Globalizations

ISSN: 1474-7731 (Print) 1474-774X (Online) Journal homepage: http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/rglo20

The Andean Catch-22: ethnicity, class and resource

governance in Bolivia and Ecuador

Rickard Lalander & Magnus Lembke

To cite this article: Rickard Lalander & Magnus Lembke (2018): The Andean Catch-22:
ethnicity, class and resource governance in Bolivia and Ecuador, Globalizations, DOI:
10.1080/14747731.2018.1453189

To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.1080/14747731.2018.1453189

Published online: 28 Mar 2018.

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GLOBALIZATIONS, 2018
https://doi.org/10.1080/14747731.2018.1453189

The Andean Catch-22: ethnicity, class and resource governance in

Bolivia and Ecuador
a b
Rickard Lalander and Magnus Lembke
a
School of Natural Sciences, Technology and Environmental Studies, Södertörn University, Huddinge, Sweden; bInstitute
of Latin American studies, Stockholm University, Stockholm, Sweden

ABSTRACT KEYWORDS
This study deals with the tensions and contradictions between resource Ecosocialism; Sumak Kawsay/
governance, welfare policies, and the constitutionally recognized rights of Vivir Bien; class-ethnicity;
nature and the indigenous peoples in Bolivia and Ecuador. We have resource governance;
indigenous peoples
identified a certain reductionism in current debates on these issues and
propose a more systematic analytical focus on class and the class-ethnicity
duality, as expressed in historical and contemporary indigenous struggles,
and also confirmed via our ethnographic material. Drawing on the double
bind as expressed in Joseph Heller’s Catch-22 wherein the protagonists face
situations in which they do not have any choice to achieve a net gain, this
article centres on how national governments have to choose between the
protections of rights – in this case ethnic and environmental rights – and
welfare provision financed by extractive revenues. From the perspective of
ecologically concerned indigenous actors, the Catch-22 is articulated in the
choice or compromise between universal welfarism on the one hand, and
ethno-environmental concerns on the other hand. The article draws primarily
on ecosocialist arguments and on indigenous-culturalist perspectives on
Good Life (Sumak Kawsay or Vivir Bien). A central finding is the existence of
awareness among involved actors – oppositional movements and
government authorities – that the Catch-22 quandary and joint class-ethnic
concerns are unavoidable ingredients in their discourses, struggles, and
understandings of Good Life.

Contextualization
There was only one catch and that was Catch-22 … (Heller, 1961/1995, p. 56)

Several intellectuals have interpreted Sumak Kawsay and socialism and adapted it to their way of viewing
things. I think they wish to adapt it to classical socialism; to bring back socialism and give it certain iden-
tity through the visions of Sumak Kawsay … (Alfredo Viteri Gualinga, interview, Quito, 12 March 2015)

An increasingly disputed opinion is that the current Leftist governments of Bolivia and Ecuador have
positioned themselves as leading advocates of progressive climate policies around the world, placing
indigenous principles of well-being, co-existence and harmony with nature on the agenda. This poli-
tico-ideological path – sometimes labelled Sumak Kawsay Socialism (Ramírez Gallegos, 2010) or the
Communitarian Socialism of Vivir Bien (García Linera, 2011) – challenges the connotations of wel-
fare, development, common good and so forth, and calls for climate consciousness on a global level.
This study deals with the central contradictions between extractivism, welfare policies, and the

CONTACT Rickard Lalander rickard.lalander@sh.se; Magnus Lembke magnus.lembke@lai.su.se

© 2018 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group
2 R. LALANDER AND M. LEMBKE

