranda, coordinator of the Black Fraternal Organization of Honduras (OFRANEH), bringing together this Afro-indigenous social movement and COPINH. In an interview broadcast on Real World Radio in Tegucigalpa, Miranda does not hide her pain and suffering following the tragic news of Berta’s murder while reiterating society’s shared struggles and “our duty as human rights defenders to spread the word and work together.” Mindful of how vulnerable indigenous and Afro-indigenous communities are in Honduras, she calls for a continued resistance against a rampant capitalism that also threatens to depredate the Caribbean coast for tourist resort development. OFRANEH’s mission is to protect Garifuna communities’ sustainable lifestyles as well as their socioeconomic and cultural rights. Similar to COPINH, its members work collectively and collaboratively to articulate “direct action community organizing, legal strategies, promotion of Garifuna culture, and broader movement building” (https://grassrootsonline.org/who-we-are/partner/black-fraternal-organization-honduras-ofraneh/

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Accessed June 10, 2019). Some of the programs they have developed are aimed at health and environmental education and empowering underrepresented groups such as young people and women. In order to achieve this, OFRANEH has designed structures such as the Organization of Hope of Garifuna Women in Honduras and the Youth of Honduras United in the Defense of Territory and Culture. Fighting patriarchy, OFRANEH looks for horizontal and reciprocal modes of oppositional consciousness associated with COPINH. Hence, their alliance is fundamental to affecting positive socioeconomic, cultural, and judicial change in Honduras. Just like Berta’s life, Miriam’s has been under constant threat from the government and transnational corporations yet she continues her fight for social justice, building on the legacy left by Berta. Their territories are being destroyed by corporate greed, and the strength of these organizations is paramount in order to halt the execution of massive privatized projects. In addition to the common goals shared by COPINH and OFRANEH, their strategies are mirrored by another important organization situated in Colombia that aims to voice human rights violations throughout Central and South America. Dejusticia—Derecho, Justicia, Sociedad (Law, Justice, Society)—was founded in Colombia in 2005 with the goal of fostering consciousness of human rights and promoting social justice. Formed by a group of environmental activist lawyers, Dejusticia aims to strengthen the rule of law—which includes a condemnation of impunity—and articulate rigorous studies based on factual evidence and policy proposals. Their objective is to produce positive social change conducted through, what they call, “amphibious research.” This type of research takes “deep dives in academic and policy-design research and writing with a clear sense of how such work can and will have an impact on our direct action and advocacy” (https:// www.dejusticia.org/en/about/ January 05, 2019). Dejusticia team members work on transnational collaborations between the Global North and the Global South to redefine and integrate human rights within the contexts of the most marginal groups, situated particularly in Global South regions. In doing so, they focus on fortifying human rights movements and providing opportunities for collaboration, education, and information. Its members examine the law and the liminalities it produces in order to protect vulnerability and amplify the voice of the Global South. Each year, Dejusticia organizes workshops based on different topics. After the 2014 reunion, the lawyers published a book entitled Fighting the Tide: Human Rights and Environmental Justice in the Global South, an edited collection that explores environmental conflicts and injustices in a variety of geographical locations such as India, Ghana, Mexico, Kenya, Indonesia, Brazil, and Argentina. After a detailed analysis of the specific abuses and human/land rights violations committed in these countries, several authors add commentaries that draw conclusions

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on how to actively engage in social movements and organizations to produce positive change. In “Changing Faces and Stories of Environmental Justice,” Eliana Kaimowitz asks two important questions pertinent to the crucial times we are living in, when hundreds of environmental activists are being assassinated for defending their rights and the Earth:  “Who exactly is this global community? What new tools do environmental justice crusaders have that might change outcomes?” (316). These questions are raised right after she recalls a history of constant destruction in the Amazon by loggers and cattle ranchers. As a child, Kaimowitz admired Chico Mendes for his work as a rubber tapper and union leader of a movement that wanted to protect the Amazon. Her knowledge of environmental injustices led her to firmly believe that the global community “had a responsibility to support indigenous and local people’s efforts to protect the natural resources of the Amazon” (316). But who is exactly this global community? In her struggle to identify members, Kaimowitz emphasizes the need to expose the faces and stories of those damaged by transnational greed. In her narration of the conversations and debates that took place during the workshop, Kaimowitz realizes how urgent it is to form alliances in order to raise consciousness about environmental justice. Similarly, she adds how new technology such as smartphones and the internet allow the missions of social movements to spread faster and project faces and stories to as many people as possible. In this sense, COPINH’s YouTube video Rebeldía inclaudicable utilizes a broader platform to reach thousands of audiences around the globe. Furthermore, the documentary shows multiple faces and stories that recount the destructive effects of government-issued concessions to corporations. As a consequence, the global community is affected by the experiences of the Lenca people in a very direct way, pushing calls for solidarity and responsibility to the forefront. Thanks to this new technology, she argues, citizens can now capture human rights abuses on their cell phones, and advocates can circulate petitions against bad actors globally online. Communities are now better able to document human rights abuses in real time and share information broadly. Human rights activists from the global South are now better positioned—using social media and new technology—to shape and inform the narratives and priorities of the global human rights movement. (317)

Human rights movements are therefore more empowered through transnational solidarity and coalition organizing, which is one of the specific demands of Angela Davis. COPINH’s success in halting government projects also resides in the power of solidarity, as stated by copines and its co-founder Berta Cáceres. Kaimowitz feels compelled to advocate an interdisciplinary approach to environmental justice that moves beyond litigation and report writing since these are not the only forms of

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applying pressure. Storytelling and documented facts complement and reshape legal discourse and propose counterhegemonic tools. According to the author, “the stories I heard from each person made me hopeful that the rich diversity of experiences, insight, and knowledge of these young people, if they are able to form strong alliances, will lead to more creative and effective solutions to injustice” (317). The multiple stories and faces in COPINH’s documentary, which include the elderly, women, children, young advocates, and a myriad of other community members, educate the global community on their “ecology of knowledges” and the current conflicts shaping Honduras. In Kaimowitz’s words, “at the end of the day, stories may be human rights activists’ most powerful tools” (320). Stories can easily be disseminated in the media, the internet, newspapers, etc., and can affect people and effect positive social change. By sharing the feelings, desires, and experiences of vulnerable groups, affect is activated and ready to “move” others. In line with Matthew Schneider-Mayerson’s conceptualization of Affect in his contribution to Fueling Culture 101:  Words for Energy and Environment, “We must internalize externalities” (28, 30) because our awareness of environmental injustices and human rights violations “is not merely intellectual but corporeal, lodged in our nerves and tendons, and it presents us with two options: to turn away or to act” (28) In my opinion, there is only one option—to act to preserve our lives and our planet. If Kaimowitz’s chapter opens with her admiration of Chico Mendes, it closes with her devotion to Berta Cáceres, whose trips in and outside of Honduras helped create awareness about the destruction of the Lenca community as a result of hydroelectric dam projects. Berta also shared stories about the damnification inflicted on other indigenous and Afro-indigenous communities who are similarly suffering from human and land rights violations. Kaimowitz stresses the importance of aiding and promoting the efforts of Berta and COPINH through social media and interviews easily accessible on YouTube. Thus, as long as we exercise the power of solidarity, and “we remain connected to one another and to our surroundings, we will continue to walk toward justice” (323). The strategies developed by social movements and indigenous organizations to peacefully fight for social justice include, as I have exposed in this section, educational programs, the empowerment of community members, the dissemination of accurate information on the effects of extractivist and hydroelectric projects, and acts of resistance from the bottom up. The disruption of government institutions through non-violent demonstrations and coalition building has proven positively affective and effective for COPINH, whose exemplary actions echo Chela Sandoval’s proposal for revolutionary social movements, influenced by Michel Foucault. Among her ideas are:

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– Free political action from all unitary and totalizing paranoia. – Develop action, thought, and desires by proliferation, juxtaposition, and disjunction, and not by subdivision and pyramidal hierarchization. – Withdraw allegiance from the old categories of the Negative (law, limit, castration, lack, lacuna), which Western thought has so long held sacred as a form of power and an access to reality. Prefer what is positive and multiple, difference over uniformity, flow over unities, mobile arrangements over systems. Believe that what is productive is not sedentary but nomadic. – Do not think that one has to be sad in order to be militant, even though the thing one is fighting is abominable. It is the connection of desire to reality (and not its retreat into the forms of representation) that possesses revolutionary force. – Do not use thought to ground a political practice in Truth; nor political action to discredit, as mere speculation, a line of thought. Use political practice as an intensifier of thought, and analysis as a multiplier of the forms and domains for the intervention of political action. – Do not demand of politics that it restore the “rights” of the individual, as philosophy has defined them. What is needed is to “deindividualize” by means of multiplication and displacement, diverse combinations. The group must not be the organic bond uniting hierarchized individuals but a constant generator of deindividualization. – Do not become enamored of power. (Sandoval, 165–166)

These principles endorsed by Chela Sandoval can be applied to COPINH’s decolonizing modes and resistant techniques that result from outrage. As Berta and copines argue, the uniformity of thought endangers not only diverse cultures but also biodiversity. In one of her interviews, Berta highlights the need to emphasize difference and multiplicity as more productive ways to contest ideology and the patriarchy, which would create a horizontal relationship of reciprocity between actors from various walks of life. By prioritizing diversity, no piece of knowledge is erected as superior to others and, therefore, Western paradigms of thought are debunked. In addition, COPINH’s journeys across the country and across nations to raise consciousness about human and land rights violations encourage nomadism as a productive lifestyle for effecting positive social change. Within this nomadic context, COPINH can tell powerful stories about indigenous communities challenging state-formed representations based on criminalization and racism and showing a strong connection between desire and reality “that possesses revolutionary force.” The work carried out by COPINH is a political practice that intensifies thought; it is understood as an exercise of reflection, articulation, and analysis that defies oppressive systems and searches for alternative cosmologies and “ecologies of knowledge.” And last but not least, the imperative of deindividualization and collectivity is the core element of COPINH, which does not have a leader “enamored of power.” Horizontality and reciprocity elude power as the ultimate goal. As

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Davis suggests, transnational solidarity and a collectivity that acknowledges difference and multiplicity will work effectively and affectively toward social, human, and environmental justice. COPINH, OFRANEH, and Dejusticia are but three environmental social movements that represent hope and aim to transform totalitarian and oligarchic nations sold to Western interests. As Sandoval argues in her concluding chapter of Methodology of the Oppressed, “With the transnationalization of capitalism, when elected officials are no longer leaders of singular nation-states but nexuses for multinational interests, it also becomes possible for citizen-subjects to become activists for a new decolonizing global terrain, a psychic terrain that can unite them with similarly positioned citizen-subjects within and across national borders into new, post-Western-empire alliances” (183–184). The decolonizing global terrain should marry perseverance and counterhegemony, to use Felicio Pontes Jr’s words. In the chapter “Fighting the Tide: Challenges for Young Human Rights Defenders in the Global South,” he examines how the combination of the legal and the political will help young activists move forwards. As he has witnessed several lawsuits filed against the Belo Monte dam construction in the Amazon go nowhere, he argues that the legal field needs to be resignified through political and social content; that is, the counterhegemonic action of well-articulated and well-documented stories about how communities and their environments are being displaced and erased. Similarly, the introduction of law and legal procedures during community and social action meetings should be essential to create “a strategy for activism vis-à-vis the judicial branch” (331). As Pontes mentions, “legal knowledge has historically been converted into a mechanism for upholding the social elite’s power, to the detriment of the society” (331). A core knowledge of their human and land rights are necessary to combat the very same discourse produced by the law. As a result, perseverance and counterhegemony will better our understanding of the cultures and histories of vulnerable communities. Copines’ and Berta’s family’s perseverance and knowledge of the law has led them to work with environmental activist lawyers who are investigating what happened the night of March 2nd, 2016 when Berta was assassinated. The last chapter of this book will carefully examine the report conducted by GAIPE along with a multiplicity of art forms that emerged in the aftermath of the tragedy. In the end, the process of mourning articulated in this book will turn into justice, transforming society in positive ways that will create hope for the future. Telling the story of the Lenca cosmology to a large audience in Washington while receiving an award and showing a powerful face—the face of a tireless woman who has devoted her life and energy to the defense of the Earth and the preservation of indigenous communities—was a wake-up call to critically engage in discussions and action to dismantle patriarchal forces. Berta’s compelling story continues to influence and transform the unequal and unjust distribution of

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humanity, transmitting strength, intelligence, and love to those precarious lives forgotten in a world dominated by greed, capitalist subjugation, and destruction. Her life has not ended, though; it has multiplied and it thrives in the hearts and minds of hundreds of human and land rights activists fighting for social justice. Therefore, in this chapter, I  have attempted to reveal the life of Berta and COPINH as a strategy to produce positive social change aimed at empowering vulnerable groups such as indigenous communities, LGBTQ+ people, the poor, etc. Berta “woke up” to life very early on when helping her mother, Austra, deliver babies because they had to pass through poor neighborhoods. This rapidly developed social consciousness was reinforced by Austra’s political interventions in the community to represent the interests of marginalized groups. Austra, herself, came from a family of dissidents who rebelled against the dictatorships and military presence that have dominated recent Honduran history. Surrounded by a family that promoted social equality and civil and human rights, Berta learned to commit herself to these precarious lives and work to improve their conditions. She even travelled to El Salvador to help out the guerrilla movement. A legacy of social activism and resistance led to the emergence of an inspiring voice and face who founded COPINH in 1993 to productively organize the Lenca people by educating them, collaborating in different educational programs, and forging a reciprocal structure where every single member’s voice could be heard and acknowledged. Her constant fight against the patriarchy, racism, and capitalism was similarly reflected in her intersectional ecofeminism that was not only centered on identity categories but also many interconnected struggles. Furthermore, Berta’s intersectional ecofeminism was rooted in violence: the violence of criminalization, extractivism, gender, race, and ethnicity. Resistance, as I have shown, has taken multiple and challenging forms throughout the years since the foundation of COPINH. Interestingly, it came in the form of agency and action to promote social justice and to end multiple systems of oppression. Thus, affect is mobilized and transferred to precarious bodies for the preservation of all types of life and for the articulation of a new sense of humanity rooted in emancipation, difference, justice, and peace. In addition, Berta’s principles of solidarity, collective work, and de/individualization were at the core of COPINH—an organization that believes in the power of communal struggles and interconnections to bring about desired sociopolitical, cultural, and economic change. We can thus see how transnational solidarity and the collaboration between different Honduran social organizations are necessary to affect and effect a transformational path toward restorative justice. As I have analyzed in this chapter, COPINH’s outrage, as a result of the violent practices of the Honduran government inflicted on communities and lives deemed disposable, translates into multiple capacities to distribute positive affects. Besides,

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outrage provides spaces for natality: the birth of creative forces and flows of energy that envision a new kind of alternative humanity based on the provision of a good quality of life to subordinate actors. These flows of life respond to the multiple forms of resistance and decolonizing and emancipatory techniques developed by COPINH. Despite its initial challenges, COPINH continues to grow into a more inclusive and representational organization capable of addressing the multiple systems of oppression that affect men and particularly women. Becoming pluralistic and multi-nodal, COPINH has found productive ways to limit the abusive and capitalist-driven power over indigenous land, cosmologies, and subjectivities by demonstrating their power to defy these transnational actors and their death drives. Their struggles echo Foucault, Massumi, and Arendt’s interpretations of power as dynamic, flexible, generative, and creative which, through self-reflection and action, affects underrepresented and submissive groups. Outrage, as a consequence, emerges from a context of violence and produces resistance through affect and action, facilitated by various educational programs. In this way, Sandoval’s emancipatory techniques are crucial in planning, reflecting, and articulating COPINH’s activist, affective, and resistant agenda. Thus, the next chapter will continue to focus on different affects tied to resistance that underline COPINH’s transformative power to produce natality and life chances.

Notes 1. The term resilience has recently captured the attention of feminist scholars. By critically thinking about concepts such as vulnerability and resistance, Sarah Bracke (2016) alludes to the dominant use of resilience that has not only served to reaffirm power relations, but also to create the assumption that one must overcome precariousness through resilience to empower oneself without dismantling the same power relations or systems of oppression. As she states, “the original sense of resilience has also been deliberately elaborated and modified throughout its current usage in a neoliberal context, as merely bouncing back or returning to a prior state” (55), erasing the potential of transformation for the purpose of going back to the same situation (58). While I sympathize with this critical view of the concept, I situate it within the specific context of the Lenca people whose resilience has helped mobilize their desires, demands, and action toward profound change. Despite its repetitive use in neoliberal discourses that implies a colonization of the imagination, it allows, on the other hand, the organization of communities into affective and effective mechanisms for overcoming obstacles. When resilience is rethought from the bottom up, it can be translated into a thinking-feeling process used to dismantle authoritative systems that jeopardize the livelihoods of indigenous communities. In this context, the idea of “bouncing back” is rejected by moving forward through structural change. 2. In a Freudian sense, life drives refer to life instincts focused on the preservation of life of humans and non-humans. These drives are associated with positive affect and prosocial action, whereas death instincts relate to destruction. While the Honduran government invests its energy into

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impoverishing, displacing, and erasing non-white populations entrenched in a politics of death, the Lenca community consciously works to create life opportunities for the bodies and territories ejected from white spatio-imaginaries, nation formation and, ultimately, humanity. The concept of natality, elaborated by Hannah Arendt, refers to new creative forces with the potential to create a better society, promoting life instead of death. In this way, necropolitics is challenged by the daily action and activism of marginalized groups. Daniel Graham (2009) notes the significant role of Lenca cosmologies in his extensive study on their resources and struggles. Lenca cosmology is deeply attached to agriculture, sustainability, economy, and spirituality, resulting in a worldview mostly misunderstood by Western knowledge. In her book The Promise of Happiness, Sara Ahmed (2010) examines the ubiquity of happiness as it pervades political, popular, and social discourses across the world. She suggests how happiness is a limited concept based on cultural expectations, founded on norms of behavior and specific life choices. Therefore, we are not free to decide what makes us happy. Suggesting what happiness does, instead of what it is, Ahmed focuses on the ways this concept reiterates power structures and fosters oppression. President Carlos Roberto Reina was the president of Honduras from 1994 through to 1998. During this time period, indigenous and Afro-indigenous movements were able to sign agreements with the government to retain some of their territories. Activists demanded the development of infrastructure to access health care and schooling, as well as the granting of land titles. Despite the invisibility of these communities, Reina was able to confront social injustices and commit to change. In Networks of Outrage and Hope: Social Movements in the Internet Age, Manuel Castells (2015) explores the power of the internet as a space of connection that brings frustrations and desires together to promote positive social change. His analysis of the Spring Arab movements, the Spanish indignados, and other revolutionary groups demonstrates how the internet allows people to organize and spread their ideas and goals internationally and transnationally in a very affective and effective manner. Aware of the disputed value of the internet, he focuses primarily on its networking capabilities that have emerged from these virtual spaces to fight injustices and to actually disrupt public spaces. After almost fourteen years in power, Evo Morales resigned on November 11, 2019. During his first years as president, Morales nationalized part of the oil industry to fight neoliberalism and US dominion, reformed the constitution to acknowledge Bolivia as a plurinational state and empower indigenous communities, legalized the cultivation of coca, and decreased poverty levels. But as years went by, he loosened up environmental regulations, distanced himself from popular demands, and wasted money on luxury projects such as the presidential house. People’s discontent coupled with the clear manipulation of the October 20th, 2019 elections after a similarly corrupt referendum in 2016, which saw him attempt to amend the constitution to make himself eligible for a third term, led to his resignation.