constitutionally recognized rights of nature and the indigenous peoples in these countries, mainly
from ecosocialist and indigenous-culturalist perspectives. We specifically focus on ethnic identity
(entangled with environmental concerns), while arguing that the debates on these issues require a
more thorough analytical inclusion of class-defined rights and grievances.
The core of the new constitutions of Ecuador (2008) and Bolivia (2009) is the indigenous ethical-
philosophical notion of Sumak Kawsay/Vivir Bien, which could roughly be interpreted to good life or
living well.1 These constitutions have been labelled the most far-reaching ones of the world hitherto,
both concerning the recognition of ethnically defined grievances, such as legal pluralism, territorial
autonomy, collective rights, and the declaration of the states as intercultural and plurinational, and
also the Rights of Nature, i.e. the constitutional protection of the environment/Pachamama/Mother
Earth.2 Moreover, the rights of the indigenous peoples to prior consultation (and implicitly to Free,
Prior and Informed Consent/FPIC when new extractive projects are planned) are likewise
recognized.3
Still, the dependence on extractive activities has characterized economic development policies in
both countries also after the establishment of these constitutions, following the general global trend
of large-scale territorial management and resource booms. The contradictory traits of both the con-
stitutional texts and the actual realpolitik signify a seemingly impossible situation in which govern-
ments have to choose between the mutually excluding options of ethno-environmental rights versus
welfare reforms based on extractive development politics (e.g. Lalander, 2016, 2017).4
An analogy of this contradiction is found in the classical Catch-22 novel by Joseph Heller, where
the main characters are faced by a series of situations in which they actually do not have any choice
to achieve a net gain. This afflicting communicational dilemma, or double bind, in practice means
that in situations of conflicting messages it is impossible to respond to one message without refuting
the other. The Catch-22 of this article is expressed in how national governments effectively have to
choose between the protection of ethnic and environmental rights, and welfare provision financed by
extractive revenues. Other human values and economic aims may be superior vis-à-vis the safe-
guarding of environmental and ethnic rights in specific political and electoral situations, particularly
so in Andean nations still burdened by relatively high indexes of poverty. From the perspective of
ecologically concerned indigenous actors, this Catch-22 is articulated in the choice or compromise
between development in terms of social welfare conditions on the one hand, and protection of cul-
tural rights and the environment on the other hand.5
This study examines and problematizes the existence of this double bind in the discourses of key
actors in state–indigenous relationships, particularly regarding their moral-philosophical conceptu-
alizations of Sumak Kawsay/Vivir Bien, which are interpreted differently among both political actors
and scholars.6 Our argument is that a Catch-22 situation manifests itself not only between adversar-
ial camps, but also within their own discourses. Accordingly, the Catch-22 is not merely a govern-
mental dilemma, a constitutional paradox, and something that draws a demarcation line between
advocates of extractivism and defenders of nature. It is likewise internalized within environmentally
concerned indigenous actors, manifested in the choices or compromises between development in
terms of social welfare conditions (access to health, education, infrastructure, communicational tech-
nology, etc.) on the one hand, and conservation of the environment and ethno-cultural rights on the
other hand.
We argue that much of contemporary literature suffers from a reductionist tendency, biased
towards prioritizing an ethnic-environmentalist line of thought. By depicting a clash between two
groups with incompatible ambitions, the literature often downplays – or outrightly ignores – that
indigenous worldviews frequently include calls for universal citizenship rights and for class-based
 GLOBALIZATIONS 3

socio-economic equality. This is not to say that all activist scholars fail to acknowledge the impor-
tance of social justice. Eduardo Gudynas (2011), for one, launches a harsh critique against global
capitalism, largely from class-based perspectives. However, when writing on indigenous livelihoods
and Buen-Vivir, many tend to emphasize ethnic/environmental concerns.
This reorientation in academic analysis on indigenous peoples in Latin America, from an under-
standing of class-ethnic co-existence in the 1990s, to recent years’ focus almost exclusively on the
ethnic-environmental axis is unfortunate for two principal reasons. Firstly, by subordinating the
class perspectives a discrepancy is created vis-à-vis those indigenous groups who in defending threa-
tened livelihoods frequently call for socio-economic justice. Secondly, the reorientation discredits the
historical evolution of the indigenous movements. The politicization of ethnic cleavages in Latin
America, the evolutional construction of modern-day indigeneity, contemporary attempts to con-
struct intercultural arenas of interaction, and the defence of nature are processes still enmeshed
in both class-based and ethnically oriented lines of discourses and forms of struggle.
How to explain this reductionist tendency? Drawing on John Bellamy Foster’s ecosocialist
thoughts (2002, 2005), we presume that it owes to the tension-ridden intellectual exchange between
scholars and activists calling for social justice, and those who emphasize environmental concerns
(Foster, 2002, p. 50). One effect of this is that ‘not just deep ecologists but also mainstream environ-
mental groups commonly distance themselves from workers’ and that they are less ‘inclined to adopt
the language of class’, taking on a kind of ‘“that’s not our problem” attitude’ (Foster, 2002, p. 120).
By bringing class-based reasoning more systematically into the debate of Sumak Kawsay/Vivir
Bien, we present an alternative view which challenges this reductionism. As the Amazonian co-foun-
der of the Ecuadorian indigenous movement Alfredo Viteri emphasizes in the introductory quota-
tion, it is time to ‘bring back socialism’ amidst Sumak Kawsay. Bringing class back into the analysis
of indigenous discourses and struggles also challenges the manichaeistic understanding of the state–
indigenous liaisons, albeit recognizing that the overarching aim of the indigenous peoples is deco-
lonialization, a struggle that frequently places these peoples at loggerheads with the capitalist dimen-
sions of resource governance.
The tensions between ethnic-ecological rights-based claims and class-based redistributive justice
are accentuated by the fact that a neoliberal global capitalist order exerts tremendous pressure on
national politics in the Global South. The leeway of the Andean states is significantly circumscribed.
They are often forced to insert themselves into the logic of profit-maximizing northern-led develop-
mentalism, thus bringing to life the negativity of extractivism. No wonder, then, that a suspicion
emerges that the progressive model of resource governance is but a diversional manoeuvre of global
capitalism, thus allowing the entry of extractivist enterprises into hitherto less exploited habitats of
ethnically defined peoples. Against this backdrop, a response among environmentally concerned
scholars and activists engaged in analysing Andean realities has been to seek alternatives in ancestral
cosmovisions of the original inhabitants. At the centre of this counter-discursive forefront lie the
ethical-philosophical notions of Sumak Kawsay/Vivir Bien. It is important, though, that the search
for an alternative understanding does neither reduce the importance of class, nor the acknowledge-
ment that resource governance to a large extent also includes this perspective.
Theoretically and methodologically, the article is inspired by critical environmental sociology,
mainly ecosocialist thought. Drawing on and partly developing the argument of Le Quang and Ver-
coutère (2013), we argue that acknowledging the complexity of the Catch-22 quandary requires a
systematic juxtaposition of ecosocialism and Sumak Kawsay/Vivir Bien, paying attention to both
tensions and compatibilities between them. The ecosocialist logics are present not only among
spokespersons of the state, but also, as will be illustrated, among ethno-ecologist oppositional actors.
4 R. LALANDER AND M. LEMBKE