References Ahmed, Sara. 2010. The Promise of Happiness. Durham: Duke University Press. Arendt, Hannah 2013. The Human Condition. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

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Blair, Laurence, and Dan Collyns. “Evo Morales: Indigenous Leader Who Changed Bolivia but Stayed Too Long.” The Guardian, Guardian News and Media, 15 Nov. 2019. Bracke, Sarah. 2016. “Bouncing Back: Vulnerability and Resistance in Times of Resilience.” In Vulnerability in Resistance, edited by Judith Butler, Zeynep Gambetti, and Leticia Sabsay, 52–75. Durham: Duke University Press. Castells, Manuel. 2015.  Networks of Outrage and Hope:  Social Movements in the Internet Age. Cambridge: Polity Press. COPINH. “Consejo Cívico De Organizaciones Populares E Indígenas De Honduras.” COPINH. https://copinh.org/. Accessed September 10, 2017. Davis, Angela Y. 2016. Freedom Is a Constant Struggle: Ferguson, Palestine, and the Foundations of a Movement. Chicago: Haymarket Books. Giraldo Díaz, Reinaldo. 2016. “The Power and Resistance in Michel Foucault.”  Tabula RASA 4: 103–122. Graham, Daniel Aaron. 2009. “Ghosts and Warriors: Cultural-Political Dynamics of Indigenous Resource Struggles in Western Honduras.” PhD diss. University of California, Berkeley. Hutchings, Kimberly. 2017. “Hannah Arendt.” In Histories of Violence: Post-War Critical Thought, edited by Brad Evans and Terrell Carver, 31–47. London: Zen Books. Kaimowitz, Eliana. 2017. “Changing Faces and Stories of Environmental Justice.” In Fighting the Tide:  Human Rights and Environmental Justice in the Global South, edited by César Rodríguez Garavito, 314–324. Bogotá: Dejusticia Series. Las Revoluciones de Berta. Cine, Mascaro. YouTube. April 12, 2016. https://www.youtube.com/ watch?v=K0zK2NvwB2A&t=1134s. Accessed November 10, 2018. Morrill, Chris. “Black Fraternal Organization of Honduras (OFRANEH).” Grassroots International. https://grassrootsonline.org/who-we-are/partner/black-fraternal-organization-honduras-ofraneh/. Accessed May 10, 2019. Pontes Jr, Felicio. 2017. “Fighting the Tide: Challenges for Young Human Rights Defenders in the Global South.” In Fighting the Tide: Human Rights and Environmental Justice in the Global South, edited by César Rodríguez Garavito, 324–334. Bogotá: Dejusticia Series. Rebeldía inclaudicable. COPINH, Comunicación. YouTube. June 06, 2016. https://www.youtube. com/watch?v=eZvgt6HbJRg. Accessed January, 2018. Sandoval, Chela. 2008.  Methodology of the Oppressed. Minneapolis, MN:  University of Minnesota Press. Schneider-Mayerson, Mathew. 2017. “Affect.” In Fueling Culture:  101 Words for Energy and Environment, edited by Imre Szeman, Jennifer Wenzel and Patricia Yaeger. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press. Spinoza, Baruch. 2017. Ethics: Demonstrated in Geometrical Order and Divided into Five Parts, translated by William Hale White. Los Angeles: Moonrise Press. Vargas, Ofelia Roldán, and Paola Andrea Agudelo Acevedo. 2017. “La indignación: resistencia al mundo individualista.” Ixaya. Revista Universitaria de Desarrollo Social 11: 87–106.

chapter five

Affective Solidarity and a Politics of Care: Reflection and Action Beyond Borders

La solidaridad es la ternura de los pueblos, el COPINH, y los pueblos en resistencia del mundo estamos dispuestos a seguir con los sueños de vida, justicia y dignidad. (Solidarity is the affection of the people, COPINH and the people in resistance throughout the world are ready to continue to dream of life, justice and dignity.) –B ertita Z uñiga C áceres , June 2nd, 2016

As I  have examined in the previous chapter, outrage provides a platform for thinking-feeling processes that cultivate creative and active ways of promoting social change and radically transforming politics. In the form of resistance, this action has produced desired results, such as the endowment of land titles to the Lenca people and campesinos, as well as the withdrawal of Sinohydro from the Río Gualcarque. This major victory represents a significant achievement, owing to the effectiveness of counterpower strategies organized by COPINH and, more notoriously, by Berta Cáceres. In addition, the remarkable resonance of the organization’s struggles within a larger regional context and its previous collaboration with other social movements in Central America places COPINH in an ideal location for establishing alliances and coalitions with communities affected by colonial history and contemporary forms of dispossession, disposability, and erasure. In this way, resistance involves alternative, decolonizing, and emancipatory modes of solidarity based on affective dissonance, intersectional struggles, and the

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production of indigenous knowledge. The coup d’état that deposed Manuel Zelaya in 2009 had brutal consequences for most of the Honduran population, including teachers, campesinos, union members, women, leftists, the LGBTQ+ community, and indigenous and Afro-indigenous groups, among others. Nevertheless, despite the institutionalized terror and fear-inducing practices of the oligarchies that have since followed, at least one-third of the population has been affectively and effectively organizing to design protests and demonstrations in response to a corrupt government funded by the US, which not only instigated the coup but, in doing so, also ensured its continued legacy in Honduras.1 In support of the Frente Nacional de Resistencia Popular, thousands of Hondurans have taken to the streets to show their frustration and outrage toward the injustices, discrimination, and violence carried out by both oligarchs and technocrats. This progressive outpour of discontent has led to the deaths of many vulnerable individuals yet commitment to the resistance and the protection of human and land rights increases daily.2 By analyzing how resistance promotes and engages solidarity, I reaffirm the value of affect in encouraging reflection and action across regions and nations at a local and global scale. Solidarity and care, as I argue in this chapter, provide life chances to those rendered precarious, and instill hope for transformative change. To start, I will contextualize theories of solidarity within feminist frameworks in order to comprehend the different ramifications of the cultural conceptualizations of this affect, and its potential to strengthen and consolidate effective solutions to both local and global problems. By closely examining Dana Frank’s recent book The Long Honduran Night: Resistance, Terror, and the United States in the Aftermath of the Coup, I determine how solidarity remains the foundational identifying characteristic of Hondurans fighting for peace, equality, and social justice, and how transnational solidarity networks are essential for contesting the status quo. I will then focus on COPINH’s work and agenda to promote life, humanity, awareness, and political activism in communities other than the Lenca. In this particular instance, I  will explore COPINH’s narratives of solidarity and its collaborative action with groups such as OFRANEH and the Honduras Solidarity Network, calling for an “intersectionality of struggles” in an effort to increase awareness of social justice projects. Similarly, the women at COPINH have collaborated with other women from different Lenca communities in Honduras on the production of a book that integrates ecological cosmologies with the goal of defying Western scientific knowledge. They propose indigenous formations as alternative, emancipatory, affective, and productive ways to contest neoliberalism. Entitled Sanar es resistir (Healing is Resisting) (2019), the women have created an archive of affects that demand the recognition and implementation of Lenca ancestral wisdom to heal female and earth bodies by way of alternative medicine and a politics of care,

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emerging from the brutal circumstances surrounding extractivism. In this sense, solidarity brings the affect of care to the core of resistance, resignifying a highly criticized concept from a political perspective.3 That is, I view care as a form of resistance since Sanar es resistir depicts a revolutionary stance on care that calls for a resemantization of women’s bodies as autonomous—while connected to other vulnerable bodies—and culturally emancipated. Thus, I will finalize this chapter looking at care as both a means of human and environmental preservation as well as a form of affect integral to practices of solidarity among women who have been marginalized within past colonial and neocolonial systems. In addition, the feminist reflexivity embodied in the thinking-feeling-acting processes of these Lenca women furthers new perspectives on Latin American ecofeminism. Consequently, affective solidarity and a politicized approach to care are radical transformative acts that can ultimately yield an equal distribution of life, humanity, and social justice.

Solidarity without Borders In her analysis of the specificities derived from a situated context surrounding women migrant workers in different parts of the Global North, Chandra Mohanty (2003) reconsiders practices of solidarity as effective affects by acknowledging the socioeconomic and political role these women play in the formation of new global designs, shifting paradigms of motherhood and care that respond to neoliberalist demands. As the need for domestic labor increases due to the insertion of privileged women into high-paying jobs, more disenfranchised women migrate while leaving their families behind. Within this milieu, migrant women workers face multiple challenges as unwanted newcomers in recipient nations—particularly the US. Under these circumstances, Mohanty envisions the construction of feminist solidarity “across national, racial, sexual, and class divides in order to mobilize, organize and conscientize transnationally” (140), stressing the importance of relating to each other through shared experiences of discrimination and oppression to nurture a politics of solidarity. Similarly, Mohanty emphasizes the importance of situated knowledge “grounded in a historical and social location” (145) to foster an understanding of the root causes of disenfranchisement that can, simultaneously, connect women across the globe. These women are thus motivated to articulate their experiences, histories, survival strategies, and so on (145). In this fashion, solidarity is grounded in an intersectional feminist analysis, bolstered both regionally and transnationally, that highlights “relations of mutuality, corresponsibility, and common interests” (242). Mohanty’s view on solidarity informs Carold Gould’s detailed analysis of what she names overlapping solidarities—a democratic notion of

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networking solidarities—in her 2007 study on transnational solidarities, where she delves into new forms of transnationally woven solidarity. After an accurate archival analysis of solidarity theories, including sociologist Emile Durkheim’s depictions of “mechanic” and “organic” types of solidarity and Kurth Bayertz’s accounts on mutual obligations and mutual attachments as prerequisites for effective solidarity, Gould mentions Mohanty’s standpoint on shared and common concerns derived from systems of oppression. For both Mohanty and Gould, scrutinizing the effects and affects of dispossession lays the foundations for enabling solidarity across racial, sexual, gender, ethnic, and national divides. Gould recognizes these common concerns that tie groups to social movements and even individuals to one another, although she is more interested in examining the impact of oppression across differences and activating a sense of solidarity beyond solidaristic dispositions to action. Within this line of thought, I  am particularly invested in Mohanty’s assessment of the relevance of common experiences of subordination, along with the potential of action and activism integral to Gould’s interpretation of solidarity. Some of the main ideas she unpacks are related to the diversity of individuals who are “concerned for each other and do aid each other or recognize obligations to do so when necessary” (154). Her perspective insinuates a horizontal relationship between different groups of individuals connected by their mutual demand for human rights or their deploration of socioeconomic and cultural discrimination. It not only evokes an image of the others’ suffering and an ethical obligation to empathize, but also the desire to act critically against the causes of distress in these precarious communities. In addition to her incisive suggestions for more effective and affective transnational solidarities that can move and touch others, COPINH, Berta, and Lenca women propose a sense of solidarity rooted in affective dissonance and an intersectionality of struggles and stories. By questioning a univocal form of feminism based on identity, Clare Hemmings (2012) devises a convincing relationship between “being” and people’s experiences conditioned by social circumstances. In other words, womanhood and feminism are two critical concepts that may be at odds with each other unless a deep analysis of situation and awareness of alternative knowledge takes place. As she points out in her essay “Affective Solidarity,” the crucial distinction between ontology and epistemology regarding feminist analysis ought to be found in processes of reflexivity that debunk the tendency to universalize the experience of womanhood. In order to achieve a reconsideration of onto-epistemologies, we must start by acknowledging interwoven affects such as rage, outrage, and frustration as the forces behind the transformation of politics of violence and subordination. Affective dissonance—the bridge between ontology and epistemology—provides new approaches to understanding and legitimizing the precarious positions of communities, such as the Lenca, that

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have been structured by inequality, injustice, and marginality. Similarly, affective dissonance, as Hemmings aptly discusses, can trigger affective solidarity in significant and creative ways. She views it as a more productive way of envisioning a politics of social justice, rather than engaging in discourses on empathy and even care. Empathy implies a hierarchical relationship of authority and submission that empowers the one performing the empathy while reducing the victim to a position of precariousness. Summarizing critical views of empathy similarly related to the naturalization of gender and the reinforcing of biological essentialism, Hemmings proposes affective solidarity as a path to achieving genuine change.4 From spaces of discomfort, the desire for transformation can truly set the basis for solidarity. In this context, Lenca women and copines embody a multiplicity of affects, as examined in previous chapters, revealing the need for affective and effective action to intervene in political systems not only in Honduras but also in other nations suffering from patriarchal and capitalist predatory practices. In this sense, solidarity stems from affective dissonance and also from multiple layers of oppression that can bring social movements from a wide range of locations together. Hemmings’ theory of solidarity is in tune with Angela Davis’ analysis of transnational solidarity, which attempts to create a mutual level of understanding based on similar experiences of violence while incorporating the root causes of other social movements to encourage the formation of coalitions. Like Hemmings, Davis (2016) is not particularly interested in identity politics, but in experiences and locations. Consequently, her view on transnational solidarity calls for an “intersectionality of struggles” fundamentally grounded, I  would suggest, in multiple epistemologies derived from the imperative of storytelling and the power of stories. Professor of History Dana Frank (2018) took a serious risk with the publication of her book The Long Honduran Night in which she narrates her journeys and stories in Honduras after the 2009 coup d’état, exploring in detail the tactics and strategies thousands of local people employed during the post-coup times of political repression, extreme violence, threats, and national fear. Her stories fluctuate between her personal relationship with Honduran people suffering from the consequences of the coup, the various accounts of assassinations perpetrated by the government, her knowledge of US funding, and the solidarity formations aimed at disrupting oligarchic authority, domination, abuse, and impunity. Told in the first person, Frank’s stories become an intimate discourse that exhibits and denounces the atrocities and barbarities inflicted at an institutional level. When Zelaya was deposed in 2009, the successive governments led by Roberto Micheletti, Porfirio Lobo Sosa, and current President Juan Orlando Hernández have since increased militarization, dismantling the rule of law. This has also empowered elite families that run the country, projecting a conservative and white supremacist socio-spatial

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imaginary while displacing non-white populations and celebrating neoliberalism. Since July 2009 the nation has been governed by terror and, as Frank dissects in her book, state-sponsored killings have become an everyday occurrence with every dissident voice violently silenced. In addition to the assassination of dozens of teachers, union workers, and campesinos particularly from the Aguán region, judges who opposed the “technical coup” have also been eliminated. Within this atmosphere of violence and annihilation, resistant bodies have emerged in defiance, thus creating bonds of solidarity that transcend regional and national boundaries. Frank recognizes how “the counterweight to all the fear and horror was the new solidarity, as I became part of something larger than myself. Relationships with old friends and colleagues in Honduras took on a new and deeper meaning. In the United States I now worked with dozens of activists—Hondurans, Americans, Canadians, and Salvadorans—all of us trying to stop the coup” (Kindle location, 411–414). This transnational solidarity has helped to mobilize hundreds of US activists whose work consists of reaching out to Congressmen and influential newspapers. For instance, Frank has contributed multiple articles to The Nation, The Guardian, The Huffington Post, and Democracy Now!, spreading the word about the injustices faced in Honduras in an attempt to raise social awareness and bring about the suspension of US funds to the Central American country. As it is widely known, US funds have been invested in training programs for the military and police force complicit in human rights abuses. In the region, campesino movements, teachers’ organizations, and LGBTQ+ communities have united in demonstrations, convening strikes and protests. After Zelaya’s removal from office, cuts to teaching salaries were implemented throughout the country and campesinos from the Aguán Valley suffered from land dispossession and displacements. Suddenly, this once indigenous territory became a profitable market for the production of palm oil. Differences across shared experiences of oppression and vulnerability worked together to toughen their position. In the words of a teacher interviewed by Frank on Radio Progreso—an alternative media outlet:  “We feel like a family. When we’re alone, we feel afraid. When we’re together, we feel powerful. We turn that fear into bravery and strengthen ourselves with it” (Kindle location, 607–609). In this manner, “resistance had brought together people from wildly divergent class and cultural backgrounds into a new community” (Kindle location, 613–614). Frank’s instance of solidarity echoes Mohanty and Gould’s ideas on common experiences of vulnerability that encourage people to create affective and effective forms of local and transnational solidarity. Besides, differences allow for a new sense of intimacy and affect that, by acknowledging specific epistemic marginal realities, also establishes shared bonds for fighting oppression. Not only does Honduras display an extraordinary example of resistance through emancipatory modes of solidarity

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rooted in action and differential consciousness, but it also brings to the fore a form of activism that is the product of affective dissonance—rage, outrage, and indignation—envisioning new epistemes based on an “intersectionality of struggles” and stories. In the following section, I specifically focus on COPINH’s solidarity practices that mirror the struggles of Honduran resistance movements.

COPINH and Its Emancipatory Modes of Solidarity In his book Networks of Outrage and Hope, Manuel Castells (2015) hails the presence of the internet as a useful tool for widening the reach of social justice demands and collaborating with groups at a distance in an effort to organize public space disruptions. By highlighting the vital role of network connectivity, Castells analyzes the presence and progress of social movements like Indignados, Occupy Wall Street, and the Spring Arab uprising to showcase the strength achieved through coalitions and alliances. COPINH has similarly used its website to reach larger audiences, although the peaceful protests against environmental destruction, patriarchy, racism, capitalism, and dispossession began in the 1990s in a localized setting, as mentioned previously. From situated contexts, COPINH’s use of the internet sheds lights on the violence exercised upon various communities in Honduras. One of the subsections of the website (www.copinh.org) is called “solidarity.” The organization’s involvement in other social struggles is evident in the case of the Garifuna people, who are suffering as a result of land deprivation due to transnational interests in transforming the Caribbean coast into tourist resorts. Under “solidarity,” the website includes a range of news stories from different global locations where social movements are demonstrating their critical awareness of and involvement in Berta Cáceres’ case under investigation. A group of activists from Chile including Alicia Lira (president of the Group of Family Members of the Politically Executed, AFEP); Hervi Lara from the Foundation Helmut Frenz; Carlos González representing a Park for Peace, Memory and Justice; Jose Frias belonging to the Oscar Romero Committee (SICSAL CHILE); and Pablo Ruiz (SOA Watch) wrote a letter to the Honduran Ambassador in Chile, Maria Antonia Navarro, in March 2019. In it, they expressed their support for and solidarity with COPINH and relayed their concerns to the government regarding the presence of political prisoners in Honduras and the constant criminalization of social movements. The signatories used the trials against members of Guapinol, prosecuted for defending their right to clean water and the environment, as an example of the violent practices carried out in Honduras by dominant actors. Along with displaying their frustration at the abuse activists and community members are experiencing

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because of their resistance to large-scale extractivist projects, the writers of the letter continue to visualize hope in a precarious landscape of impunity and injustice, for Berta has multiplied and is present in all of those who follow in her footsteps toward social justice. This form of solidarity exemplifies affect as action: the attempt to reach out to political entities in Chile as well as achieve radical transformation and social awareness (Gould). In Chiapas, Mexico, Otros Mundos (Other Worlds)—a non-profit organization in defense of territory against extractivism— wrote a statement in March 2019 demanding justice in the trial of Berta’s killers. Although the actual hitmen have been found guilty, the intellectual masterminds behind the attack—DESA executives—received full impunity.5 In its composition, Otros Mundos demonstrates a commitment to women’s, indigenous, and land rights. In this sense, its very foundation can be related to that of COPINH and, from a position of intersectional vulnerability, these two activist groups not only share common interests (Mohanty) but also experience similar levels of brutality and violence (Davis), reinforcing, therefore, the need to perform practices of solidarity rooted in an “intersectionality of struggles.” By telling the stories of affected communities in Honduras, and the inconsistencies and partiality of the Honduran judicial system, the signees of the letter addressed to the Honduran Ambassador in Chile and Otros Mundos are demonstrating productive and affective practices of solidarity toward positive change. In Madrid, Spain on March 5th, 2019, a social and artistic event was organized to mark the release of a documentary titled Berta Cáceres. Tercer aniversario de su siembra (Berta Cáceres: The third anniversary of her sowing), which aimed to raise awareness of the destruction engendered by patriarchy, racism, and environmental decline in Honduras. As reported in the news, this event was an act of recognition, through evocative music and imagery, to remind us of the struggles for peace, justice, and freedom of the Lenca people. Through this medium, A Platform for Honduras in Madrid envisions another possible world. In the same month, the Native American women from the Kumeyaay nation, located in the extreme southwestern part of the US and in Baja California, Mexico, dedicated a march to Justice for Berta. The “solidarity” section also mentions some affective practices enacted by COPINH on behalf of other struggles that similarly need diffusion, coalition, and alliances to promote sociocultural and economic transformation. For instance, COPINH has been involved in Guapinol-led demonstrations next to government buildings to demand environmental protection and a halt to criminalization. The website displays several images showing copines and members of Guapinol holding up signs covered in statements such as “si amas la vida, lucha contra la mina, COPINH” (if you love life, fight against the mine, COPINH) or “no a los proyectos mineros. Sí a la vida y el respeto a los derechos humanos” (No to mining projects.

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Yes to life and a respect for human rights). These banners represent emancipatory modes of solidarity that empower communities deemed precarious and unite different struggles and stories linked together by systemic violence and dispossession. At this particular gathering, resistance occurred at the Courthouse in La Ceiba thus disrupting and resignifying an institution imagined to administer justice to its citizens. However, the Honduran judicial system, as mentioned previously, fails to acknowledge the experiences of marginalized indigenous communities by upholding governmental impunity. The photographs of this specific protest are accompanied by text indicating COPINH’s solidarity with “nuestrxs compañerxs de la Madre Tierra de Guapinol, criminalizados por luchar!” (our fellow comrades on Mother Earth from Guapinol, criminalized for taking a stand). Due to the rigid gendered nature of the Spanish language, the “x” is being used to dismantle grammatical and semantical binaries that traditionally mark “a” for feminine and “o” for masculine. This avoidance of gender markers reinforces, once more, COPINH’s intersectional struggles framed in difference, diversity, and inclusivity. In response to the unstable political and social situation in Venezuela, copines recorded a video showing support and solidarity to Venezuelans who continue to endure foreign invasion and local government corruption, with the idea to reignite memories of Hugo Chávez and his commitment to an anti-patriarchal and communal socialist nation. Along with solidarity practices that denounce political impunity, oppression, and socioeconomic distress, COPINH continues to assert the ecosystem’s vital role in preserving life on Earth. In this section, a URL link directs visitors to the Bees Civil Society organization, formed in Chiapas and committed to protecting water sources and wildlife from extractivist projects. This group encompasses indigenous communities in Acteal—Chiapas—who aim to achieve sovereignty and autonomy through peaceful resistance. Most of the natives speak the Mayan language Tzotzil and have globalized their struggles to raise consciousness of the violence they experience through the foreign occupation of the land. These communities mirror COPINH’s commitments based on “well-living”—Lekil Kuxlejal in Tzotzil—and the protection of the Earth. By telling their stories about land and human rights abuses, all these social movements practice affective solidarity by relating to each other’s situations; they constantly exchange experiences and provide an international platform for their fight to make their presence visible. Other examples of transnational solidarity are specified in Berta’s statements during her visits to invaded regions where shared victimization calls for action. In Las Revoluciones de Berta, the viewer is struck by powerful moments when she intervenes on behalf of COPINH in cases of discrimination and institutional abuse, in line with her commitment to disrupt governmental impunity and violence, and her emphasis on transnational collaboration. In one of the scenes,

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Berta appeals to “los procesos latinoamericanos y caribeños y a todo el mundo, a la construcción de un movimiento social amplio, dinámico, con claridad que desarrolle capacidad de echar el proyecto golpista internacional y de las transnacionales” (we invite Latin American and Caribbean processes, and the rest of the world, to build a large and dynamic social movement that will develop skills to eradicate the international coup-enabling project and transnational corporations). In this sense, in life and death Berta embodied Angela Davis’ definition of solidarity, “to be willing to stand up and say no with our combined spirits, our collective intellects, and our many bodies” (145). In Davis’ aforementioned book, she opens with an interview conducted by Frank Barat in 2014 in which she immediately addresses the “dangers of individualism,” which has emerged from the rise of global capitalism and neoliberalism. Consequently, Davis advocates well-organized mass movements at a grassroots level because subjugated communities are the ones affected by an exclusionary and racist judicial system, and policies aimed at criminalizing vulnerability—to illustrate this point, she primarily refers to the black feminist movement. Berta Cáceres’ commitment to social justice similarly mirrors the significance of an intersectional analysis grounded in identities, but mostly struggles. In her peaceful

Fig. 5.1  In 2006, community members from Río Blanco understood that an aggression against the Gualcarque River –place of spiritual importance to the Lenca people– was an act against the community, its free will, and its autonomy. (Photo: Goldman Environmental Prize)

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fight for decolonization, Berta urges the need to find solutions by creating alliances with multiple organizations in Honduras and elsewhere that are systematically undermined and erased. Therefore, solidarity turns into activism: affecting and moving diverse bodies and a multiplicity of livelihoods and territories that, despite their differences, all endure subjugation, oppression, and systemic violence. Although some of these social movements, including COPINH, are not new to the scene, they affectively and effectively utilize the internet to forge networks of solidarity and mobilization as a way to disrupt the discriminatory status quo and transform precariousness into forms of positive change. In the words of Castells in his analysis of contemporary social movements, marginal groups are brought together on internet sites that convert “fear into outrage and outrage into hope for a better humanity. A humanity that had to be reconstructed from scratch” (3). Through a type of collaborative work similarly engaged in emancipatory modes of solidarity and resistance strategies—as demonstrated by Chela Sandoval—organizations such as COPINH are not only able to socialize communication and spread word of their fight, but also promote a cultural and social awareness built upon an intersectionality of struggles. Moreover, difference is set to affectively and effectively propel these silenced, erased, and displaced bodies onto the international stage in a world dominated by Western scientific and cultural paradigms.

Imagining Alternative Ecologies through Care Western scientific knowledge has triumphantly pushed away non-Western spiritualities and beliefs considered superstitious, dangerous, exotic, mysterious and, therefore, invalid. Framed as irrational, humankind’s sacred connection to rivers or the story told by Berta regarding the spirits of the girls who protect the Río Gualcarque and the Lenca community have been constantly dismissed in debates against the construction of the hydroelectric dam. Unable to grasp the significance of Lenca knowledge, the Honduran government continues approving aggressive practices that harm the environment and its sacredness embodied by Berta and copines. Despite Christian indoctrination, due to hundreds of years of mental occupation and slavery, the identity of the Lenca people still retains indigenous idiosyncrasies that view nature and the environment as an equal, instead of a mere resource subjected to man’s sense of superiority. As I have mentioned previously, the Enlightenment period saw mankind embark on an individualistic quest to tame and dominate nature, which eventually led to the destruction of the environment in the name of profit and progress. Understood differently, the Lenca

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people—among many other indigenous communities—praise nature and its elements, providing a healthy lifestyle while preserving earth-beings. In addition, their unique attention to nature resonates with a sacred attitude toward the environment that rejects man’s desired position as the main focus of the universe. The Antropocene age in which we live is therefore contested in attempts to equalize the power of nature and the forces that sustain us: rivers, forests, oceans, air, flora and fauna, wildlife, etc. After several years living with the Lenca people and studying their culture for her master’s assignment, Ermesinde De Strijcker (2017) analyzes how Lenca cultural and socioeconomic practices flow between human and non-human actors through narratives and actions that relate to their territories and communities. For the Lenca community, nature is “inherently spiritual and animated” (20), contradicting the government’s view of nature as a “commodity to be exploited in light of global development aspirations” (22). These contested positions have produced a third one, which seems to be viable for the author as long as the communities’ voices and opinions are heard and respected: “nature as a destination for rural tourism” (20).6 While these three standpoints cohabit ambivalently and amidst violence, they similarly expose stories of marginality, displacement, and territorial invasion that have shaped the past and present of indigenous and Afroindigenous communities. In her explanation of these three options for land use, De Strijcker carefully examines the Lenca way of life: their traditions and survival strategies for coping with criminalization, extortion, discrimination, violence, and death. During a nature walk with a group of Lenca people and some copines, De Strijcker emphasizes how “nature is the primary source of life that nourishes, supports and teaches. For indigenous peoples, land and in general nature have a sacred quality which is almost absent from western thinking” (45). It is not a commodity for the community, but an existential core and, as such, the river produces life. The Gualcarque’s flowing waters is necessary for the preservation of life; therefore, the dam would not only contaminate its biodiversity but also promote death. In many of her statements, Berta refers to the river as the artery of the community precisely because of the spiritual forces that live in it. Spirituality is a significant concept that ties communities and their members together while simultaneously incorporating a narrative of love, seen as fundamental in creative, collective, and transformative activism. In Social Change and Intersectional Activism: The Spirit of Social Movement, Sharon Doetsch-Kidder (2016) bases her thesis on the idea that spirituality is necessary to cultivate true positive change. After interviewing twenty-five activists, Doetsch-Kidder concludes that the spirit is omnipresent in the daily lives of people who are committed to peace and social justice, and it also forms part of antiracist, queer, and ecological strands of feminism that attempt to defy Western paradigms of thought. Furthermore, affect is imbued with spirituality, creating a

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new approach to social transformation and intersectional ways of thinking, feeling, and acting, since it does not discriminate against alternative ontologies and epistemologies of identity and location. In this respect, the Lenca people propose a mindset that is indeed more sustainable, caring, and, paradoxically, more reasonable than the predatory practices the West has historically engaged in. According to De Strijcker, Lenca cosmology is composed of a type of spirituality that functions like a glue connecting the cosmos, the Earth, and the body. Thus, the integration of earth-beings into the realm of humanity challenges the traditional constructed separation between culture and nature, as well as between nature and society. The two opposing views—the neoliberal and the Lenca—present completely divergent meanings associated to the river while reinforcing two contending ontologies with respect to human-environmental relations. This point is similarly made by María José Méndez (2018) in her previously mentioned article “ ‘The River Told Me’: Rethinking Intersectionality from the World of Berta Cáceres,” in which she posits that by opening our hearts and minds to non-Western cosmologies, “we can begin the process of decolonizing concepts and narratives that systematically erase the sentient rivers for which the Bertas of this world surrender their life. So long as we do not unsettle our inherited colonial frameworks of assessing truth, we will continue to erase ways of being and knowing—I would add, of feeling—that might hold a promise for a more just future” (22). Understanding diverse ontological and epistemological concepts of being, nature, and society encourages us to be more inclusive and take steps toward fundamental change. I therefore propose how a new reconfiguration of care entrenched in Lenca cosmology recuperates the territories and bodies of women, the Lenca community, and their land from an empowered and resistance-led sociocultural position.

Care as a Form of Resistance: Empowering Lenca Women Practicing affective solidarity, a group of Lenca women trying to recuperate the natural and ancestral health of their community have written a book entitled Sanar es resistir in which they primarily explore situational knowledge as a promising alternative to Western medicine. As mentioned in the introduction, they aim to share their experiences with social groups resisting capitalism and patriarchal forces all over the world. A sense of solidarity is immediately evoked through a common shared ground of systemic violence. In order to empower themselves and affectively assert their voices, these women introduce forms of knowledge based on their history, nature, and the environment. On the contrary, Western culture

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has imposed a mercantilist form of medicine and use of chemical products detrimental to ancestral Lenca cosmologies and their own bodies. Moreover, Western medicine discriminates against indigenous communities who are often mistreated in hospitals and consequently denied equal treatment. On top of this, communities are often isolated from healthcare centers due to the lack of a proper infrastructure. As a result of this limited access to healthcare, these communities have to develop a strong consciousness of the value of ancestral practices that promote healthy, independent, and emancipatory bodies, compiling information on the medicinal properties of plants and natural recipes for a variety of health problems. The more educated the communities are, the more empowered they will become. In this fashion, their physical and mental strength can cope with the imposition of transnational toxicities that want to eliminate their land and erase their bodies. Hence, an emphasis on indigenous knowledge as a survival strategy and decolonializing practice recognizes the adversity underwent by multiple communities during colonialism and highlights the possibility of exchanging education with other communities so they can all engage in self and collective care. The imposition of Western medicine via the pharmaceutical market similarly jeopardizes the community structure by creating dependent and resourceless individuals. Cognizant of this reality, women urge their communities to partake in resourceful educational processes to dismantle this dependency and, therefore, subjugation: “estamos llamadas y llamados y tenemos la responsabilidad ancestral de defender nuestro territorio, nuestra cultura, nuestros conocimientos y al mismo tiempo nuestra identidad como pueblo Lenca, con nuestra cosmovisión que es de armonía entre nosotros y nosotras y la Madre Tierra, que nos ha dado todo lo que necesitamos para vivir, incluso para curarnos” (12) (We have the ancestral responsibility to defend our territory, our culture, our knowledge, and at the same time our identity as Lenca, with our cosmology predicated on harmony between ourselves and Mother Earth who has given us everything we need to live, and take care of ourselves). The collective efforts of these indigenous women attempt to educate vulnerable groups on these particular knowledges and invite them to resist colonization and neoliberalism by learning about ancestral healthcare linked to nature and the Earth. Healing their bodies and territories involves incorporating the four natural elements that constitute their existence; in other words, a fluent communion with earth-beings continues to loosen the human’s powerful grip on nature. In this process, the Earth represents life, corn represents their bodies, air represents their forests, and fire represents the sun. Without the Earth, life succumbs. Food is necessary for sustenance needed to defend their land. The forests give them oxygen while the sun provides energy. Healing is not only resistance but, as I  suggest, care is also a form of resistance; a politicized and decolonized notion of care that diverges from

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its traditional conceptualization. In her book Beyond Mothering Earth: Ecological Citizenship and the Politics of Care, Sherilyn MacGregor (2006) questions the concept of care and simultaneously advocates the use of feminist ecological citizenship to dismantle the ties between womanhood and care that perpetuate self-denial and the historical construct that associates the female body with nature. MacGregor finds in the idea of citizenship a positive space for reconstructing the meaning of womanhood in order to imbue the signifier with a ripple of creativity and promise beyond the ethics of care. Other ecofeminist activists have similarly discredited the devaluing concept of care, although thinkers such as Maria Mies and Vandana Shiva have highlighted this affect as women’s own privileged position to save the Earth. In the Latin American ecofeminist context, Mary Judith Ress has criticized care in her review of the implications of liberation theology’s emphasis of care as a feminine trait because of its oppressiveness. Therefore, a much-debated topic has inundated diverse feminist and ecofeminist agendas at a global level. However, as much as I agree with MacGregor that feminist ecological citizenship thought challenges the idea that citizenship is a white male-dominated articulation, the notion of care I am proposing in relation to the Lenca women can be politically powerful from an emancipatory standpoint. Care focuses more on the self and on the relationship between women and men, employed to empower the collective against a state of terror that dominates Honduran society and, particularly, indigenous and Afro-indigenous communities whose lands are attractive commodities for an industrialized agricultural model designed by institutional corruption and violence. In Sanar es resistir, some of the coping mechanisms against state-sponsored terror that the women introduce include sharing knowledge, collecting plants, learning new recipes, harnessing fear, deepening anti-patriarchal standpoints, denouncing harassment and abuse, improving self-esteem, cheering themselves up, healing and self-care, and integrating women into spaces devoted to healthcare since one major challenge identified is the sustainability of natural medicine and indigenous access to community health centers. On a daily basis, these women live under siege due to the menacing presence of the military, police force, state corruption, and hired assassins, all of which brutally affect their bodies. For this reason, they lay emphasis on spirituality and the power of dreams, which may foresee violence (18). In order to survive, their bodies play a significant role; for instance, faced with community disagreements and conflicting opinions, they ask themselves what part of the body they feel. Care, as a political form of resistance, implies affects and feelings entangled in a web of intersectional realities so, in order to challenge fear, they touch the part of the body felt when dealing with the following states: hunger (stomach), exploitation (head, chest, stomach), drought (mouth, neck, chest, nose), air pollution (upper back, eyes, mouth, chest, stomach, nose), deforestation

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(head, nose, chest, eyes), discrimination (upper back, eyes, mouth, chest, stomach, nose), racism (legs, head, shoulders), violence (arms, chest, head, face), participation (head, hands, neck, chest), tiredness (neck, back, head, legs), frustration (head, neck), strength (hands, arms, legs), machismo (their whole body, abdomen, womb, breast), rape (head, breast, womb). Environmental destruction affects their bodies and territories, and due to neoliberal practices, these women along with all community members must care for both their bodies and their land. The correlation between the body and nature is contextualized within a paradigm of real danger and life-threatening activities, which contests ecofeminist criticisms of the association between nature and womanhood. Dismantling essentialist notions of nature and femininity, these women resort to nature for the preservation of self, the community, and the Earth. They communicate, both affectively and effectively, the need to use nature to heal and care for themselves but also for the sake of the environment. Their perspective of sustainability emerges, as well, from the need to emancipate and empower their bodies. If MacGregor questions why “it is that many ecofeminists assert a special role for women as environmental caretakers without considering their lives as political subjects or what it might mean for women in inegalitarian societies to bear such an enormous responsibility” (3), I suggest that, because of a strong consideration of their lives as political subjects, these Lenca women do have to care for the environment. Furthermore, their intersectional approach similarly legitimates and encourages men, women, and children to do the same. Nevertheless, in order to free themselves from male hegemony and abuse and achieve autonomy, these women need to have a specific yet broad knowledge of the healing powers of nature. On the other hand, MacGregor’s proposal that “feminist ecological citizenship is a more promising, and more radical, language for articulating the goals of ecofeminist politics than the language of care” (3) does not reject a resemantized idea of care as a form of resistance. By liberating, empowering, and caring for themselves, these women are similarly rewriting citizenship from intersectional and multiple viewpoints, eventually resulting in a hopeful, promising, and prospective future. MacGregor scrutinizes conventional ecofeminist narratives based on privileging women’s caring epistemologies since they attribute too much responsibility to their beings, and suggest the idea that “women may have greater access to the ‘truth’ ” (62), which is “questionable on empirical grounds but also too risky of a position to put forth within the context of a masculinist and misogynist culture that both creates and exploits women’s capacity to care” (62). Citing Lorraine Code on the dangers of a politics of care, MacGregor calls for a deep analysis and “questioning of the morality of gender inequality that, in large part, is responsible for women’s greater tendency to perform caring activities and to feel responsible for the welfare of others” (62).

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Along with parting ways with an “empiricism” rooted in Western thought, the Lenca people care for themselves; the community distributes responsibility among the collective while underlining women’s autonomy, emancipation, resourcefulness, and self-care. Sanar es resistir includes detailed tips for maintaining a healthy pregnancy and a long list of produce that naturally enhances women’s health. By advocating an agroecological paradigm based on small-scale farming and biodiversity, these women challenge the industrialized and modernized agricultural system imposed by capitalism and neoliberalism. Their practices stem from traditional Lenca legacy and alternative cosmologies that need to be recuperated for different reasons, which are highlighted at the end of the book: to keep nature in their bodies—earth, water, air, and fire; to stress the importance of dreams; to achieve autonomy and empower themselves through societal challenges, such as their liberation from patriarchal subjugation. Other suggestions rely on their efforts to work collaboratively, to educate themselves, to grow their own food, to work with other communities, and to emancipate their bodies. In conclusion, to achieve their goals, women need to take care of themselves. In this sense, self-care reconceptualizes an ethics and politics of care that truly transforms these vulnerable bodies and communities into intervening political subjects. As I have shown throughout this chapter, solidarity and care form the basis of effective and affective resistance to challenge the last decade of oligarchic rule, systemic violence, extractivism, brutal expropriation of land and rights, patriarchal ideology, social militarization, and neoliberalism. After Manuel Zelaya’s deposition in 2009, the coup d’état provoked mass inequality, injustices, and discrimination, resulting in the loss of hundreds of innocent lives whose efforts to protect the environment from the invasion of foreign corporations made them vulnerable. However, the more violence inflicted on the bodies of the dispossessed, the greater the momentum toward social justice. Because an extensive portion of the Honduran population experienced similar levels of oppression, a sense of solidarity—grounded in historical and social location—emerged to organize, mobilize and raise consciousness. Angela Davis’ emphasis on an “intersectionality of struggles” reveals the stories and experiences of the disenfranchised connected across racial, ethnic, national, sexual, and gender categories whose mutual oppression, discontent, and outrage can activate emancipatory and decolonizing modes of solidarity based on affective dissonance and the production of indigenous knowledge. Action, ultimately, is understood as the urgency to act responsibly as citizens who have historically been subordinated and marginalized. An obligation—more so than a disposition—to transform injustices and “move” others positively can bring differences together. Carol Gould’s focus on action and difference as affective and effective solidarity resonates with, as I have analyzed, the Frente Nacional

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de Resistencia Popular’s organizing efforts, COPINH’s solidarity agenda, the Honduras Solidarity Network’s collaboration, and other contributions from transnational alliances determined to call for global awakening and awareness. Along with these practices of solidarity theorized through thinking-feeling processes of reflexivity and thought (Davis and Gould), Hemmings’ discussions on affective solidarity shed further light on the meaningful strategies and tactics carried out by resistance movements in Honduras. For Hemmings, an epistemology of feminisms showcases historically rooted situational experiences. Epistemology is therefore projected in Dana Frank’s detailed stories of the atrocities committed since 2009, her response to which reveals the prevalent presence of solidarity not only regionally and nationally, but also transnationally. Resistance emerging from outrage, desolation, precariousness, violence, and death is reinvigorated each day, outnumbering corrupt politicians, wealthy families, CEOs of large corporations, and transnational influences. The solidarity groups examined here constitute an intersectionality of struggles and stories that similarly reconceptualizes an ethics and politics of care. Despite its intricacies and controversies, I explore the potential of care as an affective form of resistance in Sanar es resistir. The Lenca women who participated in the production of the book envision self-care as vital for transformative social change. By educating their communities on the health benefits and medicinal properties of nature, they not only recuperate ancestral Lenca knowledge based on agroecology and biodiversity—at odds with the industrialized paradigm imposed by Western scientific knowledge—but also empower themselves, their bodies, and their territories. In this way, care disrupts traditional narratives of sacrifice, the association between nature and womanhood, and biological essentialisms. Although MacGregor proposes the implementation of feminist ecological citizenship rather than care, I  still think it is necessary to rework this affect to its highest potential when considering what these women want. Some ecofeminist activists have validated and romanticized the idea of care embedded in women’s natural connection to the environment, which clearly disempowers women’s bodies and portrays them as the sole care-givers responsible for the future of the Earth, while reinforcing cultural binaries. Even within the Latin American context, Mary Judith Ress acknowledges the problems with interpreting care as sacrifice celebrated by liberation theology. Nevertheless, studying this group of Lenca women and their emphasis on healing and caring as resistance, I propose a political intervention that renders the female body autonomous and emancipated. Above all, indigenous ancestral cosmologies and knowledges illustrate the communities’ legacy of transcending gender binaries. Crucially, if they do not take care of their bodies and their land, modern, neoliberal, and industrialized practices located in their backyards will erase them. Therefore, in response to systemic violence and the brutality of extractivism, these women resist patriarchal subjugation at the same

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time as delivering self-reliance and autonomy to their communities. Affective solidarity and care are coping mechanisms for fighting injustices and discrimination, which, in turn, elevates the issue to the global arena.