The article is based on ethnographic research, hundreds of semi-structured interviews in Ecuador

and Bolivia realized between 2008 and 2017, and analyses of academic, government, and media
documents.
After the contextualization presented above, the disposition of the article is as follows. First, a brief
theoretical discussion centred in ecosocialist thought. Subsequently, the Sumak Kawsay/Suma
Qamaña/Vivir Bien concepts are concisely presented. Next, our ‘bringing class back in’-argument
is further developed, followed by a brief section on the political background. Before rounding off
with some pertinent conclusions, two analytical sections focus the class-ethnicity-ecologism tensions
and how the Catch-22 is expressed and dealt with among the central actors.

Ecologism, good life and the ecosocialist challenge

Socialism also cannot make any real headway unless it is ecological in the sense of promoting a sustain-
able relation to the environment, since any other approach threatens the well-being and even survival of
the human species, along with all other species with which we share the earth. (Foster, 2005)

The article draws on, and sympathizes with, the growing awareness that a globally expanding capi-
talist system – in which progress in the Global North is largely financed by means of mineral, hydro-
carbon, and agricultural extractivism in the Global South – is at odds with the call for global equity
and contradicts our shared human responsibility to preserve nature. In line with this reasoning, the
world is already crossing ‘critical ecological thresholds’ (Foster, 2002, p. 46). Such rethinking requires
alternative notions of development. Viewing nature as a necessity for human survival clashes with
the notion of linear, Eurocentric and capitalist development.
Ecosocialism (or eco-Marxism) is a fusion of red and green politico-ideological beliefs. In
environmental sociology as well as in the socio-environmental movement struggle, the ecosocia-
list tradition focuses on the consequences of modernity and capitalism on the well-being of
humans and nature. Foster (2002) and Michael Löwy (2005) emphasize that social inequality
and injustices on the domestic level as well as inequalities between North and South are funda-
mental obstacles in the struggle towards more eco-friendly societies. The resistance to global
capitalism in öless developed’ nations is accentuated in ecosocialist studies (Löwy, 2005) as
also the critique of the development concept (which is a common trait of the Andean advocates
of Vivir Bien/Sumak Kawsay).
Ecosocialists are principally anthropocentric and pragmatic, i.e. they consider human needs in the
first place. This can be compared with the more ecocentric or biocentric views of radical or deep
ecologists and post-developmentalists who generally place ecological concerns first. Nonetheless,
the promotion of alternative visions on development cannot neglect that traditional economic devel-
opment – when aiming at ensuring basic needs for the poor – is of utmost importance for the Global
South. Instead of emphasizing the need for alternative development, we may speak in terms of suffi-
cient development. That ambition, however modest it may be, requires an acceptance that the South
to a certain degree, and in certain responsible forms, must take advantage of its ‘abundant natural
resources’ (Andrade, 2016, p. 131). As Andrade argues, under special circumstances a benevolent
relationship may exist (Andrade, 2016, p. 117). Or, in the words of Foster:
Does this mean that those concerned with the fate of the earth should abandon the goal of development
altogether? The answer is no. Economic development is still needed in the poorer regions of the world.
But more than ever before what is also needed is a critique of development … A more ecological form of
social development is possible but only if the maldevelopment, which now goes under the name of devel-
opment, is addressed. Such a form is about having enough, not having more. It must have as its first
 GLOBALIZATIONS 5

priority people, particularly poor people, rather than profits or production, and must stress the impor-
tance of meeting basic needs and ensuring long term security. (Foster, 2002, pp. 80–81)

This line of reasoning corresponds with our conviction that class perspectives on global capitalism
are important for grasping the whole picture of socio-environmental politics and struggle in the
Andean region. However, it also suffers from significant reductionism in that it does not pay suffi-
cient attention to ethnic and cultural components.

Sumak Kawsay/Vivir Bien

The conception of a linear process that establishes a previous and posterior state does not exist, i.e.
between sub-development and development respectively, as is the case in societies of a European fram-
ing. Neither do the concepts of wealth and poverty exist, as an axis of accumulation or lack of material
belongings or access to social services. There is an integrating vision of what the mission of human ambi-
tion should be, which consists of the search and creation of material, environmental and spiritual con-
ditions to achieve and maintain Súmak Káusai, which is the ideal of a ‘Good way of Living’ or
‘harmonious life’. (Viteri Gualinga, 2003, p. iii)

The Amazonian Kichwa-Sarayaku territory of the Ecuadorian Pastaza province is recognized as the
intellectual cradle of Sumak Kawsay (Cubillo-Guevara & Hidalgo-Capitán, 2015). The historical
Kichwa-Sarayaku leader Carlos Viteri Gualinga and his brothers were among the firsts to intellectua-
lize the conception of Sumak Kawsay since the early 1990s. As reflected in the citation, the concept of
development does not even exist in the cosmovision of the Kichwa peoples.7 Sumak Kawsay thus
emerges as an alternative to the idea of development.
Multi-scientist Anders Sirén, who has lived in Sarayaku for years, examined the Sumak Kawsay/
Buen-Vivir concept as understood among local indigenous actors of Sarayaku in the late 1990s and
early 2000s, i.e. years before the concept was introduced as a political instrument at the national level.
In his ethnographic material, divergent interpretations among the Sarayaku inhabitants are
expressed, from issues related to a harmonious and peaceful life, good health, study opportunities,
etc. to respondents emphasizing matters associated with development as progress (‘making
money’ or improving infrastructure) (Sirén, 2005, pp. 151–152). Thus, we have before us a complex-
ity of significances, including culturally, environmentally, and socio-economically oriented
preferences.
Later on, non-indigenous intellectuals such as economist Alberto Acosta (2012) and social ecol-
ogist Eduardo Gudynas (2009, 2011) have contributed interpretations of Sumak Kawsay/Buen-vivir
amidst the trailblazing 2008 Constitution of Ecuador in terms of a post-development and suspension
of the conception of progress. Many advocates of Sumak Kawsay suggest that development/progress
as most people understand it is unnecessary. Individual as well as national economic ‘progress’ and
‘well-being’ concerning material belongings and capital accumulation and so forth (according to tra-
ditional notions of development) should be compared with a life in harmony with the environment
and other human beings (e.g. Albó & Galindo, 2012, p. 32), without the burden of global capitalism
on nations and of consumptionism on individuals and collectives.
In Bolivia, one of the firsts to theorize and intellectualize the Aymaran concept of Suma Qamaña
was sociologist Simón Yampara Huarachi. He recalls how he as a university student of sociology in
the late 1970s started to reflect upon the possibility to understand Marxist thinking through the
cultural knowledge of the Aymaras:
We studied Marxism as a response to capitalism, and I had some difficulties in understanding these the-
ories so I started to ask myself: How do we express this in Aymara? I have to find a word to express
6 R. LALANDER AND M. LEMBKE

economics if the economy is the motor of society and the struggle of classes. In our Aymara tradition, it
seemed as if neither class struggle nor the economy was that important. I thought of our lives and how to
have a good life, with our religious instructions and knowledge on how to live together with others, not
only caring for ourselves, not to cause pain to your close human beings … As a conclusion of these spiri-
tual reconsiderations I thought: ‘Here’s the word: Suma’. And that’s the origin of Suma Qamaña. So I tell
my teacher: ‘Here we don’t speak about the economy, we communicate around the notion of Suma
Qamaña’. Damned, everybody just stared strangely at me. (interview, La Paz, 14 April 2015)

It is important to be sensitive to time and context. In the 1970s, ‘modern’ indigenous mobilization was
still in its cradle, an emerging movement anxious to find its proper expression in a context of resistance
marked by an almost exclusive focus on class. Even though Yampara Huarachi initiated these reflec-
tions already by the late 1970s, it was only towards the late 1990s that the Suma Qamaña doctrine was
more broadly and systematically intellectualized in Bolivia (e.g. Huanacuni Mamani, 2015; Medina,
2001; Yampara Huarachi, 2016). Anthropologist Xavier Albó and sociologist Fernando Galindo
(2012, pp. 31–32) view Suma Qamaña – as well as Sumak Kawsay and Vivir Bien – as social and ideo-
logical constructions, that is, situational concepts in constant flux, albeit rooted in ancient indigenous
practices and philosophies: a syncretism of modernity and ethno-cultural traditions.
For sociologist Philipp Altmann, Buen-Vivir and Sumak Kawsay are not as much ecological as
territorial and locally situated concepts, tightly linked to the decolonial struggle for political auton-
omy within the framework of the plurinational state. In his view, this place-based logic is widely neg-
lected in current discourses (2017, pp. 749–752). Drawing on Arturo Escobar, he emphasizes that the
struggles of the Ecuadorian indigenous peoples ‘have to be understood as “the defense of particular,
place-based historical conceptions of the world and practices of world-making”’ (2017, p. 754). In
order to understand the true meaning of Buen-Vivir and Sumak Kawsay we cannot, he argues, main-
tain the idea of ‘ … the state as central institution for good politics of good life’ (2017, p. 757).
We agree with Altmann that these concepts are fundamentally placed-based, though emphasizing
the importance of adding elements of the constructivist reasoning of Albó and Galindo (2012). For
us, Buen-Vivir and Sumak Kawsay are notions combining various perspectives and analytical tra-
ditions (e.g. indigenous culturalism, post-developmentalism, ecosocialism, and/or universal welfarist
ideas). In order to understand these dynamics, and to connect to the historical struggle of the indi-
genous movement, an inclusion of class-based reasoning is warranted.8