Notes 1. Since the military coup in 2009, the US has donated two hundred million dollars in aid to the Honduran police force and military. The goal was to help Honduras officials combat organized crime and, therefore, reduce the number of immigrants escaping violence. Instead, the funds have been invested into the militarization of indigenous territories as a terrorizing tactic to eliminate dissident bodies ( Jonathan Blitzer, 2016) https://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/shouldthe-u-s-still-be-sending-military-aid-to-honduras. Accessed September 25, 2019. 2. Dana Frank’s The Long Honduran Night (2018) is an indispensable read to comprehend the origins of the resistance constituted by communities hurt and damaged during both colonial and neocolonial times. In addition, these resistance movements have been characterized by their intersectionality and transnational advocacy in their efforts to reflect inclusivity and fight systemic oppression. 3. Feminist scholars’ interpretations of the concept of care either discourage the female provision of care due to its essentialism and attachment to the traditional formation of female subjectivity or allude to the possibilities that care offers in situated contexts. In her book The Ethics of Care: Personal, Political and Global, Virginia Held (2006) champions care as a relational affect that entails responsibility for others against liberal individualism. She advocates an ethics of care in order to destabilize Kantian utilitarianism and reconsider the limits of moral domain. Although her emphasis on an unquestioned morality is controversial, an ethics of care remains vital in contexts of violence and dispossession. However, care must be depicted as a socially constructed affect built on the necessities and demands of particular communities. Activists and scholars such as Vandana Shiva and Masatsugu Maruyama highlight the significance of connectivity intrinsic to the concept of care. Despite the fact that these accounts bring the issue to the fore, Sanar es resistir (2019) defines indigenous female subjectivity in terms of self-care as a mandatory disposition that nurtures relationships with humans and earth-beings. Within the context of the Lenca communities, women need to educate and care for themselves in order to escape male and domestic violence. Furthermore, they must acquire ancestral knowledge of the flora and fauna in order to sustain their livelihoods and protect the environment in equal measure. This process is simultaneously framed as caring for their communities and territories. 4. I have chosen to theorize solidarity and focus on affective and transnational solidarity since my view on empathy resonates with reconsiderations articulated by scholars such as Carolyn Pedwell. In her book Affective Relations: The Transnational Politics of Empathy (2014), she problematizes empathy as an affect used in neoliberal politics and in the formation of the neoliberal citizen without a deep understanding of and engagement with situations and experiences of non-Western cultures. In this way, empathy reproduces cultural hierarchies and establishes the superiority of the Western subject within an uneven binary that presents the other as helpless. 5. Despite having been found guilty, the defendants have not yet been imprisoned and DESA CEO David Castillo has not been prosecuted. On August 9th, the Honduran Court of Appeals rejected the expert’s report in support of defendant David Castillo due to massive irregularities

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in the process, resulting in the trial being frozen. However, in November 2019 it was announced that the court would impose the sentences on the defendants on December 2nd, 2019. 6. In her master’s thesis, De Strijcker (2017) argues that a potential solution to displacement, militarization, violence, and capital greed is rural tourism based on sustainable development and the power of the communities to generate their own solutions. She views this option as the most viable practice located at the crossroads of big business interest, on the one hand, and Lenca spiritual cosmology, on the other hand. Within this mindset, De Strijcker’s personal aspiration is that her study “contributes in disrupting conceptual comfort zones and, therefore, can contribute to a critical assessment of similar future (sustainable) development projects” (73).

References Castells, Manuel.  2015. Networks of Outrage and Hope:  Social Movements in the Internet Age. Cambridge: Polity Press. Code, Lorraine. 2015. “Care, Concern, and Advocacy:  Is There a Place for Epistemic Responsibility?” Feminist Philosophy Quarterly 1.1. COPINH. Sanar es resistir. Issue. May 11, 2019. https://issuu.com/copinh/docs/sanar_es_ resistir. Accessed August 1, 2019. COPINH. “Solidaridad Archives.” COPINH. September 08, 2019. https://copinh.org/category/solidaridad/. Accessed May 11, 2019. Davis, Angela Y. 2016. Freedom Is a Constant Struggle: Ferguson, Palestine, and the Foundations of a Movement. Chicago, IL: Haymarket Books. De Strijcker, Ermesinde. 2017. “The River Told Her So.” Narrating Human-Environmental Relations in Indigenous Lenca Territory. Master’s thesis. Utrecht University. Doetsch-Kidder, Sharon. 2016. Social Change and Intersectional Activism:  The Spirit of Social Movement. New York, NY: Palgrave Macmillan. Durkheim, Emile. 2010. “From Mechanical to Organic Solidarity.”  Sociology:  Introductory Readings 2.1: 25–28. Frank, Dana. 2018.  The Long Honduran Night:  Resistance, Terror, and the United States in the Aftermath of the Coup. Chicago, IL: Haymarket Books. Gould, Carol C. 2007. “Transnational Solidarities.” Journal of Social Philosophy 38.1: 148–164. Held, Virginia. 2007. The Ethics of Care: Personal, Political, and Global. New York, NY: Oxford University Press. Hemmings, Clare. 2012. “Affective Solidarity:  Feminist Reflexivity and Political Transformation.” Feminist Theory 13.2: 147–161. Korol, Claudia. “Las Revoluciones De Berta.” YouTube, 12 Apr. 2016. http://www.youtube.com/ watch?v=K0zK2NvwB2A&t=14s. Accessed May 15, 2019. MacGregor, Sherilyn. 2006.  Beyond Mothering Earth:  Ecological Citizenship and the Politics of Care. Vancouver: UBC Press.

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Maruyama, Masatsugu. 2003. “Deconstructing Ecofeminism: A Japanese Critical Interpretation.” In Ecofeminism and Globalization:  Exploring Culture, Context and Religion, edited by Heather Eaton and Lois Ann Lorentzen, 192–216. Lanham, MD: Roman & Littlefield. Méndez, María J. 2018. “ ‘ The River Told Me’: Rethinking Intersectionality from the World of Berta Cáceres.” Capitalism Nature Socialism 29.1: 7–24. Mohanty, Chandra T. 2003. Feminism without Borders: Decolonizing Theory, Practicing Solidarity. Durham, NC: Duke University Press. Otros Mundos Chiapas. A 3 Años De Su Siembra: La Justicia Para Berta Cáceres Es La Justicia Para Las Mujeres, Movimientos Y Pueblos—Otros Mundos Chiapas. https://otrosmundoschiapas.org/a-3-anos-de-su-siembra-la-justicia-para-berta-es-la-justicia-para-las-mujeres-movimientos-y-pueblos/. Accessed May 15, 2019. Pedwell, Carolyn. 2014.  Affective Relations:  The Transnational Politics of Empathy. New  York, NY: Palgrave Macmillan. Skidmore, Thomas E., and Peter H. Smith. 1997.  Modern Latin America. Oxford:  Oxford University Press.

chapter six

On Mourning and Hope: A Transformational Path Toward Social Justice

COPINH both celebrates and mourns at the same time: we cry for the loss of Berta while we celebrate the birth of the organisation she began and left as a legacy to inspire us in this harsh context where persecution and death await those who defend nature and life. –P atricia A rdón

and

D aisy F lores , Sur—International Journal on Human Rights, no. 25, July 2017 1

“Nos vimos en el aeropuerto, porque yo ya me iba. Cuando nos despedimos, nos abrazamos y algo como que me quedó muy marcado fue cuando ella me abrazó fuerte y me dijo ‘mire mamita, si usted escucha que nos hacen algo, no tengas miedo. Usted ya sabe que, en este país de mierda, a cualquiera le pueden hacer cualquier cosa. Pero usted no tenga miedo’ ” (We saw each other at the airport because I  was leaving. When we said goodbye, we hugged and something that stayed with me was when she gave me a big hug and said, ‘listen honey, if you hear they have done something to me, don’t be afraid. You know that in this shitty country they can do anything to anyone. But don’t be afraid’). This was Laura Zuñiga Cáceres’ last interaction with her mother Berta on the day she was killed. For years, the unfolding of numerous tragic events and a looming brutal ending characterized Berta and those in opposition to Honduras’ discriminatory political system, totalitarian authority, and corruption. Hundreds of people have

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fallen victim to an oppressive regime that excludes most of the population from meaningful opportunities in life. In Honduras, the persistent presence of death defines the existence of thousands of natives whose land and bodies are considered disposable and, therefore, unthinkable within the parameters of colonialism and neoliberalism. Meticulously, Dana Frank lists and contextualizes the assassinations of peasants, activists, land protectors, lawyers, journalists, and LGBTQ+ individuals that have occurred since Zelaya’s removal from power in 2009. In the last decade, levels of violence, insecurity, and precariousness have increased dramatically, forcing thousands of Hondurans to risk their lives as they embark on the notoriously dangerous journey to the US, or through displacement following eviction from their land.2 Threatened by governmental impunity and militarization, social organizations such as COPINH and OFRANEH, and communities such as Aguán and Río Blanco, continue suffering from the effects of criminalization and the elimination of Earth defenders. Just two weeks after Berta Cáceres was killed, another copín Nelson García lost his life in similar conditions. And recently, other activists have been assassinated. In a context of ubiquitous militarization, their bodies are constantly exposed to patriarchal and capitalist abuse intensified through extractivist practices and institutional violence. Thus, necropolitics dictates and regulates the movements of these communities rendered invisible, unspeakable and, as I just mentioned, unthinkable: bare lives situated outside of the contours of what is “human.”3 Living life alongside the persistent reminder of death, Berta had warned her daughter about the endless precariousness of their reality, reinforced by the Global North, transnational interests, and the greed of local politicians. The day Berta and Laura intimately hugged at the airport turned into a nightmare; that of losing a mother and, consequently, a part of oneself, one’s community, and a global platform forged through love, solidarity, and care. However, the merciless assassination of Berta awakened thousands of people across the world who, from then on, were determined to effusively participate in acts of justice and democracy to call for change and the radical transformation of an economic system based on dispossession, exclusion, exploitation, commodification of life, and violence. The continuation of Berta’s legacy, outrage, resistance, solidarity, and care will outlive the fear imposed on communities affected by state-sponsored terror tactics. Aware of their vulnerability, indigenous women have shown resilience in an urgent attempt to educate communities, locally and globally, in how to care for their bodies and their territories. The fight goes on and Berta has multiplied; the moment she died, in the arms of Gustavo Castro after those fatal shots, she was reborn. The words “Berta no murió; Berta se multiplicó” (Berta did not die; she multiplied) have travelled across the world, incorporating not only the life of this magnificent warrior but also the lives of the thousands of activists and minorities killed by

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corrupt governments sold to transnational and dominant actors whose politics of death continues to feed their capitalist greed at the expense of the dispossessed. Restoring Berta is, as I will examine in this chapter, imperative for transforming consciousness and invoking an ethics of justice to bring about positive change. But how do we restore Bertita and the murdered copines, peasants, journalists, indigenous and Afro-indigenous people, activists, LGBTQ+ individuals and, by extension, thousands of humans whose lives have been rendered precarious? I  would dare to say that we heal through affect—through affective relations entrenched in acts of resistance, solidarity, care and, furthermore, mourning and hope. As I have explored so far, recognition of the Lenca people, their intersectional struggles and ecological cosmologies, is fundamental to affect others, to move and touch institutions and governments that right now are turning a blind eye to the fear and violence suffered daily by minorities. In addition, recognition and acknowledgment are the result of the dynamism of indefatigable bodies that plan, organize, think, feel, and demand equality and social and environmental justice against racism, patriarchy, and heterosexism. In this sense, I finish this affective journey with an extensive consideration of mourning and hope as restorative and restitutive affects that have the capacity to disrupt governmental policies of exclusion and hate and facilitate healing processes in the present, while raising awareness throughout the world. In a state of remembrance, mourning keeps one anchored in the present; in the many acts of protest, resilience, resistance, and disruption that characterize the struggles that unite thousands of diverse communities whose intersections empower their actions and help to envision democracy and peace. Similarly, hope resonates in present forms of activism that aim to dismantle oppression and injustices. Accordingly, I propose that mourning and hope function as social affects that activate resistance and “melancholic activism” necessary to the continued demand for equality. More precisely, I argue how the restorative power of mourning not only celebrates the multiplication of Berta but also works as a defense mechanism for healing human and non-human communities in pain. Thus, mourning beyond the category of humanity is integral to my conceptualization of grief since the Río Gualcarque and the different ecosystems damaged by capitalist greed are vital to harmonious living and the preservation of the Earth. The first section of this chapter focuses on theories of mourning and how it manifests itself within the Lenca community and Berta Cáceres’ family. I will then explore the significance of the Río Gualcarque as a body of water and earth-being worthy of mourning that deserves recognition for Lenca idiosyncrasies and, by extension, for the sake of the Earth’s health. In response to Berta’s death, I will summarize the ways in which, all over the world, individuals and groups are mourning her loss and that of the river by creating cultural artifacts, films, and political protests to restore and restitute her

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persona and remember other lives—both human and non-human—lost to a dominant politics of death. The last section presents hope, entangled within mourning processes, as an affect that awakens and encourages us to continue striving for social justice and fairness, particularly during the ongoing trial of Berta’s death and the passing of H.R. 1945 Berta Cáceres Human Rights in Honduras Act. I will end this affective journey on a positive note because hope allows us to dream of a better world and to act resistantly and critically in the present moment.

Resistant Mourning and Activist Melancholia as Restorative and Restitutive Even before the formation of the subject, loss has formed part of our identity. We grow up witnessing loss all around through the death of loved ones, emotional ruptures, or even the loss of ourselves. With any loss that profoundly affects us, we gradually lose a part of who we are since subjectivity is conceived and constructed relationally. How humans cope with loss has been studied extensively in order to understand the changes and transformations experienced by the subject undergoing the loss. These processes have been unpacked in the study of mourning and melancholia, concepts widely analyzed from psychoanalytical, sociological, and cultural standpoints. In his famous 1917 essay, “Mourning and Melancholia,” Sigmund Freud establishes a binary between these two concepts that describe the opposite ways in which humans confront loss. According to Freud, in mourning, the mourner accepts the void left by the lost object and successfully replaces it with substitutable objects, leading to a healthy closure. He states, “although mourning involves grave departures from the normal attitude to life, it never occurs to us to regard it as a pathological condition and to refer it to medical treatment” (243– 244). Despite withdrawal from daily routines and activities due to the overwhelming effects of loss, mourning finds a cure in detaching the subject from the libidinal forces of the lost object and finding a replacement. However, in melancholia “the free libido was not displaced on to another object; it was withdrawn within the ego” (249), causing the ego to be identified with the abandoned object, blurring thus the corporeal and mental boundaries between the subject and the object. In this respect, “the melancholic displays something else besides which is lacking in mourning—an extraordinary diminution in his self-regard, an impoverishment of his ego on a grand scale. In mourning, it is the world which has become poor and empty; in melancholia it is the ego itself ” (246). Melancholia, for Freud, represents a concerning case of pathology demonstrated in our coping with loss; it is not only the object that is lost but also the subject. Nevertheless, his initial theories

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on mourning and melancholia were reconsidered in his 1923 essay “The Ego and the Id,” in which he acknowledges that identification with the lost object is also essential to mourning. According to John Baker (2001), Freud realized that identification may be “the sole condition under which the id can give up its objects” (19) and that the ego is a “precipitate of abandoned object cathexes and that it contains the history of those object-choices” (19). Freud’s theories define mourning and melancholia as intimate and individual experiences that, on the other hand, are importantly shared. In The Work of Mourning (2001), Jacques Derrida introduces the idea of relationality in the process of mourning because we situate our world in relation to others, and when we lose a loved one part of us is forever lost. This emphasis on relationships, bonds, and ties during the act of mourning highlights the importance of affect as transversal and relational. Understood as affectius, one affects and is affected by others, as examined previously, and in mourning the loss affects us all. Furthermore, as affectio, affect shows dispositions toward others, which include the act of mourning. The prevalence of collectivity is similarly underlined in Judith Butler’s analysis of violence, mourning, and politics published in her 2006 book Precarious Life: the Powers of Mourning and Violence. Reflecting on the political dimension of mourning, Butler starts off with the concept of vulnerability connected to the loss of lives. Shared vulnerability characterizes humans because our bodies are constantly exposed to external forces, “each of us is constituted politically in part by virtue of the social vulnerability of our bodies—as a site of desire and physical vulnerability, as a site of a publicity at once assertive and exposed” (20). Since we are socially constituted, we are always at risk of violence and of losing attachments to others. For this reason, it is important to recognize that not all bodies are similarly constructed, which makes us unequally grievable. Our dominant political and economic system mobilizes vulnerability across normative paradigms of the human, reinforcing cultural binaries. Minorities are, as a consequence, rendered more vulnerable to life and less mournable at death for the subaltern is articulated as unthinkable, invisible, and unspeakable.4 Butler refers to the thousands of lives lost during the AIDS pandemic that were officially erased and unacknowledged: they were not publicly nor politically mourned since they were already lost and unaccounted for. Culture creates hierarchies for both livable and grievable bodies, which intensifies levels of vulnerability in certain bodies. However, until vulnerability is recognized as the infliction of violence on marginal communities, mourning will remain a privilege of the few. In this context, studies into mourning are imperative to transform culture and pave the way toward social justice. Once vulnerability is recognized, “that recognition has the power to change the meaning and structure of vulnerability itself ” (43). Butler considers an ethical encounter between antagonistic actors: in

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this encounter, vulnerability turns into action used to empower bodies deemed unhuman, producing ways of mourning that are, by extension, transformative. Butler’s analysis of mourning is deeply political and radical in the sense that she demands collective recognition of the bodies that have not mattered and remained silent. Restoring and restituting the loss, as I  will examine in the case of Berta and the Río Gualcarque, becomes the focus of this chapter, including the process of mourning as an affect in its relationality and transversality between humans and non-humans. Lenca ecological cosmologies and their sacred connection to earth-beings illustrate new forms of mourning pivotal to understanding nature, the role of the Earth in our lives, sustainability, and ecofeminism. The environment is depicted as a body constructed through the lenses of equality, care, and an ethics of responsibility. In the introduction to the edited collection Mourning Nature: Hope at the Heart of Ecological Loss and Grief (2017), Ashlee Cunsolo and Karen Landman beautifully explore languages employed to conceptualize and comprehend loss beyond human life. Although foci on mourning have historically delved into human loss and the hierarchy of grief, in response to the ontological question regarding what constitutes “humanity,” the personal and collective void left by other types of loss has received very little attention. How do we react to the loss of an animal whose impact on our lives has been significant to our own sense of self ? How do we feel when landscapes change due to the industrialization of space or rapid processes of modernity that cause deforestation, ocean acidification, or the expansion of monoculture at the expense of biodiverse systems? What happens to us when we face the extinction of thousands of species because of deregulated human practices? What is our opinion on climate change? If we reflect deeply on these questions, we raise consciousness about the detrimental consequences of spatial or non-human disruptions because our quality of life diminishes, along with that of the Earth. To cope with the changes that imply some sort of loss, we mourn. There is no distinct way of processing the loss, but it is certain that we mourn when exposed to loss as a coping mechanism. With respect to mourning beyond the human, the introduction to Mourning Nature expands upon the need to include mourning processes related to environmental loss, animal loss, loss of spaces, etc. Unfortunately, scholarly literature on this specific kind of mourning is few and far between, but the collaborative work in question sheds further light on environmental justice and an ethics of care and responsibility by detailing modes of mourning that reinforce solidarity, community, and togetherness. Cunsolo and Landman draw their insightful conclusions from personal experiences of grief and loss that transcend mourning human loss to encompass the loss of natural habitats for which we are all responsible. However, as they argue, we tend to ignore the effects of climate change or natural disasters because, most

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often, the communities affected are those whose lives are derealized and ungrievable. In their demands to raise awareness of human culpability and responsibility, the authors invite us to develop “a mechanism for moving into new terrains of thought that may provide avenues for thinking with and through environmental challenges, for encouraging action, and for potentially cultivating new emotions in fruitful ways” (6). The interpellation of positive affective orientations employed to transform injustices into equality similarly requires mourning responses to acknowledge destruction and vulnerability. In this way, Cunsolo and Landman aim to adopt a new kind of environmental thought and action based on the act of mourning. By mourning what could be a potential loss—their land and rivers—the Lenca community and specifically COPINH develop productive, affective, and effective modes of mourning engaged in etho-aesthetic acts to remember the loss of the numerous bodies killed in Honduras while upholding the sacredness of nature. Mourning reinforces its potential as politically and ethically transformative and, I would add, as restorative and restitutive. Along with mourning non-human losses, other positive contributions that inform this work are concepts such as resistant mourning, activist melancholia, and proleptic elegy developed by Patricia Rae (2007). Challenging the dichotomy between melancholia and mourning and its subsequent linearity, resistant mourning and activist melancholia conflate these concepts and complicate their traditional meaning. Postmodern theorists including Judith Butler (2003), David Eng (2003), David Kanzakian (2003), and Patricia Rae (2007) resignify the pathological meaning attributed to melancholia by underlining how it triggers creative forces that highlight the constant engagement with the loss in a reinvigorated relationship that produces positive modes of resistance. For instance, the loss of thousands of bodies to AIDS, of indigenous communities to colonialism, of queer people, of activists to territorial acquisition, and of landscapes and environments should still be lingering within present manifestations of solidarity capable of political intervention. In this sense, the aforementioned libidinal attachments should not be replaced by new objects but critically restored. Thus, melancholia and mourning are discursively and narratologically intertwined, triggering social action that disrupts conventional hierarchies of grief. Consequently, mourning entails a continual process that refuses active forgetting, substitution, and closure. By keeping the loss at the forefront, a transnational platform of committed activists whose intersectional struggles produce critical performances, art, and protests for a politics of ethics and social justice emerges, as I will analyze in the next section. Similarly, the conflation of melancholia and mourning as two simultaneous states of mind provokes a sense of resistance (resistant mourning and activist melancholia) that, according to Rae, “may be the basis for progressive political reform” (19). In the

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section devoted to the Río Gualcarque, the idea of “proleptic elegy” underlines an anticipatory grief for future losses caused by extractivist projects. The work of both Ashlee Cunsolo, Karen Landman, and Jessica Barr is essential to understanding alternative mourning practices that surpass humanity and help to restore the present and future loss of natural landscapes.