Bringing class back in

Political scientist Thea Riofrancos convincingly stresses that communities ‘residing in the spatial
proximity of the process of extraction’ evolve into ‘primary sites of contentious action’ (2017,
p. 682). These communities are most affected since they have to bear the direct environmental
and socio-economic costs for the extraction. Much of the revenues from extractivism end up in
the coffers of the transnational corporations. Yet, to a much larger extent than in the case of the neo-
liberal state apparatuses, some parts also reach into the redistributive programmes of the state. For
some, though, these revenues only finances modest welfarism. Recognizing the importance of a class-
based perspective, Gudynas (2015, pp. 313–332) argues that we have before us a compensatory state,
that is, an entity which seeks legitimacy by modest cash-transfer redistribution to the poorest, with-
out affecting the deep-seated power structures of society. Put shortly, while the costs of extractivism
to a large extent are particularized, the benefits from welfare programmes are universalized.
It may seem logical to claim that particularity is at the centre of indigenous discourse and resist-
ance. This line of reasoning is anchored in two assumptions: (1) that the welfare programmes of the
 GLOBALIZATIONS 7

progressive extractivist governments are insufficiently tackling structural injustices and (2) that indi-
genous peoples act more or less solely in their capacity as ‘most affected peoples’. The pitfall is that
such an argument obliviates the fact that universalism and class-defined struggle are equally impor-
tant elements of indigeneity.
More important than discussing the scope of welfarism is to acknowledge that part of the revenues
from extractivism end up in welfare programmes that address the poor and needy in their capacity as
universal citizens. An alternative understanding starts by emphasizing that the new progressive gov-
ernment indeed has ‘recovered institutional tools and options by becoming an economically relevant
player and, in certain cases, an agent of redistribution’ (Svampa, 2013, p. 126) and continues by stres-
sing that indigenous peoples – vis-à-vis such a government – also make appeal to their role as uni-
versal citizens.
Consequently, indigenous peoples and organizations frequently navigate between seemingly
divergent discourses and identities (e.g. Valdivia, 2005). For some scholars, such a dual universalis-
tic-particularistic struggle rests on contradictory claims. Others would stress that these are equally
important claims but that the granting of particularistic indigenous rights is currently more impor-
tant, since they constitute a necessary platform upon which a wider struggle for universal citizenship
subsequently may be launched. A third position, embraced in this article, is that the universalistic
and particularistic dimensions reinforce each other. This viewpoint takes issue with the ‘indigeniza-
tion of Buen-vivir’. It acknowledges that the subjects aiming at enhancing participatory democracy in
areas of extractivism are not only to be defined as ‘most affected people’ living in harmony with
nature, but also as universal citizens calling for equal access to the welfare state.
Some scholars emphasize that extractivism and – in its wake – an increasingly repressive state
have produced ‘deeper restrictions on calls for democratization by communities and villages … ’
(Svampa, 2013, p. 128). We are less categorical with regard to the relationship between resource
dependency and democracy. It is important to highlight that re-primarization, the commodity
boom of recent years, and the governmental turn to progressive extractivism have produced an
intensified bottom-up quest for a participative democracy, grounded in universal as well as particular
rights-based struggles. As Riofrancos argues: ‘ … both resource extraction and new modes of demo-
cratic participation have become intensely politicized’ (2017, p. 679).
Certainly, progressive extractivism generally produces environmental and cultural deterioration
and an accentuation of a dependent and weak position in the global division of labour. However,
it also generates policies of state redistribution and the mushrooming of local social fabrics charac-
terized by the democratic innovativeness of indigenous peoples acting in the interface of universal-
ism (welfare) and particularism (indigenous rights). Finding manageable solutions to the Catch-22
quandary is part of the everyday struggle.
However, focusing on the dual capacity of the indigenous peoples, as ethnically defined peoples
and universal citizens, we wish to distance ourselves from the view of the political landscape as
formed by actors shifting their identity depending on scales. We argue that problems arise when
the political landscape is portrayed as a two-layered battlefield in which advocates of universalism
act on national arenas by means of top-down political reforms and defenders of particularism act
locally by means of bottom-up everyday forms of resistance. Such a view regrettably emphasizes
and establishes the Catch-22 situation as a dilemma between adversaries. It also claims that these
agents are placed at different levels – the national and the local – and that their missions move in
distinct directions – upwards and downwards.
When the conceptualization of Sumak Kawsay/Vivir Bien is inserted into this strand of thought
it takes on the characteristics of a local, bottom-up, and inherently cohesive notion, voiced by
8 R. LALANDER AND M. LEMBKE