Activist Melancholia: Restoring and Restituting Berta Cáceres The assassination of Berta Cáceres disrupted not only the Lenca community and nearby regions, but also the entire world. We woke up on March 3rd, 2016 to the headlines of major newspapers such as The Guardian, New York Times, BBC News, The Nation, Washington Post, etc., announcing the death of an inspiring environmental leader whose life had been brutally cut short. Despite the rapid publicity of her unjust death, the Honduran government stayed cautious, suggesting the possibility of a crime of passion involving her ex-husband. However, copines, who knew that she had been unprotected and deprived of security measures for years, immediately congregated in front of the Public Ministry in Tegucigalpa demanding a response to the killing. Right after, thousands of Hondurans reacted with rage and frustration in solidarity with Berta’s family, COPINH, and those oppressed by local authorities. Furthermore, organizations in the Aguán region, Río Blanco, and in the Garifuna coastal areas demanded clarity, transparency, and accountability. There was absolutely no doubt that members of the transnational company DESA along with military personnel were responsible for the tragedy. Consequently, the government fabricated a narrative of her death, founded on a basis of lies in order to minimize the impact, and continued criminalizing activists for opposing projects of modernization, development, and progress. The dominant actors did not render her life visible and grievable because her body had always been lost, shuttered within the limits of the unthinkable. In this context, Butler’s question on the political possibilities of mourning comes to mind: “Is there something to be gained in the political domain by maintaining grief as part of the framework within which we think our international ties?” (30). If Berta’s life and the lives of the minority groups killed in Honduras are ungrievable and undisputedly already lost, how can we disrupt systemic violence, governmental corruption, patriarchy, racism, and neoliberalism? Since Berta was campaigning to dismantle extractivist projects, President Juan Orlando Hernández made her a target and kept her under constant surveillance, as an anonymous ex-militant mentioned to Albatv: “Ella estaba en la mira del presidente Hernández desde que llegó al poder en 2014, la mandó vigilar

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no solamente por su oposición a la hidroeléctrica, también de proyectos mineros y era líder del campesinado” (She had been the president’s target since he was elected in 2014. He put her under surveillance not only because of her opposition to the hydroelectric dam but also to mining projects, and because she was the leader of the peasants). On the one hand, Berta was invisible due to the social position she occupied; on the other hand, she was extremely visible as a threat to the processes of development and progress approved by the government. For this reason, her vulnerability was intensified. Acknowledging the vulnerability of the thousands of bodies united in their oppression at a local and global level informs an affective agenda for the promotion of radical transformation. With the loss of Berta and several copines, “there is losing, as we know, but there is also the transformative effect of loss” (Precarious Life, 21), and both the effect and affect of that loss have traveled across the world to demand an ethical commitment to justice and hold those responsible accountable for their actions. Berta embodied strength, which was then translated into resilience and empowerment. Her death caused an ontological and epistemological crisis of humanity itself and enabled, as Butler mentions regarding the potential of mourning, “reimaging the possibility of community on the basis of vulnerability and loss” (20)—a community that reinforces, solidifies, and multiplies its ties to continue the peaceful fight because “Berta no se murió, Berta se multiplicó” (Berta did not die, Berta multiplied). Since that fateful day, thousands of marches, demonstrations, protests, and homages to Berta have flooded the world; mourning practices that, opposed to detaching from the primary lost object, are engaging aesthetically and ethically with the loss through activist melancholia. Over the last three years, modes of resistance and solidarity have emerged in numerous locations around the world. These manifestations include feminist organizations in Tegucigalpa gathering in Berta’s honor, poetry readings, music, illustrated books, poems, murals, indigenous communities in Central and South America celebrating her life through concerts, documentaries, and so on. In June 2019, a public green space in Chamartín Madrid was renamed Berta Cáceres, and a street in Zaragoza also carries her name. By multiplying Berta, these transnational practices of solidarity remember her spirit, her intersectional struggles, her story, her love for the environment, and her eagerness to fight oppression, racism, capitalism, patriarchy, and neoliberalism. The diverse celebrations mentioned constitute an intersectional act of mourning that instead of looking for closure and new objects to replace the loss, functions to restitute and restore a body that, in its vulnerability, is constantly resignified and projected toward the empowerment of marginal experiences. As Judith Butler mentions in her Afterword to The Politics of Mourning in relation to reconceptualizations of both mourning and melancholia, “the rituals of mourning are sites of merriment” (472). By

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redefining Berta and her fight through restorative and restitutive functions of mourning, the homages created to commemorate her life tend to display positive affects as an emancipatory and resistant way of challenging systemic violence, with the aim of validating life and rejecting submission to governmental interest. These are tender moments of solidarity encapsulated in dance, singing, music, celebrations of life, and poetry readings where the past, present, and future mingle, and where mourning and melancholia combine to pave the way for ethical responsibility and social justice. This commitment to a democratic system that values nature as intrinsic to humankind leads to mourning processes that draw upon a productive activist melancholia whereby the remains of the lost object are re-activated through new webs of horizontally built relations. Accepting an end to the act of mourning through complete closure reinforces the status quo, as scholars elsewhere have argued. Therefore, chronic melancholia and resistant mourning “keep things unsettled” (Rae, 19), preventing “a preventable catastrophe from becoming assimilated into the order of things” (19). As celebratory events were held internationally to commemorate Berta’s life, a few days after the assassination her family proceeded with an independent investigation into her death. Since the Honduran judicial system moved slowly, a group of independent lawyers including Roxanna Altholz, Jorge E. Molano Rodríguez, Dan Saxon, Miguel Ángel Urbina Martínez, and Liliana María Uribe Tirado initiated a thorough and factual investigation to be published in a November 2017 report with the title Represa de Violencia: El plan que asesinó a Berta Cáceres (Dam Violence: the Plan that Killed Berta Caceres). The report provides details of the whereabouts of different military members and DESA employees the day of Berta’s assassination. Based on hundreds of telephone records, cell tower maps, and GPS locations, it identifies some of the people involved in the murder. The first forty-four pages consist of the following sections and subsections: Executive Summary, Introduction, Insecurity of Human Rights Defenders, Granting of Illegal and Illegitimate Benefits to DESA, Strategy Implemented by DESA to Build the Agua Zarca project (General Framework, DESA’s Alliance with State Security Forces, DESA’s Strategy to Control, Neutralize and Attack, Berta Isabel Cáceres Flores), Effort to Promote Impunity for Persons Linked to DESA, The Murder of Berta Isabel Cáceres Flores (General Framework, the March 2nd, 2016 Operation, Events Immediately After the Murder), The Criminal Investigation (General Framework, Lack of Due Diligence, Secrecy), and Levels of Responsibility (General Framework, Responsibility of Individuals Subject to Legal Proceedings, Responsibility Yet To Be Determined). The following text contains a conclusion and recommendations, endnotes, an appendix, authors, and acknowledgments. The authors of the document belong to GAIPE, and in the acknowledgments section they indicate that the completion of

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the work was in part due to the support of international and Honduran organizations that made possible on-site visits and arranged interviews with different sectors. Along with the contributions of COPINH, the Broad Movement for Dignity and Justice in Honduras, and the Center for Justice and International Law (CEJIL), the authors are grateful for the support they received from students at the International Human Rights Law Clinic and the Technical Team at the University of Berkeley School of Law, as well as from organizations such as Fair Associates ( JASS). Similarly, they acknowledge the following donors: Front Line Defenders, American Jewish Word Service, Diakonia of Sweden, the Ford Foundation, and Open Society Foundation. Finally, they show appreciation to Berta’s family, various lawyers, and other Honduran organizations for providing “useful information to understand the reality of the country” (87). As the authors of the report mention, they turned it in “with the best intention that it is useful to begin a process that, in the short term, can guarantee the family of Berta Isabel Cáceres and the member of COPINH the right to truth, justice, reparation and guarantees of no repetition. Similarly, we hope that it contributes in the medium and long term to the dismantling of the criminal structures that affect Honduran society in general and in particular the defenders of human rights” (87). In October 2018 seven men hired by DESA were convicted of Berta’s murder and, finally, on December 2nd, 2019 the sentences were imposed.5 The Foundation of the Law in Spain, made up of a group of Spanish lawyers who focus on the defense and protection of human rights, has asked for the conviction of the CEO of DESA David Castillo, reinstating the trial and following the regular procedures. At a grassroots level, COPINH and Berta’s family have started the campaign #MesesSinJusticia to raise awareness of the injustices and irregularities performed by the Honduran judicial system. Mourning through an independent investigation demands ethical responsibility and holds to account the judicial system; therefore, a fair and transparent trial is key to the act of mourning in order to recognize the vulnerability of the victims’ bodies and the impunity granted to dominant actors. In addition to restoring the memory of Berta through justice, the endless work done across the world to protect and defend human and land rights in her name underscores the resilience and empowerment of activist melancholia or resistant mourning, propelling social forces “to prevent the work of mourning from being accomplished” (Rae 23). In this fashion, and in line with Butler’s conclusion of Precarious Life, we can create a sense of the public and, more concretely, of public injustice and discrimination where “oppositional voices are not feared, degraded or dismissed, but valued for the instigation to a sensate democracy they occasionally performed” (151). The activism and legal commitment to accomplishing justice for Berta is intimately linked to the ability to mourn ecological losses because, in some ways, she was

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Fig. 6.1  Berta Cáceres on the banks of the Gualcarque River in the Río Blanco region of Western Honduras. The river is a source of water, food, medicine, and spiritual identity for the indigenous Lenca people. (Photo: Goldman Environmental Prize)

killed for defending the Río Gualcarque. The next section, therefore, contemplates productive and affective modes of resistant mourning and activist melancholia focused on nature, the environment, Lenca territories, and the Río Gualcarque in particular.

The River Told Me So: Solastalgia and Proleptic Elegies for the Río Gualcarque Through mourning Berta, we are compelled to mourn land-based losses or potential losses resulting from human action; we need to allocate vulnerability to non-human bodies that have been commodified by the West’s desire to conquer land and violate nature for capital accumulation. The Río Gualcarque is, among thousands of bodies of water around the world, undergoing tragic changes because of governmental greed. As I have already discussed, DESA’s plan was to build a hydroelectric dam that would cross the heart and soul of the Gualcarque, stall its

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flow, kill its ecosystem and biodiversity, and destroy the local communities’ sustainable economy and cultural idiosyncrasies. The opening scenes of the Fault Lines documentary Honduras:  Blood and The Water feature the Río Gualcarque while Berta speaks of its significance: “Este río es como la sangre que corre por las venas. Es injusto y no sólo injusto; es un crimen agredir un río que tiene vida, que tiene espíritus. Creo que significa vida. Para mí, vale más que la pena luchar por este río. Es una satisfacción.” (This river is like blood running through your veins. It’s unjust. Not only is it unjust; it’s a crime to attack a river that has life, that has spirits. I think it signifies life. For me, fighting for this river is more than worthwhile. It’s a pleasure). Berta’s connection to nature, her fight, her energy, her work, her life were devoted to the river, to protecting the sacredness of its waters, to protecting the Earth, to protecting peasants, and to protecting indigenous communities in Honduras. And for this, she was killed. Not only are we mourning her loss, but she also taught us to mourn nature, to embrace ecological losses as part of our own. Through activist melancholia, Berta has sent us an urgent message: the need to mourn natural elements as losses that affect all of us. In restoring Berta, we need to be moved, touched, and affected by these ecological losses so that we can act critically and recognize the Earth as a valuable and grievable body central to our idea of humanity. Simultaneously, we are revisiting ecofeminism by including mourning practices in the wake of human and non-human losses. In her article on climate change, Cunsolo stresses the need to mourn non-human bodies since drastic transformations resulting from reckless human activity affect us negatively, producing sorrow, pain, and suffering that is not only experienced privately but also collectively. However, since most of these endangered spaces and places are inhabited by bodies that do not matter—female, indigenous, poor, racialized, etc.—how can we acknowledge and ethically respond to these losses when such populations are excluded? After her experience working with Inuit communities in the north of Canada, Cunsolo realized the detrimental impact of climate change on their land and their lives due to the communities’ strong connection with the environment. She observed a notable presence of narratives underlining the potential threat to the land if contemporary extractivist practices were to continue, which she referred to as “anticipatory grieving” since within Inuit communities “many people also shared a sense of anticipatory grieving for losses expected to come, but not yet arrived” (172). Because such changes were imminent and likely to have the greatest impact on Inuit populations, “they were already imagining future losses, already experiencing levels of pain of what may come” (172). Likewise, the Lenca community in Río Blanco felt completely distraught when cranes and traffic cones arrived, marking the beginning of the dam project. All of a sudden their lives were about

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to change and the river would be the victim of environmental damage, toxic waste, and extinction. Outraged at all the concessions given to transnational corporations by Juan Orlando Hernández’s administration, resistance against capitalist domination, extractivism, and militarization emerged. Not only were the territories in question doomed, but also the bodies of hundreds of individuals whose existence depended economically and spiritually on the earth-beings. The Lenca people care for the river because the spirits of the girls, according to Berta in line with Lenca cosmology, offer them protection. For this reason, the Lencas swim and fish in the water, keep it clean, and ensure the absence of fertilizers and pesticides. They often perform composturas to thank nature for the produce that feeds and sustains them. Similarly, the water from the river is used to care for their livestock and maintain a harmonious and horizontal relation between humans and non-humans. As they suffer from the consequences of extractivist projects—for example, the deterioration of air and soil quality due to open mining pits, deforestation, and dam construction—social activists in Honduras risk their lives to protect the Earth. Among many other intersectional struggles that Berta was involved in, the protection of the Gualcarque was a priority because of its imminent threat. Her work and that of COPINH was carried out within the parameters of anticipatory grieving, taking into account the upheaval experienced by the community over the course of recent decades. In this sense, resilient copines and their comrades in the peaceful fight to preserve the environment are transferring, according to Cunsolo, “responses to grief and trauma from other situations and to varying degrees to their current and expected experiences with climatic and environmental change and the understanding of the intimate impact the environmental losses will have” (172). Besides opening up a politically charged space for mourning the non-human, they are simultaneously anticipating grief for the activists whose lives are lost. Many environmental activists have been killed for defending their territories, for which reason anticipatory grieving coincides with a present activist melancholia that refuses to forget the past and acknowledges the losses through dissident encounters with the authorities, political intervention, public grieving, and celebratory art. The idea of anticipatory mourning invites a sense of solastalgia for earth-beings. Defined by Glenn Albrecht (2017) after forging personal relationships with distressed people and desolated landscapes in the Hunter Valley of New South Wales, Eastern Australia, she created the concept of solastalgia “as a particular form of psychoterratic distress connected to negatively perceived and felt changes to a home environment, changes that one is powerless to prevent. Solastalgia is succinctly described as ‘the homesickness you have when you are still at home’ ” (299). The thought of losing their way of life, their economy, the social relationship they have cultivated with the Gualcarque, their space of intimacy and sacredness, as well

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as its biodiversity, provokes a sense of desolation and loss connected to death. For Berta, the river is life. Without it, we inhabit death. Their intimate connection with the river shows a distressed Lenca community whose permanent state of resistant mourning and activist melancholia for both humans and earth-beings translates, however, into action, positive social change, and dissidence. According to Albrecht, solastalgia is felt individually and collectively in cases of gas fracking, coal mining, and when our sense of place is challenged: for instance, the looming threat of a hydroelectric dam in the case of the Lenca. The dramatic alteration of one’s environment produces feelings of solastalgia and therefore provides a new language to articulate resistant mourning. In addition, solastalgia does not entail passivity or paralysis; it introduces the possibility of action to transform the present. These instances of activism can similarly be identified with proleptic elegies, a term coined by Rae to refer to celebratory acts that reject abandonment of loss or future loss and emphasize the ethical responsibility toward such loss. In my opinion, this ethical responsibility implies a new ecofeminist commitment, environmental justice, and radical transformation. Proleptic elegies mourn past or potential future losses in a present sense. This kind of mourning opposes normative mourning interpellated by dominant actors; it resists closure by indicating the need to continue activist efforts because closure and completion would reproduce the status quo forged in forgetfulness, abandonment, and substitution. As Rae (2003) affirms in her article “Double Sorrow: Proleptic Elegy and the End of Arcadianism in 1930s Britain,” “proleptic elegy could just be added to the arsenal of resistant modes of mourning compiled in recent years by activists looking for social hope in devastating loss” (265). The documentaries released after Berta’s death function as restorative and restitutive mourning of both Berta and the Río Gualcarque. In them, we witness the solastalgia produced out of fear of losing the river, but also the solastalgia brought about by the tremendous void Berta left. They are examples of proleptic elegies and activist melancholia since they capture the significance of continuing Berta’s legacy of social and environmental justice. The documentary Guardiana de los ríos (Guardian of Rivers)—in reference to Berta—was produced by Radio Progreso and uploaded to YouTube in September 2016. The opening scenes portray the force of the Gualcarque with a group of girls standing at its center. As they smile and play in the water, we hear a section of Berta’s speech at the Goldman Environmental Prize Award ceremony from the previous year: “De los ríos somos custodios ancestrales el pueblo Lenca resguardados además por los espíritus de las niñas que nos enseñan que dar la vida de múltiples formas por la defensa de los ríos es dar la vida para el bien de la humanidad y de este planeta” (The Lenca people are the ancestral guardians of the rivers and, in turn, are protected by the spirits of the young girls who teach

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us that giving our lives in various ways for the defense of rivers is to give our lives for the good of humanity and this planet). The repeated juxtaposition of images that capture the Gualcarque’s vitality with Berta’s words creates a proleptic elegy imbued with anticipatory and resistant mourning. On the one hand, this tribute to Berta in the form of a documentary about her life, and that of copines, reinforces an activist melancholia that refuses to forget the loss. Instead, the loss felt is embraced and incorporated into present and future restorative actions. On the other hand, it warns us of the unstable and disquieting future that lies ahead of us if Berta and COPINH’s fight diminishes. It is precisely the loss of Berta that has activated others’ willingness to not only continue her commitment to the Earth’s health, but also pursue transnational solidarity and activism. Throughout the documentary different members of COPINH, including Berta’s family, are interviewed about the oppressive situation they face on a daily basis, during which they also explain the epistemological significance of the forests and rivers within Lenca cosmology. As we listen to their stories, we are presented with images of the natural habitats under threat. All the documentaries produced in the wake of Berta’s death have a common denominator:  the portrayal of the river and its infinite vitality, force, and beauty. For example, in October 2018 the Hammer Museum released another documentary titled Berta Vive: Berta Cáceres and the Fight for Indigenous Water Rights. In it, we are transported to April 2014 in Río Blanco—the day Berta received the news of Sinohydro’s withdrawal. While on the phone with her friend Ronaldo, Berta is shown standing by the beautiful waters, which continue to feature throughout the documentary. Berta’s conversation with Ronaldo is fundamental to the viewer’s understanding of the community’s love and connection to the water: Yo quiero compartirles que María me dijo algo muy lindo … y es que hemos ganado esta lucha. La hemos ganado, pero que el río nos ha ganado a nosotras. Y eso es verdad, porque recuerdo el primer día que vine a meterme, a zambullirme a estas aguas sagradas, porque tiene toda esa energía y ese acompañamiento de nuestros ancestros y ancestras. El COPINH ha demostrado que si es posible desmontar estos proyectos que vienen a invadir los territorios indígenas. Cerramos con broche de oro esta celebración del COPINH, de sus 21 años y que existir de por sí, ya es un logro para el COPINH, y haber enfrentado estas batallas contra todos los poderes que puedan imaginarse y seguir vivos, vivas, firmes … es un gran logro para la sociedad hondureña, para la historia de este país, para la dignidad. (I want to share with you this beautiful thing María said … that we have won this fight. We have won it … the river has won us over! And it’s the truth because I remember the first day I immersed myself in these sacred waters. It carries all the energy and the presence of our ancestors. COPINH has shown that it is possible to dismantle these projects that come to invade indigenous territories. We are ending COPINH’s 21st

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anniversary on a real high note; the fact that COPINH still exists is an achievement in itself, that after having fought all these battles against all the powers you can possibly imagine and still be alive and strong … it is a huge achievement for Honduran society, for the history of this country, and for dignity.)

After this conversation, Berta reminds us of all the other rivers threatened by extractivism in Honduras and predicts a negative outcome—a mode of anticipatory grieving that requires full commitment to the cause. She mentions that the future will be tough because the dominant actors produce evilness. This reference to the future moves the documentary onward to the night of her death, including the testimony of Gustavo Castro and the impact it had on OFRANEH. Her death is constantly related to an ecological crisis and food insecurity in Honduras, the second largest producer of palm oil to the detriment of Garifuna territory. The final shots show multiple celebrations of Berta’s life intercalated with the distressed and sad face of Gustavo, who was present the night of the tragedy. We see how her funeral involved diverse rituals performed by the Lenca and Garifuna communities at the same time as listening, just like in Guardiana de los ríos, to Berta’s words after receiving the Goldman Environmental Prize Award in 2015: “El río Gualcarque nos ha llamado, así como los demás que están seriamente amenazados en todo

Fig. 6.2  With mandates from local community members, Berta Cáceres filed complaints against the Agua Zarca Dam with government authorities, bringing along community representatives on trips to Tegucigalpa. (Photo: Goldman Environmental Prize)

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el mundo. Debemos acudir. La madre tierra—militarizada, cercada, envenenada, donde se violan sistemáticamente derechos elementales—nos exige actuar” (The Gualcarque River has called on us, as have other seriously threatened rivers around the world. We must answer their call. Our Mother Earth—militarized, fenced-in, and poisoned, where basic rights are systematically violated—demands that we take action). The final scenes show a breathtakingly beautiful landscape of green mountains that quell the flow of the forceful Gualcarque waters, where children are swimming, diving, and socialising. This scenery throughout the documentary reveals the wonders of nature, and the significance of the Gualcarque from an etho-aesthetics perspective. According to Elizabeth Helsinger (2010), “the modern visual elegy continually confronts us with the moment of overwhelming grief, the particular event of death that gestures to the enormity of mass destruction. When elegy begins to refuse the ‘normal’ work of mourning, its pictorial forms acquire new power” (676). The immediate affect of beauty and splendor conveyed in these scenes is, however, tainted by the threat of desolation and destruction that is not visually articulated. Barr highlights the importance of the visual element to affect individuals and, in turn, push them into thinking about the present threats that will lead to future destruction. In my opinion, the refusal to portray ecological deterioration reinforces the permanence of the environment, inviting viewers to act critically and challenge the predatory practices that extractivism entails. It is a reminder of the extraordinary existence of nature and the desire to incorporate it in activist melancholia and resistant mourning, an anticipatory mode of grieving that holds the human race accountable and responsible for the future of the Earth. What resistant mourning and anticipatory grieving can teach us is to remain hopeful in a landscape of anguish and despair; the loss of Berta has caused a trailblazing chain of strength that transcends borders and identity categories to expose emancipatory modes of solidarity and care resulting from outrage. Instead of facing paralysis, throughout the world social movements and individuals are waking up through radical hope to defy systems of oppression, subjugation, injustice, and violence. The last section of this chapter examines the significance of hope as a social affect whose contagiousness in the present effectively produces gradual transformation.

Hoping for Social Justice: The Aftermath of Tragedy Berta Cáceres spent her life in the town of La Esperanza, Intibucá, Honduras where she was born and raised. La Esperanza means “hope” in Spanish, and it was hope that prompted her to co-found COPINH, partake in intersectional

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struggles, and defend indigenous territories. The production of hope stems from a legacy of colonialism, subjugation, exploitation, and precariousness that drove her to action. In this regard, the conceptualization of hope I examine in this section merges the actual and the potential. A convoluted term, hope’s tension resides in its ambivalence between “things to come” and “drive or energy,” which implies a certain level of inactivity or the postponement of present action.6 Scholars such as Brian Massumi, Sara Ahmed, and Michael Taussig refuse to equate hope with optimism due to its culturally constructed nature that may prevent change. As Massumi eloquently explains in Politics of Affect, hope has no particular content or end point; rather “it is a desire for more life, or for more to life” (Kindle edition, location 917). The politics of life articulated in his narrative structures, in my opinion, Berta and COPINH’s agenda since minorities in Honduras are victims of constant surveillance, militarization, and violence. In this sense, hope is nurtured in every single present moment and is subsequently converted into action, disruption, resistance, and political intervention. Similarly, Gayatri Spivak finds in crisis a leap toward hope, recognizing the potential of crisis and hope in “resistances of all kinds” (173). Although she defines crisis as an un-anticipable moment from which creativity emerges, the legacy of colonialism rewrites crisis as a moment that can be foreshadowed. When invaded by cranes, trucks, the military, and the police force, Berta, COPINH, and the communities in Río Blanco anticipated the peril and violence that would soon form part of their daily lives. Still, these critical moments served as the catalyst for social mobilization. Hope as affect and, therefore, as action in its present and future is what, in my view, defines social movements, environmental activism, and desire for life. In her article “Emotional Solidarity:  Ecological Emotional Outlaws Mourning Environmental Loss and Empowering Positive Change,” Lisa Kretz (2017) explores the conceptualization of hope as an emotion that brings communities together in solidarity during the mourning process, in order to effect social change and empower minorities. In this context, I view hope as a crisis, to use Spivak’s language, where hope in the form of action, force, creativity, thinking, feeling, and energy affectively and effectively produces radical transformation. Sinohydro’s withdrawal from the dam project was the result of the circulation of positive affects through resistance, outrage, solidarity, care, anticipatory mourning of the environment, activist melancholia, and hope. Kretz mentions that “hope can function as a bridge from mourning to action” (277), thus the cultural artifacts, legal investigation, public homages, celebrations, and policy changes all constitute the act of mourning Berta and the Río Gualcarque. The Berta Cáceres Human Rights in Honduras Act is another instance of how hope is maintained through action in the present to radically transform the future. Known as H.R 1945, the purpose of the bill was “to suspend United States security

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assistance with Honduras until such time as human rights violations by Honduran security forces cease and their perpetrators are brought to justice” (https://www. congress.gov/bill/116th-congress/house-bill/1945 Accessed September 10, 2019. Rep. Hank Johnson (D-GA) presented the bill in 2016, which was hailed by numerous organizations including the Indigenous Environment Network (IEN), human rights organizations, Sierra Club, COPINH, and Berta’s family because it acknowledges that the Honduran military and police force are deeply corrupt and commit human rights abuses such as torture, rape, illegal detention, and murder with impunity. The bill was presented to the House of Representatives in March 2019, when it was referred to the Committee of Foreign Affairs and the Committee of Financial Services. As of July 2019, sixty-nine democratic representatives from across the country have co-sponsored the bill, and social movements are asking for more congresspersons to sign it to put an end to the politics of terror in Honduras. Through action, instances like this bring hope to thousands of communities who are exploited and whose lives are bare. Within this framework, Kretz’s emphasis on the importance of connecting mourning with hope, in the form of creative activism and community building, mirrors the emancipatory modes COPINH and social organizations are currently displaying transnationally. Her focus on the power of emotion to bring about change echoes an affectual prism that relies on nurturing action to achieve social justice. Following the work of Alloy (2000), Abramson (2000), Chiara (2000), and Braithwaite (2004), Kretz argues that “hope generates active coping, prevents disengagement from stressful situations and reduces denial, which is particularly important given the worry about climate change denial articulated above” (280). Environmental activists and seekers of social justice confront oppression by empowering themselves with hope and emancipatory modes of resistance. Hope is, according to Kretz, an empowering emotion and, I add, an empowering social affect. It develops in parallel with the hope of other people nurturing conversations across difference to voice, make visible, and dismantle harmful power imbalances (Kretz, 280). An epidemic of hope reinforces an intersectional analysis of inequality and injustice, strengthening relationships and communities that are united in their oppression and mourn, as a result, intersectionally. Berta’s funeral gave rise to intersectional resistant mourning since we could see multiple minority cultures performing traditional rituals and waving LGBTQ+ flags. Gradual effective changes are already happening: the withdrawal of Sinohydro in Berta’s lifetime, and the suspension of loans to DESA by the FMO (Dutch Entrepreneurial Development Bank) and Finnfund banks in 2017 following Berta’s assassination. Furthermore, COPINH filed a lawsuit in 2018 against the FMO because, as The Guardian mentions, “it failed to observe the human rights of local people affected by the project and disregarded warnings

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about human rights violations perpetrated in the area, and raised by Cáceres before her death in 2016” (https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2018/ may/18/bank-faces-lawsuit-over-honduras-dam-project-spirit-of-berta-caceres-fmo-agua-zarca Accessed, September 10, 2019). Mourning and hope work together in a variety of ways in an affective capacity, prompting citizens worldwide to raise awareness about the harm caused by capitalism, patriarchy, and racism. The contagious nature of these affects assigns guilt to the individual for leading a consumerist lifestyle. By challenging the cultural binary of mourning and melancholia, contemporary scholars redefine these concepts to display the multiple possibilities in mourning alternatively and depathologizing melancholia. A  reconceptualization of mourning invites us to consider the unequal allocation of vulnerability, given that some bodies are deemed more important than others. Questioning the hierarchy of grief, Judith Butler shows us the power of mourning in making visible precarious communities already lost within the parameters of humanity. Alternative mourning practices that disrupt the public space and intervene politically have the potential to move society toward a more democratic system. Accordingly, copines, the Lenca community, and hundreds of intersectional struggles organized all over the world are performing efficiently and affectively the act of resistant mourning to embrace, incorporate, restore, and restitute the loss of Berta. Despite the traditional association of melancholia with chronic malady, David Eng, David Kazanjian, and Patricia Rae focus on the positive outcomes derived from engaging in melancholia, that is, the restoration of culturally lost bodies such as Berta’s, as I have shown. A conflation of resistant modes of public mourning with activist melancholia has functioned as a stimulus for participation in intersectional struggles and new approaches to ecofeminism, which further raise awareness. However, mourning beyond the human is imperative in this political fight for justice, holding dominant actors responsible for the destruction of communities and the Earth. In this regard, the contributions published in Mourning Nature provide a new language for imagining modes of grief. The reality of global warming, climate change, and industrialization demonstrate how landscapes and earth-beings are being drastically altered by human intervention. The recognition of spatial and environmental vulnerability is vital to be able to develop practices that respectfully and affectively sustain biodiversity and nurture the Earth. In her analysis of climate change as an expression of mourning, Cunsolo suggests four ways to think of the Earth as a mournable body: 1) eulogizing and reading out the names of non-humans; 2) seeing grief as “the opportunity for individuals to connect with shared responsibility for this grief from a global process, and to understand this mourning as personal, political and ethical” (178); 3)  acknowledging

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that shared and collective vulnerability of human and non-human bodies creates a powerful resilience mechanism for responding to environmental deterioration and climate change; 4) engaging in public acts of grief, narratives, and discourses on mourning that will transform into a variety of resistant mourning practices, validating earth-beings and encouraging critical thinking and democratic awareness. A consideration of mourning beyond the human is essential to understand Berta’s commitment to the Río Gualcarque. Since her assassination, multiple ways of mourning her life—through the legal investigation or the creation of cultural artifacts—reassert the need to melancholically incorporate her loss into activism to restore and restitute her powerful legacy. Similarly, through mourning Berta we are anticipatorily grieving the Río Gualcarque whose flow, vitality, and force are endangered by extractivist projects, specifically, the construction of the mega dam. The documentaries Guardiana de los Ríos and Berta Vive exemplify proleptic elegies and a sense of solastalgia that, through the distribution of positive affects, pave the way toward radical transformation and social justice. Outrage, resistance, solidarity, care, and mourning are consequently contained within an overwhelming feeling of hope understood as a social affect in its actuality and potentiality. Because Berta and copines have displayed hope through activism, changes have already started to happen, and we still remain hopeful for a world in which opportunities in life are fairly distributed and earth-beings earn full consideration, acknowledgment, and recognition.

Notes 1. https://sur.conectas.org/en/berta-lives-copinh-continues/. Accessed December 19, 2018. 2. Levels of poverty, precariousness, gang violence, and insecurity have dramatically increased in the last decade (2009–2019) and a large percentage of the population is migrating up north. According to Fanny Bueso, living in Honduras is impossible due to the level of violence identified in towns such as San Pedro Sula. After witnessing her cousin gunned down by gangs, she decided to migrate. She constantly inhabits a state of siege: a sentiment shared by many of the individuals who have nothing to lose and have risked their lives to reach the US. Bueso does not want her daughters to be raised in a country whose police force supports this type of violence, due to its corruption and relationship with gangs. The so-called Honduran caravans that departed in October 2018 and January 2019 have been referred to as an exodus by the migrants escaping the perils of poverty and violence. Unfortunately, this crisis mirrors the systematic, structural, and institutional racism entrenched in Honduran politics. 3. Necropolitics is a complex concept that primarily involves modalities of power that manage and produce death. For example, military governments that strive to maintain order through torture, violent bodily regulation, and the abuse of human rights are necropolitical. As examined in Achille Mbembe’s book Necropolitics (2019), expressions of sovereignty that establish a hierarchy of life and regulate lives worth living inform a politics of death, also known as necropolitics. In the

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context of Latin America, Francisco Martínez and Antonious Robben (2015) focus on specific governments that have dominated the political landscape through the unequal distribution of death chances. By installing fear and violence, military dictatorships reproduce necropolitics as a way of disciplining bodies and redirecting behaviors. 4. In Vulnerability in Resistance (2016), Judith Butler problematizes the naturalization of the concept vulnerability by displaying its malleability and flexibility. It is not a fixed concept attached to certain bodies or populations—it mobilizes and operates through resistance. That is, dominant actors make some communities vulnerable through the use of disciplinarian techniques. However, resistance allows vulnerable groups to empower themselves. In this way, vulnerability is a relational term that connects contending forces while disrupting normative power dynamics. Butler contextualizes vulnerability within societal and cultural paradigms of infrastructures that sustain life in order to demonstrate the flexibility, relationality, and malleability of vulnerability. Bodies that do not matter are made vulnerable because of a lack of proper infrastructure—water, food, housing—yet conditions can potentially change through political mobilization. The Lenca community mobilizes its vulnerability through activism and affects that empower their bodies and their intersectional struggles. 5. On December 2nd, 2019, the Supreme Court of Justice in Honduras sentenced the seven men found guilty in 2018. The sentences are the following: 30 years and 6 months for Sergio Ramón Rodríguez Orellana (DESA employee) and Douglas Geovanny Bustillo (retired sergeant); 30  years for Mariano Díaz Chávez (General of the Armed Forces); 50  years and 4  months for Henry Hernández (retired soldier), Edilson Atilio Duarte Meza (sicario), Elvin Eriberto Rápalo Orellana (sicario), and Oscar Aroldo Torres Velásquez (sicario). Although this represented a small victory, the lawyer for COPINH’s legal group, Víctor Férnandez, argued that the verdict issued against the actual perpetrators in October 2018 linked them with elite businessmen from DESA and, particularly, the Atala Zablah family. Furthermore, he clarified that the case was still open despite efforts by the corporative media to close it. He similarly warned the Lenca communities that the hydroelectric dam project on the Río Gualcarque, although on hold, would continue to be a threat. Fernández concluded by arguing that the sentences imposed on December 2nd, 2019 responded to international pressure, national and transnational solidarity, and COPINH’s endless fight for justice. It was not the will of the Honduran state. Bertha Zuñiga Cáceres reminded us all that the individuals who planned and financed Berta’s death were still free (https://criterio.hn/asesinato-de-berta-caceres-sigue-apuntando-hacia-familia-atala-zablah/). Accessed December 3, 2019.    In addition, after the sentences were handed out, COPINH and Berta’s family mentioned in a statement that there was evidence to incriminate the Atala Zablah family and connected individuals. For this reason, they should be brought to trial. The failures of the judicial system in Honduras required an independent and international investigation to adequately conduct the case, acknowledging that the sentencing shed light on political impunity. However, they would continue their fight to identify and charge all the individuals involved in Berta’s killing in order to obtain justice (.org/2019/12/lectura-sentencia-causa-berta/). Accessed December 3, 2019. 6. The conversations collected in Hope:  New Philosophies for Change by Mary Zournazi (2002) explore hope as a necessary tool for coping with despair and insecurity. They provide a space for a dialogue that includes diverse perspectives encompassing the stories of hopeful communities and individuals across regions in search of social justice and equality. In this fashion, hope is constructed as multifaceted, although decentered from political and national dominant discourses. In addition, they present a secularization of hope reconsidered as a political tool for social action.

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References Ahmed, Sara. 2017. Living a Feminist Life. Durham, NC: Duke University Press. AlbaTV. “Juan Orlando Hernández Ordenó Matar a Berta Cáceres.”  AlbaTV Canal En Movimiento, November 13, 2018. http://www.albatv.org/Orlando-Hernandez-ordenomatar-a.html Accessed September 12, 2019. Albrecht, Glenn. 2017. “Solastalgia and the New Mourning.” In Mourning Nature: Hope at the Heart of Ecological Loss and Grief, edited by Ashlee Cunsolo and Karen Landman, 292–315. Montreal: McGill-Queens University Press. Alloy, Lauren, Lyn Abramson, and Alexandra Chiara. 2000. “On the Mechanisms by Which Optimism Promotes Positive Mental and Physical Health.”  The Science of Optimism and Hope: Research Essays in Honor of Martin EP Seligman 201–212. Altholz, Roxanna M., Jorge E. Molano Rodríguez, Dan Saxon, Miguel Ángel Urbina Martínez, Liliana María Uribe Tirado. 2017. Represa De Violencia:  El Plan Que Asesinó a Berta Cáceres. GAIPE, Grupo Asesor Internacional De Personas Expertas. Ardón, Patricia, and Daisy Flores. “Berta Lives! COPINH Continues ….” Sur—International Journal on Human Rights, March 2017. https://sur.conectas.org/en/berta-lives-copinh-continues/. Accessed May 10, 2019. “Asesinato De Berta Cáceres Sigue Apuntando Hacia Familia Atala Zablah.” Criterio, December 2, 2019. https://criterio.hn/asesinato-de-berta-caceres-sigue-apuntando-hacia-familia-atala-zablah/. Accessed September 23, 2019. Baker, John E. 2001. “Mourning and the Transformation of Object Relationships: Evidence for the Persistence of Internal Attachments.” Psychoanalytic Psychology 18.1: 55. Berta Vive:  Berta Cáceres and the Fight for Indigenous Water Rights. YouTube. Published by Hammer Museum, October 29, 2018. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W7kbg3W_ n9Y&t=1777s. Accessed April 15, 2019. Braithwaite, John. 2004. “Emancipation and Hope.” Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science 592: 79–98. Butler, Judith. 2006. Precarious Life: The Powers of Mourning and Violence. London: Verso. Butler, Judith. 2008. “Afterword:  After Loss, What Then?” In  Loss:  The Politics of Mourning, edited by David L. Eng and David Kazanjian, 466–475. Berkeley, CA:  University of California Press. Butler, Judith. 2016. “Rethinking Vulnerability and Resistance.” In Vulnerability in Resistance, edited by Judith Butler, Zeyner Gambetti, and Leticia Sabsay, 12–27. Durham, NC: Duke University Press. Coleman, Rebecca, and Debra Ferreday. 2010. “Introduction: Hope and Feminist Theory.” Journal for Cultural Research 14.4: 313–321. COPINH. “Comunicado Sobre Lectura Sentencia Causa Berta Cáceres.” COPINH, December 2, 2019. https://copinh.org/2019/12/lectura-sentencia-causa-berta/. Accessed December 2, 2019. Cunsolo, Ashlee, and Karen Landman. 2017. Mourning Nature: Hope at the Heart of Ecological Loss and Grief. Montreal: McGill-Queens University Press.

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Cunsolo, Ashlee, and Karen Landman. 2017. “Climate Change and the Work of Mourning.” In Mourning Nature: Hope at the Heart of Ecological Loss and Grief, edited by Ashlee Cunsolo and Karen Landman, 169–189. Montreal: McGill-Queens University Press. Derrida, Jacques. 2017. The Work of Mourning. Translated by Pascale-Anne Brault and Michael Nass. Chicago, IL: Chicago University Press. Eng, David L.,  and David Kazanjian, eds. 2008. Loss:  The Politics of Mourning. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press. Ferrándiz, Francisco, and Antonius C.  G. M. Robben.  2015. Necropolitics:  Mass Graves and Exhumations in the Age of Human Rights. Philadelphia, PA: University of Pennsylvania Press. Ford, Liz, and Sam Jones. “Bank Faces Lawsuit over Honduras Dam Project as Spirit of Berta Cáceres Lives on.” The Guardian, May 18, 2018. https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2018/may/18/bank-faces-lawsuit-over-honduras-dam-project-spirit-of-bertacaceres-fmo-agua-zarca. Acces date May 20, 2019. Frank, Dana.  2018. The Long Honduran Night:  Resistance, Terror, and the United States in the Aftermath of the Coup. Chicago, IL: Haymarket Books. Freud, Sigmund.  1971. Collected Papers. Early Papers:  On the History of the Psycho-Analytic Movement. London: Hogarth Press. Freud, Sigmund. 1990. The Major Works of Sigmund Freud. Chicago, IL: Encyclopædia Britannica. Guardiana de los ríos. YouTube. Published by Audiovisuales | Radio Progreso, ERIC-sj, September 13, 2016. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lwwe4MOGfmo. Accessed July 10, 2019. Helsinger, Elizabeth. 2010. “Grieving Images: Elegy and the Visual Arts.” In The Oxford Handbook of the Elegy, edited by Karen Weisman, 658–680. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Honduras: Blood and the Water. YouTube. Published by Al Jazeera, September 20, 2016. https:// www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Dbphren7E4&t=24s. Accessed May 15, 2019. “H.R.1945—116th Congress (2019–2020): Berta Caceres Human Rights in Honduras Act.” Congress.gov. March 28, 2019. https://www.congress.gov/bill/116th-congress/housebill/1945. Accessed July 10, 2019. Kretz, Lisa. 2017. “Emotional Solidarity:  Ecological Emotional Outlaws Mourning Environmental Loss and Empowering Positive Change.” In Mourning Nature: Hope at the Heart of Ecological Loss and Grief, edited by Ashlee Cunsolo and Karen Landman, 258–291. Montreal: McGill-Queens University Press. Massumi, Brian. 2015. Politics of Affect. Cambridge: Polity Press. Mbembe, Achille. 2019. Necropolitics. Durham, NC: Duke University Press. Rae, Patricia. 2003. “Double Sorrow:  Proleptic Elegy and the End of Arcadianism in 1930s Britain.” Twentieth Century Literature 49.2: 246–275. Rae, Patricia, ed. 2007. Modernism and Mourning. Lewisburg, PA: Bucknell University Press. Spivak, Gayatri. 2002. “The Rest of the World.” In Hope: New Philosophies for Change, edited by Mary Zournazi, 172–191. Sydney: Pluto Press Australia. Taussig, Michael. 2002. “Carnival of the Senses.” In Hope: New Philosophies for Change, edited by Mary Zournazi, 42–63. Sydney: Pluto Press Australia. Zournazi, Mary. 2002. Hope: New Philosophies for Change. Sydney: Pluto Press Australia.