people engaged in particularistic rights-based struggles. Consequently, Vivir Bien appears as one of
two opposing and mutually exclusive positions in a Catch-22. This is an unfortunate reductionism.
A more fruitful approach is to anchor the understanding on Vivir Bien on the idea that all peoples,
indigenous and non-indigenous alike, act simultaneously at different levels and have plural
identities. One merit of such an understanding is the de-indigenization of Vivir Bien, that is,
although the concept has its origin and development within indigenous-led discourses, it must
also, in order to gain increasing political strength, appeal to a non-indigenous world. In order
for the concept to attract such appeal, it is important not to let the concept be circumscribed by
reductionist linkages to the romantic idea of the ‘guardians of the forest’. Rather, the Catch-22
ought to be viewed as an element integral to all concepts aiming at capturing the inner sense of
the cosmovisions and political thinking. Thus, the Catch-22 is at the very roots of Sumak
Kawsay/Vivir Bien, that is, it determines not only the position between adversaries at various levels;
it is also embedded into, and creates tensions within, the discourses of the groups and the individ-
uals inhabiting them.
Sociologist Maristella Svampa (2013, p. 127) holds that the Latin American Left, generally, has
difficulties in embracing the ecological attack on the productivist paradigm, arguing that such an
agenda emanates from rich countries in the Global North. We argue that the view of Catch-22 as
internal to indigenous discourse and praxis, including the Sumak Kawsay/Vivir Bien debate,
needs to bring the class dimension into the equation. In fact, logics and values of ecosocialism are
clearly manifested in the contemporary indigenous struggle. Reconnecting to the integrating vision
of Simón Yampara Huarachi above, we believe that the inclusion of class is important for capturing
the struggle for a ‘Good way of Living’, which, in his words, ‘consists of the search and creation of
material, environmental and spiritual conditions … ’. Our conviction is that the integration of class,
along with a focus on the tensions and coincidences between ecosocialism-Sumak Kawsay/Vivir
Bien, encapsulates the complexities in the current debates on resource governance.

Andean ecosocialism of the twenty-first century?

The left-leaning Ecuadorian and Bolivian governments have spearheaded a new progressive model of
resource governance, sometimes labelled ecosocialism (e.g. Löwy, 2014) that challenges the tra-
ditional notions of development, arguably respecting the rights of nature/the environment. As
expressed in the modified Andean judicial settings, this governance mode draws extensively on
the collective wisdom of indigenous peoples in their capacities as practitioners of ancient ‘collec-
tive-ecological modes of existence’ (Foster, 2002, pp. 85–86), simultaneously recognizing their pos-
ition as ‘most affected peoples’ at the bottom of a global division of labour.
Since the early 1990s, the Ecuadorian indigenous movement headed by the CONAIE confedera-
tion (Confederación de Nacionalidades Indígenas del Ecuador) positioned itself as the strongest and
most vociferous movement of resistance against the agents of capitalist-driven extractivism: transna-
tional companies, global finance institutions, and national governments. The struggle has been
anchored in traditional class-based demands but also, to an increasing extent, on the quest for dee-
pened autonomy and dignity as peoples. The latter vindication has been accompanied by the ILO
Convention 169 of 1989, and during the new millennium by governmental ethno-politics and world-
wide environmental concerns.
In 2006, the economist and radical catholic Rafael Correa Delgado triumphed in the presidential
elections on the platform of the PAIS Alliance (Alianza PAIS/Patria Altiva I Soberana/Proud and
Sovereign Fatherland). Once elected, plans to restructure the political system via a constitutional
 GLOBALIZATIONS 9