Conclusion Utopia: An Affective Work in Progress

This book was envisioned and crafted from affects that awoke my consciousness, moved my heart, and made me thoroughly reflect on the life of Berta, her family, the Lencas, and communities disrupted by the violent practices of dispossession, colonialism, and neoliberalism. Likewise, it is my personal way of melancholically mourning the environmental activists killed for defending rivers, forests, earth-beings and, ultimately, our Earth. It is also my ethical responsibility to mourn nature and the gradual destruction of the environment. All the different manifestations of affect (as a verb, noun and adjective) in this book highlight the formidable work carried out by organizations such as COPINH in presenting the potential for radical transformation and social justice. Similarly, this book urges us to conceptualize and validate alternative ecological cosmologies based on affective relations with nature and with others. As I  have demonstrated on this journey, decolonizing affect offers new approaches that dismantle culturally constructed emotions and feelings, while contesting the dichotomy between rationality and irrationality, mind and body. Contemporary affect theory scholars such as Elspeth Probyn, Lauren Berlant, Sara Ahmed, and Brian Massumi, among many others, question the validity of poststructuralism by investing in the power of affect through a communion of language and corporeality in order to envision possible affective orientations for both subject and community formation. Similarly, Baruch Spinoza’s articulation

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of affect as action in its capacity to move others is paramount to my analysis of indigeneity and social movements. In addition to Western contributions to affect theory, its potential resides in the ability to contextualize affects in diverse geographical locations. In Latin America, Roger Bartra accuses dramatic interpretations of the history of the region of unnecessary sentimentalism, resulting in the isolation of the specific socioeconomic and political demands of different vulnerable groups. However, COPINH’s reflexivity through thinking-feeling processes includes a commitment to other struggles, which emphasizes the intersectionality of their agenda. As Berta has beautifully articulated, thoughtful reflection, collaboration, and organization are fundamental to moving others and promoting effective and affective change across multiple layers of oppression and discrimination. Because of COPINH’s defense of indigenous territories and rights, and its effort to empower and acknowledge women’s experiences, it has incessantly denounced the atrocious affects inflicted on women and children’s bodies as a result of the extractivist projects and territorial incursions that have led to the militarization of communities. In this sense, Berta and COPINH have contributed to ecofeminist movements by sharing the stories of the negative affects of the violence and criminalization perpetrated against copines and their environment, specifically the Río Gualcarque. Berta’s ideas resonate with Maria Mies, Vandana Shiva, Ivone Gebara, and Mary Judith Ress’ focus on the socioeconomic, racial, and gender inequalities deepened within an environmental and scientific framework. Discourses on progress, modernization, and industrialization are constantly reworked through ancestral ecological cosmologies to highlight the significance of alternative knowledges in the formation of indigenous cultures. Therefore, the colonial and neoliberal practices continued in the name of Western progress not only endanger the physicality of multiple bodies and territories, but also undermine non-Western scientific knowledge. From violent affects to mourning and hope, this journey I  have embarked on demonstrates how affects operate and circulate, providing a ninth affectual orientation based on the power of ecofeminism and intersectional struggles. In its transitivity, affect allows minorities to act critically from their position of precariousness caused by violence. Extractivism and criminalization, as I  have previously noted, are forms of violence that have been sustained through colonial and neoliberal times. The tactics employed by transnational dominant actors echo Brad Evans’ observation that violence subtly operates through processes of naturalization that remain unproblematized. By criminalizing the Lencas, useful violence is justified. These operations are structured through the power over category, whose violent mechanisms are detrimental to the well-being, territories, and bodies of indigenous groups. However, these subaltern actors’ indignation,

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frustration, and outrage mobilize vulnerability toward affective and effective modes of emancipatory resistance. Dana Frank’s experience in Honduras underlines the significant contribution of resistance movements since the deposition of Manuel Zelaya in 2009. Extreme militarization, institutional violence, land concession, dispossession, and the murder of multiple environmental activists have only intensified, but, as fear and invasion grow, so do the numerous groups that oppose political impunity and governmental corruption. COPINH’s emancipatory resistant modes span thinking-feelings processes, oppositional consciousness, horizontality, and deindividualization: methodologies that, as Chela Sandoval argues, empower the oppressed. As part of this emancipatory resistance, transnational solidarity and care become affective practices to produce positive change. Chandra Mohanty and Angela Davis’s reflections on the significance of shared oppression, and an intersectionality of struggles and stories, mirror COPINH’s emphasis on globalizing the fight toward social justice. With the aim of bringing the community’s work to the forefront and affecting others, a group of Lenca women published Sanar es resistir, which sheds light on the difficulties the communities experience due to their lack of access to health care and other resources. Care, portrayed as a resistant act, allows them to be independent from their husbands and educate themselves on ancestral knowledge and the medicinal properties of plants. Because different forms of violence affect different parts of their bodies, they propose specific treatments for headaches, respiratory infections, abdominal pains, etc. Politicizing care from an ecological cosmology liberates indigenous women, providing them with the pedagogy and necessary resources to take care of themselves and their community. Finally, mourning and hope become strategies for incorporating bodies that have not mattered into the history of colonialism. By grieving publicly, minorities are able to recuperate the voices of those criminalized and eliminated from a system of exclusion that perpetuates the hierarchies of mournable bodies. Multiple acts of transnational resistance throughout the world reveal the need to restore and restitute Berta, and to continue her fight for a better planet. By reflecting on justice, ethics, accountability, acknowledgment, and personal and collective responsibility, a new sense of utopia emerges—one that resignifies the traditional understanding of utopia. COPINH has created a physical space named Utopía where, as its website states, encounters between people, communities, ideas, struggles, missions, goals, and dreams develop. It is a physical space open to those who dream of a more just world; a world composed of many worlds, because it is possible to forge another world right in Utopía, collectively sowing the seeds of freedom, justice, peace, memory, and community. According to the website, this community center located ten minutes away from La Esperanza offers

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arable land and wondrous nature. It is also a space for cooking, sleeping, dreaming, and sharing the daily experiences of the community. In Utopía, a wide variety of activities ranging from sustainable agriculture, composting, and chicken raising, to growing medicinal plants, are performed for the benefit of the commons and wellness. Its focus is to share and enrich the communities’ knowledge and experiences in order to showcase alternative traditions that promote natality and a politics of life. Thus, Utopía is built on a foundation of affects: spreading love, health, stories, and struggles to empower those deemed vulnerable within a context of violence and state terror, such as Honduras. The website includes an informative video full of natural shots and footage of Lenca people partaking in different activities. The narrator states that Utopía “será lo que crearemos de ella, la manifestación de nuestros esfuerzos, iniciativas, trabajo, creatividad y sueños colectivos. Será un espacio de encuentros entre las personas, las comunidades, las ideas, las luchas, las propuestas y los sueños” (Utopía will be what we make of it: the manifestation of our efforts, initiatives, work, creativity, and collective dreams. It will be a space of encounters between people, communities, ideas, resistance, tactics, and dreams). These descriptions of the center reinforce the idea of affectivity reaching all the individuals that pass by, stay, or participate in the multiple possibilities offered, nurturing not only the soil but also the ties that bind everyone together. This new signification of utopia as affect challenges and decolonizes Eurocentric constructions of utopia in force throughout history. At the peak of adventurous around-the-world travels during the European Middles Ages and the Renaissance period, the elsewhere became an imagined idea of freedom, happiness, and bounty at the disposal of European travelers, sailors, and merchants for designing their own societies. It was the “manifest destiny” of eastward and westward expansion commanded by God. This elsewhere or utopia was popularized by Thomas More and his famous book Utopia published in 1516, in which he describes the excitement of Europeans arriving into new foreign lands where they could replicate Western ideologies. As Mary Irene Morrison (2017) eloquently suggests in her PhD thesis on decolonizing utopia, “the colonizer comes to build utopia on Indigenous land, through violent dispossession. Western utopian imaginings tend toward the homogenous, privileging Whiteness and European culture, and erasing cultural difference by assimilation” (7–9). This Eurocentric idea of utopia had detrimental consequences for indigenous land and bodies, affecting them violently. What was an ideal space for conquest, financial stimuli, ego boosting, and capital greed turned into a nightmarish reality for communities formed from a completely different cultural, political, economic, and sociological mindset. The disruption caused by the West did not, however, paralyze these indigenous populations since rebellion and multiple modes of resistance were already being engineered.

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However, more contemporary reflections on the traditional meaning of utopia reject its totalizing and overarching function: population elimination and land acquisition for European profit. Utopian studies scholar Ruth Levitas (2013), Robert Tally (2013), and Morrison (2017) reappropriate the term utopia as a space that welcomes difference, dialogue, multiplicity and, therefore, democracy. Because of utopia’s potential to imagine a more just world, it is imperative, according to them, to recodify utopia’s homogeneity and universalism through more productive interventions based on fluidity and movement. In addition, by rejecting a conventional approach to utopia, we question the benefits of capitalism and, in turn, urge a reimagination of utopia that would enable transformative ideas and activism. Interestingly, Tally argues how “utopia is everywhere today” (9) if understood as “a literary process of mapping the world around us and a guide for operating within it, rather than simply an ‘ideal society’ of another place or time” (Tally in Morrison, 10). Therefore, communities that rely on thinking-feeling processes that resist power structures and oppression envision utopias invested in radical alternatives to neoliberalism. Despite the fact that our dystopian present is informed by centuries of colonialist and capitalist violence that have promoted necropolitics, we must insist on the new kind of utopia outlined above. Morrison concludes her thesis by acknowledging how depression and despair— negative affects unjustly allocated to vulnerable bodies—permeate indigenous communities and minorities at large. Yet, in response, she argues how “to imagine utopia is to take a step toward preventing the loss of those radical dissidents that the capitalist system wants to see dead, and by extension entire communities the system tries to culturally and physically eliminate. Utopia as survival mechanism” (247). COPINH operates in affective and effective ways that recuperate ancestral knowledge and ecological cosmologies to empower wretched communities whose struggles are significantly intersectional. Affected by systemic, colonial, and institutional violence, COPINH’s outrage is directed into resistance projects articulated through reflection and thinking-feeling processes that encompass transnational solidarity, care, mourning, and hope, encouraging affected others to imagine ethical and responsible transformation for the sake of the environment and our communities. Only when dominant actors are moved, affected, and shifted from their comfortable positions, meaningful action will take place. Only when intersectional struggles begin to affect us all, will we be able to take steps toward creating a utopia where affective relations, social programs, and the equitable redistribution of knowledge and resources will outweigh greediness, impunity, and corruption, leaning toward a politics of life. Only when we value human and earth-beings more than material things, and we stop embracing consumerism and depending on fuel fossils, a more horizontal world will be possible. The final sentence of Morrison’s thesis proves how hope, as a social affect, will always prevail in the reimagining of

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utopian communities and a utopian world: “There must be a place in these dystopian times for more than a hopeful glimpse at the end of a dystopian tale—ideas for new inter—and intra-community formations that cultivate and sustain a hope that then feeds into activism” (253). Berta, COPINH, OFRANEH are but a few voices we must hear and be familiarized with to transform our daily practices in order to sustain our Earth. From common spaces erected through violence, resistance, solidarity, mourning, and hope, we will help to create utopia: a utopia, for instance, based on the physical space hosted by COPINH where positive affects construct healthy relationships between individuals and communities; where the land becomes part of us; where an education in difference, diversity, and equality shapes our identity; and where alternative knowledges enrich our understanding of the world around us. This book, therefore, is a call for ACTION; an attempt to affect others and affect nature in the most nurturing, formidable, extraordinary, respectful, and ethical ways so that we can finally build a true democracy.

References Ahmed, Sara. 2010. The Promise of Happiness. Durham, NC: Duke University Press. Bartra, Roger. 2012. “La batalla de las ideas y las emociones.” In El Lenguaje De Las Emociones: Afecto y Cultura En América Latina, edited by Marisa Moraña and Ignacio M. Sánchez Prado. Madrid: Iberoamericana, Kindle edition, location 189–564. Berlant, Lauren, and Jordan Greenwald. 2012. “Affect in the End Times: A Conversation with Lauren Berlant.” Qui Parle: critical humanities and social sciences 20.2: 71–89. COPINH. Sanar es resistir. Issue. May 11, 2019. https://issuu.com/copinh/docs/sanar_es_ resistir. Accessed August 1, 2019. Davis, Angela Y. 2016. Freedom Is a Constant Struggle: Ferguson, Palestine, and the Foundations of a Movement. Chicago, IL: Haymarket Books. Evans, Brad, and Natasha Lennard.  2018. Violence:  Humans in Dark times. San Francisco, CA: City Lights Books. Frank, Dana. 2018.  The Long Honduran Night:  Resistance, Terror, and the United States in the Aftermath of the Coup. Chicago, IL: Haymarket Books. Gebara, Ivone. 1999.   Longing for Running Water:  Ecofeminism and Liberation. Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press. Levitas, Ruth.  2014. Utopia as Method:  The Imaginary Reconstitution of Society. Houndmills (Basingstoke), Hampshire: Palgrave Macmillan. Massumi, Brian. 2016. Politics of Affect. Cambridge: Polity. Mies, Maria, and Vandana Shiva. 1993. Ecofeminism. London: Zed Books. Mohanty, Chandra T. 2003. Feminism without Borders: Decolonizing Theory, Practicing Solidarity. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.

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Morrison, Mary I. 2017. Decolonizing Utopia:  Indigenous Knowledge and Dystopian Speculative Fiction. PhD thesis. University of California, Riverside. Probyn, Elspeth. 2005. Blush: Faces of Shame. Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press. Ress, Mary J. 2006. Ecofeminism in Latin America. Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books. Spinoza, Benedict. 2017. Ethics: Demonstrated in Geometrical Order and Divided into Five Parts. Translated by William Hale White. Los Angeles: Moonrise Press. Tally, Robert T. 2013. Utopia in the Age of Globalization: Space, Representation, and the WorldSystem. New York, NY: Palgrave Pivot.

Index

Abramson, Lyn 160–63, 166 Accumulation by dispossession 74–76, 106 Acevedo, Agudelo 96, 97–100, 118 Activism environmental activists 4–8, 15–18, 20, 29, 85–86, 111–12, 155–57, 169–71 Acuña, Máxima 6–8, 97–98 Affect 27, 95–96, 122–25, 147–48 as action 41–42 as transversal 6–8, 12–14, 29–31, 52, 97–98, 146–48 as relational 6–8, 12–14, 29–31, 32–34, 38–40, 97–98, 122–23, 147–48, 174 as a noun 6–8, 41–42, 52–53, 57–58, 169 as a verb 27–28, 41–42, 52–53, 57–58, 169 as decolonizing 34–36, 97–98, 169–71 as violent 15–18, 72–74, 78–80, 87–89, 169–71 affective dissonance 121–22, 123–27, 137–39 affective turn 27, 43, 174

Agencia Internacional para el Desarrollo  80 Agroecology  137–39 Aguán community, Honduras 78–80, 125–27, 143–44 Agudelo Acevedo, Paola Andrea 96, 118 Ahmed, Sara 20, 27–28, 43, 97–98, 118, 160–63, 166, 169–71, 174 Albatv 150–54, 166 Albretch, Glenn 15–18, 155–57, 166 Algarra, Giovanni 34–37, 43 Alianza Sierra Madre  6–8 Alloy, Lauren B. 160–63, 166 Altholz, Roxanna 86–87, 92, 147–48, 174 Anderson, Ben  27–28 Anderson, Mark  87–89 Anthropocene 55–58 Arbenz, Jacobo  25–26 Ardón, Patricia  166 Arendt, Hannah 15–18, 20, 71–72, 87–89, 92, 95–98, 116–17, 118, 174 Article 169 25–26, 43, 80, 100–3, 105, 166, 174

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Articulación Continental de los Movimientos Sociales hacia el ALBA  103–4 Atala Zablah 147–48, 150–54 Baker, John  146–48 Banco Centroamericano de Integración Centroamericana  80 Bartra, Roger 12–14, 34–36, 37, 41–42, 169–71 Bauman, Zygmunt  72–74 Bayertz, Kurth  123–25 Belo Monte Dam  115 Berlant, Lauren 43, 174, Biodiversity 1, 6–8, 48–51, 62–63, 64, 72–74, 77–78, 114–15, 131–33, 137–39, 155–57, 163–64 Biological essentialism 15–18, 47–48,  123–25 Black bourgeoisie  70–71 Blitzer, Jonathan  121–22 Boff, Leonardo 58–59, 66 Boston Fruit Company 2–3, 74–76 Andrew Preston  74–76 Bracke, Sarah 95–96, 118 Brand, Ulrich 10–12, 20 Broad Movement for Dignity and Justice in Honduras  150–54 Buchanan, Ian 20, 92, Buen vivir 41–42, 47, 64–65 Bueso, Fanny  143–44 Bustillo, Douglas Geovanny  150–54 Butler, Judith 15–18, 71–72, 118, 147–48, 149–54, 163–64, 166, 174 Cáceres, Berta 2–8, 20, 26–41, 47–48, 54–55, 61–66, 69–70, 78–80, 81–82, 85–87, 92, 95–103, 105–7, 108–11, 112–13, 114–15, 116, 118, 121–22, 123–25, 127–28, 129–33, 140, 143–46, 147–48, 150–57, 159–66,  169–74 Campesinos 2–3, 4, 121–22, 125–27 Capitalocene 70, 72–74, 92 Caravero, Adriana  29–31

Care 6–8, 12–14, 15–18, 27, 40–41, 47–51, 61–63, 122–66 ethics of 122–23, 133–36, 140, 147–48 self-care 15–18, 122–23, 133–37 Castells, Manuel 103–4, 127–28, 140 Castro, Gustavo 1–2, 144–46, 159–60 Center for Justice and International Law (CEJIL)  150–54 Chavarría, Sotero  4–6 Chávez, Hugo  129–30 Chiara, Alexandra  160–63 Chomsky, Noam  4, 20 Chota, Edwin  6–8 Code, Lorraine  140 Colombetti, Giovanna 34–36, 43 Columbus, Christopher 8, 40–41, 55–57, 74–76 Comité para la Defensa de los Derechos Humanos en Honduras (CODEH)  2–3 Committee for the Defense of Human Rights  2–3 Committee of Financial Services  160–63 Committee of Foreign Affairs  160–63 Commons 8–12, 20, 61–62, 64, 171–72 COMPA  103–4 Conant, Jeff  85–86 Conference on Equality, Diversity and Inclusivity (CCRE–CEMR)  25 Conquistadores 12–14, 74–76 Contact zone  36–37 Consejo Cívico de Organizaciones Populares e Indígenas de Honduras (COPINH) 1–2, 4–6, 8–10, 12–14, 20, 38–41, 54–55, 61–63, 64–65, 66, 71–74, 78–87, 89–90, 95–96, 98–104, 105–13, 114–15, 116–17, 118, 121–25, 127, 128–30, 131–33, 137–39, 140, 143–44, 150–55, 158–60, 166, 169–71, 173–74 Copines 4–6, 15–18, 26–27, 69–70, 83–86, 89–90, 100–4, 105, 106–7, 108–9, 110– 11, 112–13, 114–15, 123–25, 128–30, 131–33, 144–46, 150–54, 155–57, 169–71 Cortés Calderón, Rodolfo 2–3, 20

index 

Criminalization 10–12, 15–18, 38–40, 69, 70–71, 83–85, 87–90, 92, 95–96, 108, 114–15, 116, 127–29, 131–33, 143–44, 169–71 as an operational mode of violence 15–18, 69–70 Criollos 12–14, 58–59, 74–76, 105–6 Cuñachí, Osman  6–8 Cunsolo, Ashlee 15–18, 20, 147–48, 166 Damasio, Antonio 32–34, 43 Davis Salazar, Karla 20, 174 Davis, Angela 15–18, 95, 105–6, 112–13, 123–25, 129–30, 137–39 de la Cadena, Marisol 6–8, 20 Degrowth  47 Democracy Now! 125–27 De Strijcker, Ermersinde 8–9, 78–80, 131–33, 140 Dejusticia (Derecho, Justicia, Sociedad) 15–18, 111–12, 114–15, 118 Deleuze, Gilles 20, 27–28, 43, 71–72, 92 Derrida, Jacques 15–18, 20, 146–47, 166 DESA (Desarrollos Energéticos S.A.) 26–27, 80, 83–87, 108–10, 127–28,  150–54 Agua Zarca project 78–80, 87–89, 92, 108–9, 160–63 David Castillo 108–9, 127–28,  150–54 Development 4–6, 10–14, 25, 51–52, 54–55, 61–63, 66, 70–71, 72–76, 77–80, 81–82, 87, 92, 100–3, 110–11, 131–33, 150–54, 160–63, 166 catching-up development  48–51 profit-driven 10–14, 20 progress 4–6, 12–14, 15–18, 20, 25, 48–51, 58–59, 62–63, 64–65, 69–71, 72–76, 81–82, 83–85, 86–87, 92, 131–33, 150–54, 169–71 sustainable  10–12 Díaz Chávez, Mariano  150–54 Dispossession 9–10, 12–14, 27–28, 74–77, 83–85, 86–87, 96, 97–98, 121–23, 128–29, 143–44, 169–71, 172