reform were initiated. The indigenous movement was broadly supportive since the constitutional
agenda contained numerous demands from its historical struggle.
During the first rather euphoric years of the ‘progressive’ administration of Correa (just like in
Bolivia under Morales), government authorities as well as social movement activists and academics
praised what they saw as a greening of Ecuadorian politics. They thought that this orientation would
increase the possibility to dismantle the capitalist model of development based on the extractive
industries, mainly mining and hydrocarbons (e.g. Lalander, 2016, 2017; Svampa, 2013).9
The green profile of Ecuador was triggered from 2007 onwards, i.e. already before the approval of
the progressive constitution, via the ground-breaking initiative to keep the country’s biggest proven
oil reserve in the ground, in the indigenous territory and national park of the Amazonian Yasuní
region.10 With the catchphrase of ‘leaving the oil underground’, international donors were asked
for a financial compensation corresponding to 50% of the incomes that would have been generated
from oil exploitation (co-responsibility) so as to protect the biodiversity and the indigenous peoples
of the area, some of which live in voluntary isolation. Nonetheless, due to the massive extractivist/
developmentalist pressure and in order to fulfil their social and economic commitments, state auth-
orities may be pressured to modify the judicial extension of the concerned rights (Gudynas, 2015;
Kröger & Lalander, 2016). On 15 August 2013, Correa declared the ending of the Yasuní-ITT initiat-
ive, giving green light for oil drilling. For many, this signalled that ecologically progressive politics
was now challenged by an increasing reorientation towards extractivism. Consequently, the tensions
between the Correa government and the indigenous movement were further accentuated, despite
sharing several principal objectives.
In Bolivia, mining and extractive capitalism and imperialism based on the exploitation of indigen-
ous peoples as labour force have characterized the political economy since colonial times. The pol-
itical movement around Evo Morales was in the epicentre of resource conflicts in the awakening of
the new millennium. In 2005, the former coca-growing peasant leader Morales was elected President,
representing the political party MAS (Movimiento Al Socialismo/Movement towards Socialism).
During his first years of the MAS government, the most important peasant-indigenous organizations
were unified behind Morales in the Unity Pact (Pacto de Unidad) and contributed to the rewriting of
the constitution (Postero, 2017; Schavelzon, 2012). The 2009 Constitution strengthened the position
and role of the state in the economy, as a response to the discontentment with neoliberal global capit-
alism. However, the capitalist logics of accumulation have continued, generating criticism from
many activists and scholars hoping to witness the progress of an anti-capitalist/post-capitalist project
in the country.
Unlike the Ecuadorian case in which the lion’s share of the indigenous population belongs to the
Kichwa ethnic group and one confederation (CONAIE) dominates indigenous associational life, the
ethnic identity of the Bolivian indigenous populations is more multifaceted in terms of a more diver-
sified indigenous social movement sector and a relative political power balance between the two
major ethnic groups: Quechuas and Aymaras. Moreover, a large segment of the indigenous popu-
lation has preferred to identify primarily in class terms, as peasants, although simultaneously recog-
nizing their ethnic identity.11 Clearly, the continued prominence of class identification owes to the
dilemma of extractive development and is further triggered in the central organizations spearheaded
by Morales (Lalander, 2017). In Bolivia (as in Ecuador), neither identities nor social movements can
be seen as static categories. Collective identities are complexly and intimately intertwined.
Bolivia too has experienced increasing clashes between economic development politics based on
extractivism and ethnic-environmental rights.12 The most emblematic conflict of this nature in Boli-
via concerns the TIPNIS road-construction project through a national park, acknowledged for its
10 R. LALANDER AND M. LEMBKE

rich biodiversity and likewise ancestral territory of several indigenous peoples. In the conflict,
the positions have crystallized around a government claiming that the project would enhance
development, welfare, and socio-economic rights and an indigenous opposition defending ethnic
and ecological rights, spearheaded by, among others, CIDOB and CONAMAQ, i.e. two of the central
organizations that initially supported Morales (Hirsch, 2017; Lalander, 2017; McNeish, 2013).

Viewing with two eyes

We must view reality with two eyes: the class eye, as exploited peasants … and with the ethnic eye,
together with all oppressed [indigenous] nations. (Albó, 2008, p. 242)