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Doetsch-Kidder, Sharon 131–33, 140 Dominant actors 6–9, 15–18, 52–53, 77–78, 87–89, 98–100, 105–6, 144–46, 147–48, 150–54, 155–57, 159–60, 163–64, 169–71, 173–74 Domínguez, José Martiniano  108–9 Duarte Meza, Atilio  150–54 Durkheim, Emile  140 Dutch Entrepreneurial Development Bank (FMO) 80, 160–63 Earth-beings 6–8, 163–64, 169, 173–74 Ecocide 26–27, 72–74, 80 Ecofeminism 47, 48, 51–55 Latin American 55–60, 61–63, 64–65, 66, 116, 122–23, 140, 147–48, 154–55, 163–64, 174 Ecologies 6–8, 15–18, 20, 115 alternative  131 indigenous  47 Economía verde 10–12 Educación Intercultural Bilingüe (EIB)  107–8 Ellis, Darren  32–34 Escobar, Pablo  2 narco-trafficking  2, 96 war on drugs  2 Extractivism 4–6, 31–32, 36–37, 60, 61–62, 64–65, 66, 69–70, 74, 76–78, 81–82, 87–90, 92, 95–96, 97–98, 116, 122–23, 137–39, 155–57, 159–60, 169–71 agribusiness 4–6, 77–78 deforestation 4–6, 10–12, 31–32, 52, 64, 103–4, 133–36, 147–48 mega dam constructions 4–6, 10–12, 31–32, 163–64 energy extraction  10–12 open-pit silver mines  76–77 Eng, David 15–18, 149–50, 163–64 Environmental destruction 2, 10–12, 53–54, 59–60, 62–63, 64–65, 81–82, 97–98, 127–28, 133–36 Ettinger, Brach L.  72–74 Evans, Brad 15–18, 20, 69–70, 71–74, 92, 118, 169–71

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Faflack, Joel  32–34 Fair Associates ( JASS)  150–54 Fanon, Frantz 15–18, 20, 29–31, 43, 70–80, 92 Fault Lines  154–55 Feldman, Allen 86–87, 92 Ferguson, Adam 20, 27, 118, 140, 174 Fernández, Víctor 83–85, 150–54 Filibuster  76–77 Finn fund Bank 80, 160–63 Flores, Austra Berta 97–98, 100–3 Flores, Daisy 143, 166 Flores, Martha 77–78, 92 Ford Foundation  150–54 Fotta, Martin  89–90 Foucault, Michel 15–18, 27, 96, 98–100, 113, 116–17, 118 Foundation Helmut Frenz  62 Foundation of the Law in Spain  150–54 Frank, Adam 32–34, 43 Frank, Dana 20, 140, 166 Frente Nacional de Resistencia Popular  121–22 Freud, Sigmund 43, 166 Frías, Jose 127–28, Front Line Defenders  150–54 Furtak, Rich  32–34 G.N. Apell  8–9 Galeano, Eduardo 37–38, 43 Gámez, Francisco 106–7, 109 García Torres, Miriam 81–82, 92 García, Nelson 4–6, 86–87, 143–44 García, Sergio  25–26 García, Tomás 83–85, 87 Garifuna 9–10, 15–18, 77–80, 110–11, 127–28, 150–54, 159–60 Genocide 26–27, 72–76 Gebara, Ivone 55–58, 63–64, 66, 169–71 Giraldo Díaz, Reinaldo 98–100, 118 Global Witness  4–6 Goldman Environmental Prize 2, 3, 5, 99, 101, 108, 130, 157–58 Gómez Membreño, Tomás  106–7 Gómez, Thomas  83–85 González, Carlos  127

González, Isela  6–8 Gordon, Lewis 20, 70–71, 74–76, 87–89, 92 Gould, Carol 15–18, 20, 123–27, 137–39, 140 Graham, Daniel 78–80, 92, 96, 100–3, 118 Green economy 10–12, 20 Greenwald, Jordan 43, 174 Gregg, Melissa 20, 27–28, 36–37, 43 Group of Family Members of the Politically Executed (AFEP)  127–28 Grupo Asesor Internacional de Personas Expertas (GAIPE) 86–87, 115, 150–54, 166 Guajiquiro  1 Guapinol  127–29 Guattari, Félix 12–14, 27–28 Gunew, Sneja 12–14, 34–36 Guerras del interior 6–8, 20 H.R. 1945 Berta Cáceres Human Rights in Honduras Act 144–46, 166 Hammer Museum 157–58, 166 Hardin, Garret  20 Hardt, Michael 29–31, 43 Harvey, David 74–76, 92 Healing as resisting 122–23, 133–36,  137–39 Held, Virginia 122–23, 140 Helsinger, Elizabeth 159–60, 166 Hemmings, Clare 15–18, 20, 29–31, 43, 123–25, 137–39, 140 Hernández Gutiérrez, José Rolando  108 Hernández, Henry  150–54 Herrera, Fabricio 78–80, 92 Hobbes, Thomas  27 Honduran Court of Appeals  174 Honduras Solidarity Network 122–23,  137–39 Hope 27–28, 32–34, 40–41, 69–70, 83–85, 96, 98–100, 110–11, 114–15, 121–22, 127–28, 131, 143, 144–46, 155–57, 159–63, 169–71, 173–74 as crisis 15–18, 160–63 Hutchings, Kimberly 87–89, 92, 97–100, 118

index 

Indigenous Environment Network (IEN)  160–63 Indigenous cosmologies 6–8, 12–14, 74–76 composturas 8–9, 105–6, 109–10, 155–57 Indignados 31–32, 52, 103–4, 127–28 Intersectionality 15–18, 38–40, 53–55, 57–58, 105–6, 169–71 of struggles 12–14, 15–18, 41–42, 103–4, 122–28, 131, 137–39, 169–71 José Méndez, María 64, 131–33 Justice environmental 2, 47–48, 52, 54–55, 66, 69–70, 111–13, 118, 144–46, 147–48, 155–57 social 2–3, 6–8, 10–15, 25–26, 29, 31–32, 36–37, 38–41, 48, 52–53, 54–55, 57–58, 61–63, 64–65, 89–90, 95–96, 98–103, 106–7, 109–11, 113, 115–16, 122–25, 127–28, 130–33, 137–39, 143, 144–46, 147–48, 149–54, 160–64, 169–71 Kaimowitz, Eliana 111–13, 118 Kazanjian, David 15–18, 20, 163–64, 166 Knight Reyes, Lissien Lisseth  85–86 Knowledges ancestral 15–18, 169–71, 173–74 Indigenous 121–22, 137–39 Kretz, Lisa 160–63, 166 Kumeyaay nation  127–28 La Esperanza 1–3, 5, 106, 108, 160–63 Ladino 2–3, 8–9, 78–80 Laduke, Winona 63–64, 66 Lander, Edgardo  77–78 Landman, Karen 20, 92, 147–48 Lara, Hervi  127–28 Las Revoluciones de Berta 15–18, 20, 92, 95–96, 98–100, 103–4, 118, 129–30, 140 Latin America as a commodity frontier  74–76 Latin American economies re-primarization of  77–78 Lempira 8–9, 106–7

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Lenca 2–3, 8–9, 10–14, 15–18, 20, 26–27, 29, 31–32, 40–41, 60, 62–64, 69–74, 78–89, 92, 95–107, 108–12, 113, 115–16, 121–27, 130, 131–37, 140, 144–46, 147–49, 150–54, 155–58, 159–60, 163–64, 169–71, 174 Lennard, Natasha 20, 71–72, 92, 174 Levitas, Ruth 173, 174 Ley de Minería  78–80 Ley de Policía Militar del Orden Público  78–80 Ley de Promoción a la Generación de Energía Eléctrica con Recursos Renovables  78–80 Ley de Zonas de Empleo y Desarrollo   78–80 Ley General de Aguas  78–80 Lira, Alicia  127–28 Lobo Sosa, Porfirio 78–80, 85–86, 103–4 Loperena, Christopher 4–6, 20, 83–85, 92 López Benítez, Liliam Esperanza  107–8 Lucas, Ducan 32–34, 43 MacGregor, Sherilyn 133–37, 140 Macón, Cecilia 34–36, 43 Maddison, Stephen 32–34 Manning, Erin 32–34, 43 Martínez, Francisco  143–44 Martínez, Oscar 71–72, 83–85 Maruyama, Masatsugu  140 Massumi, Brian 12–14, 15–18, 20, 27–31, 32–34, 36–37, 38–40, 43, 51–52, 57–58, 69–70, 71–72, 87–89, 92, 95–96, 98–100, 116–17, 160–63, 166, 169–71, 174 Mbembe, Achille  166 Melancholia 15–18, 43, 146–47, 149–50 activist 15–18, 143, 149–57, 159–63 depathologized  15–18 restitutive and restorative  146 Melgar, Fredy 2–3, 20 Menchú, Rigoberta 25–26, 40–41, 97–98 Méndez, Desiderio  85–86 Méndez, María José 64, 131–33, 140 Micheletti, Roberto  125–27

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Mies, Maria 12–14, 48–52, 62–63, 66, 133–36, 169–71, 174 Miranda, Miriam 2, 9–10, 110–11 Mohanty, Chandra 15–18, 20, 123–28, 140, 169–71, 174 Molano Rodríguez, Jorge E. 92, 150–54, 166 Molina, Aureliano  85–86 Moore, James 72–74, 92 Mourning 15–18, 20, 96, 115, 143, 144–50 anticipatory grieving 15–18, 155–57, 159–60 alternative 149–50, 163–64 beyond the human 147–48, 163–64 resistant 15–18, 146, 149–54, 155–58, 160–64 restitutive  155–57 Morales, Evo 77–78, 92, 105 Moraña, Mabel 31, 34–36, 43, 174 More, Thomas  172 Morrison, Mary Irene 172, 173–74 Mounk, Yascha 77–78, 92 Natality 15–18, 25, 87, 95–96, 97–98, 116–17, 171–72 politics of life 87, 160–63, 171–72 National Geographic 4–8, 20 Navarro, Maria Antonia  127–28 Necropolitics 95–96, 143–44, 166, 173–74 politics of death 12–14, 95–96, 143–46 political regimes of disappearance  86–87 Neoliberalism xvi, 8–9, 15–18, 25–26, 29, 87–89, 97–98, 105, 122–23, 125–27, 130–31, 133–37, 143–44, 150–54, 169, 173–74 Noble, Andra 34–37, 43 Novelas de la tierra 12–14, 58–59 Nuñez, Susy 78–80, 92 Open Society Foundation  150–54 Organización Fraternal Negra Hondureña (OFRANEH) 2, 9–10, 38–40, 78–80, 86–87, 110–11, 122–23, 143–44, 159–60, 173–74

Orlando Hernández, Juan 103–4, 125–27, 150–54, 166 Ortíz, Solano 81–82, 92 Outrage 15–18, 26–27, 36–37, 95, 96–104, 114–15, 116–17, 118, 121–22, 123–28, 131, 137–39, 140, 144–46, 159–63, 169–71, 173–74 as resistant action 15–18, 97–98, 137–39 as affect  97–98 as decolonizing affect  97–98 as moral sentiment  97–98 Oscar Romero Committee  127–28 Otros Mundos 127–28, 140 Parr, Adrian 72–74, 92 Pateman, Carole 74–76, 92 Pedwell, Carolyn 123–25, 140 Pine, Adrianne 83–85, 92 Platform for Honduras in Madrid 127–28 Political impunity 4–8, 129–30, 150–54, 169–71 Pontes, Felicio 115, 118 Posocco, Silvia  92 Power power over 15–18, 71–72, 77–78, 81–82, 87–89, 98–100, 116–17, 169–71 power to 15–18, 69–70, 71–72, 87–89, 95–96, 98–100 Probyn, Elspeth 12–14, 27–28, 29–31, 32–34, 43, 51–52, 169–71, 174 Proleptic elegies 15–18, 154, 155–57,  163–64 Radio Progreso 20, 125–27, 157–58, 166 Rae, Patricia 15–18, 20, 149–54, 155–57, 163–64, 166 Rápalo Orellana, Elvin Eriberto  150–54 Reagan, Ronald  4 Real World Radio  110–11 Rebeldía Inclaudicable 15–18, 20, 106, 110–12, 118 Red Latinoamericana Contra Represas  103–4 Reina, Carlos Roberto  100–3

index 

Rep. Hank Johnson (D-GA), US  160–63 Resilience 8, 10–12, 36–37, 70–71, 95–96, 144–46, 150–54, 163–64 Resistance 6–8, 10–12, 15–18, 20, 31–32, 36–37, 52, 60, 61–62, 66, 69–70, 71–72, 81–82, 87–89, 95–96, 97–104, 106–7, 109, 110–11, 113, 116–17, 118, 121–31, 133–37, 140, 144–46, 147–48, 149–54, 155–57, 160–64, 169–72, 173–74 Ress, Mary Judith 55–57, 63–64, 66, 133–36, 137–39, 169–71, 174 Reyes Castillo, Marleny  107–8 Rights 12–14, 38–40, 51–52, 85–86, 92, 107–8, 111–12, 137–39, 159–60 cultural  110–11 human 2–3, 4–8, 15–18, 20, 25–26, 48–51, 64–65, 83–85, 110–13, 114–15, 121–22, 123–27, 128–30, 143–46, 150–54, 160–63, 166 Indigenous 25–26, 31, 70–71, 77–80, 89–90, 100–3, 105, 106–7, 127–28, 157–58 land 38–40, 54–55, 97–103, 111–12, 113, 115–16, 118, 121–22, 127–28, 129–30, 150–54 LGTBQ+  25 of the dispossessed 25–26, 48 territorial 2, 87–89 women’s 103–4, 105, 127–28 Río Blanco 80–85, 87–89, 108–9, 143–44, 150–54, 155–58 Río Chiquito  4–6 Río Gualcarque 12–14, 15–18, 26–27, 40–41, 62–63, 64, 78–80, 87–89, 108–9, 121–22, 131–33, 144–46, 147–48, 149–57, 159–63, 169–71 Robben, Antonious 143–44, 166 Rodríguez Orellana, Sergio Ramón   150–54 Rodríguez, Jacobo  85–86 Roldán Vargas, Ofelia 15–18, 96–98, 118 Roquet, Paul 32–34, 43 Rothko Chapel’s Oscar Romero Human Rights Award  2

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Ruiz, Elías 2–3, 20 Ruiz, Pablo  127–28 Salvato, Nick 32–34, 43 Sampson, Tony 32–34, 43 Sánchez Prado, Ignacio M.  43 Sandoval, Chela 20, 96, 114–15, 118, 131, 169–71 Sarabia, Jasser  85–86 Sassen, Saskia 20, 70–71, 92 Saxon, Dan 92, 150–54 Schneider-Mayerson, Matthew 112–13, 118 Sedgwick, Eve 29–31, 43 Seigworth, Gregory J. 20, 27–28, 36–37, 43 Settler violence 4–6, 20, 92 Shaviro, Steven  29 Shiva, Vandana 12–14, 48–53, 62–63, 66, 122–23, 133–36, 169–71, 174 Sicario 2 Simecek, Karen 32–34, 43 Sinohydro 40–41, 85–86, 121–22, 160–63 Skidmore, Thomas 2–3, 20, 25–26, 76–77, 125–27, 140 Smith, Frank Dylan 89–90, 92 Smith, Peter H. 2–3, 20, 25–26, 76–77, 125–27, 140 SOA Watch, Chile  127–28 Solastalgia 15–18, 20, 154, 155–57, 163–64, 166 Soluri, John 74–76, 92 Solidarity 6–8, 9–10, 12–14, 15–18, 25–26, 51–53, 54–55, 57–59, 72–74, 96, 103–4, 105–7, 109–10, 111–13, 116, 121–31, 133–36, 137–39, 140, 143–54, 160–64, 166, 173–74 affective 6–8, 20, 38–41, 43, 69–70, 121, 122–25, 129–30, 133–36, 137–39, 140 transnational solidarity 15–18, 38–40, 47–48, 51–52, 61–62, 64–65, 105–6, 114–15, 116, 122–27, 129–30, 150–54, 157–58, 169–71, 173–74 emancipatory modes of 121–22, 125–27, 128–29, 131, 137–39,  159–60

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Spinoza, Baruch 12–14, 20, 27–28, 43, 98–100, 118, 174 Spirituality 40–41, 64, 96, 131–36 Spivak, Gayatri 15–18, 20, 160–63, 174 Subaltern actors 77–78, 169–71 Survival 2–3, 6–8, 26–27, 38–41, 48–53, 57–58, 61–62, 64–65, 92, 95–96, 123–25, 131–33, 173–74 Svampa, Maristella  61, 68 Tally, Robert  173–74 Taussig, Michael 160–63, 174 Terra nullius 74–76 The Atlantic 77–78, 92 The Guardian 118, 125–27, 150–54, 160–63, 166 The Huffington Post 125–27 The New York Times 150–54 The Washington Post 150–54 Ticineto Clough, Patricia  27, 43 Tomkins, Silvan 29–31, 32–36, 51–52, 66 Torres Velásquez, Oscar Aroldo  150–54 Tropical Trading Transport Company  2–3 Tzotzil  129–30 United Fruit Company 2–3, 4–6, 25–26, 74–76 Henry Meiggs Keith 2–3, 74–76 Minor Cooper Keith 2–3, 74–76 United Nations 10–12, 20, 105, 108–9 United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples  105 Urbina Martínez, Miguel Ángel 86–87, 92, 150–54, 166 Uribe Tirado, Liliana María 86–87, 92, 150–54, 166 US House of Representatives  160–63 USAID  80 Utopia 171–72, 173–74 as affect 169, 171–72 reimagination of 171–72, 173–74 Vásquez, Pascualita  106–7 Vázquez, Juan  4–6

Vernay, Jean-Francois 32–34, 43 Vértiz, Francisco 77–78, 89–90, 92 Violence 2–3, 4–6, 10–12, 15–18, 20, 26–28, 36–37, 38–40, 48–51, 54–55, 58–59, 60, 61–63, 69–89, 92, 95–98, 106, 107–10, 118, 121–33, 143–46, 147–48, 150–54, 160–63, 166, 169–71, 174 as negative affect 12–14, 15–18, 69 colonial 12–14, 173–74 institutional 10–12, 15–18, 143–44, 169–71, 173–74 legitimate 72–74, 81–82, 83–85 useful 15–18, 70–71, 169–71 systemic violence 15–18, 31–32, 83–85, 128–29, 131, 133–36, 137–39,  150–54 state 4–6, 25–26, 34–36 settler 4–6, 92 Vulnerability 15–18, 26–27, 72–74, 77–78, 81–82, 83–85, 97–98, 111–12, 118, 125–28, 130–31, 144–46, 147–49, 150–55, 163–64, 169–71 intersectional  127–28 shared 15–18, 97–98, 147–48, 163–64   Walker, William  76–77 Wells, Christian 8–9, 20 Wells, H.G.  32–34 Woolf, Virginia  32–34   Yancy, George  72–74 Youth of Honduras United in the Defense of Territory and Culture  110–11   Zárate, Joseph 6–8, 20 Zelaya, Manuel 4–6, 15–18, 78–80, 121–22, 125–27 Zone of non-being 15–18, 70–71, 81–82, 87–89 Zournazi, Mary 20, 160–63, 166 Zuñiga, Salvador 97–98, 100–3 Zuñiga Cáceres, Bertha 121, 150–54 Zuñiga Cáceres, Laura 26–27, 69,  143–44