Frequently, extractivist conflicts have been interpreted as a battle between indigenous and ecologist
activists, on the one hand, and the developmentalist and class-defined position of the government on
the other hand. However, it is important not to oversimplify and overgeneralize the relationship
between class and ethnicity. Within the identification and struggle of the indigenous peoples, the
relationship and tension between class/ecologism (closely entangled in the ecosocialist perspective)
and ethnicity/ecologism (closely intertwined in the Sumak Kawsay/Vivir Bien perspective) is intri-
cate. As anthropologist John-Andrew McNeish (2013, p. 238) and geographer Gabriela Valdivia
(2005) highlight, the complexity of identity politics and indigeneity is particularly striking in extra-
ctivist settings.
In order to better comprehend these complexities, it is important to acknowledge the heterogen-
eity of the indigenous peoples caused by migration, globalization processes, urban-rural and socio-
economic divides, ideological convictions, religious beliefs, etc. Indigenous communities have
adapted to capitalist, consumptionist, and developmentalist practices since many decades, which
have shaped repercussions as regards collective and individual identities (Lalander, 2017; Lalander
& Lembke, in press; McNeish, 2013; Valdivia, 2005). For instance, in many Amazonian and highland
localities, indigenous individuals and collectives have lived for decades with extractive activities. The
populations of these localities are often politically divided, some in favour and others against these
projects, with positions oscillating along a class-ethnicity axis. Against this backdrop, homogenizing
views on indigenous worldviews generate an unnecessary dualism, according to which a progressive
indigenous movement combats a detrimental and – when it comes to protecting the rights of nature –
ambiguous state.
We should emphasize that neither the leftist ecologist opposition nor the indigenous organiz-
ations in Bolivia and Ecuador are that extreme, i.e. to constantly place nature before human beings
and oppose ‘development’. One would fall into a reductionist trap if defining the controversy
between these groups as one in which socialist-oriented welfarism with a stepmotherly commitment
to environmental protection is confronting radical ecologism-cum-Pachamamismo. This is not to
say that the concern for Pachamama is not a central and important ingredient in the local
placed-based indigenous resistance and ontologies. Evidently, indigenous peoples have always
taken advantages of the natural wealth provided by Mother Earth, albeit with respect and asking
her (Pachamama) for permission before initiating any work or action affecting the state of nature
and the environment.
Indeed, the ethnically defined organizations of Ecuador and Bolivia have been successful in being
perceived around the globe as prime defenders of the interests of Mother Earth, as frequently is
observable at international climate summits. However, while acknowledging the indigenous identi-
fication with Pachamama and the environment, one should not take for granted that this ecologist
 GLOBALIZATIONS 11

concern is automatic. Altmann, for example, sees: ‘ … good life as proposed by the indigenous move-
ment in Ecuador as a decolonial concept rather than an ecological one’ (2017, p. 749).
Evidently, we do not mean that the environmental concerns of indigenous organizations should
not be taken as a serious grievance, only that a ‘Westernized style’ of ecologism may not always be
natural but constructed among Latin American indigenous movements. Inspired by Foucauldian
ideas on governmentality geographer Astrid Ulloa illustrates how the ecologist trait in the political
discourse of several indigenous organizations since the 1990s was strategically constructed through
transnational networks (Ulloa, 2005). For example, most Ecuadorian eco-oppositional organizations
mobilizing against the extractive politics of the Correa government demonstrate such instrumental
pragmatism. They do not demand the immediate suspension of all oil and mining exploitation.
Although oppositional towards large-scale extractivism, which according to them clashes with the
environmental objectives of the National Development Plan for Buen-vivir, they simultaneously
suggest that state economic policies should follow a development strategy that supports not only
bio-knowledge and tourism, but also traditional artisan mining (e.g. Ospina Peralta & Lalander, 2012).
In our view, thus, acknowledging the heterogeneity of indigenous struggles, identification, and
discourses requires the inclusion of class-based reasoning into the analysis, as well as an understand-
ing that class-ethnic-environmental positions are expressed differently at distinct scales of state–
indigenous interaction. As the following section will demonstrate, such a pragmatic and hetero-
geneous approach to environment and Pachamama is expressed by governmental representatives
as well as by many indigenous leaders, regardless if they are oppositional or supportive of the
government.

The Andean Catch-22

Morale was deteriorating and it was all Yossariańs fault. The country was in peril; he was jeopardizing his
traditional rights of freedom and independence by daring to exercise them. (Heller, 1961/1995, p. 502)

Without human dignity we cannot speak of Vivir Bien. (Huanacuni Mamani, interview, La Paz, 13 April
2015)

This section suggests that socio-economic welfarist and ethno-environmental concerns manifest
themselves both across and within the discourses of these principal actors. A broader ecosocialist –
albeit developmentalist – vision of Vivir Bien can undoubtedly be observed in the articulation of the
Bolivian government, particularly in the discourses of Evo Morales. For example, in February 2014,
when inaugurating the first large-scale Chinese-made pilot plant for the production of lithium-ion
batteries for cell-phones and electric vehicles, Morales highlighted the generous character of Mother
Earth:
Evidently, Bolivia has the largest lithium reserves of the entire world, that’s our Mother Earth. And this
richness is concentrated in the Department of Potosí, a small part of the Department of Oruro, the Salar
de Coipasa. You could not imagine how Mother Nature provides us natural resources. (Morales Ayma,
2014)

According to Morales, recognizing the difference between privatization and socialization of the
wealth derived from resource extraction is an important step in tackling the social welfare debt
and in the struggle against transnational capitalism (Morales Ayma, 2014). The extraction of lithium
accordingly seems to constitute a benevolent element in the relationship between Bolivians and
Nature, almost as if Vivir Bien materializes itself by means of progressive extractivism.
12 R. LALANDER AND M. LEMBKE

Vice-President Álvaro García Linera (2011) frequently refers to the Bolivian conflicts and contra-
dictions of resource governance as ‘creative tensions’. Worth considering, however, is that ensuring a
more equitative development by means of large-scale extractivism is frequently put forwards as a
temporal solution. As he argues:
How should we articulate the tension between the satisfaction of basic necessities and the protection of
Mother Earth? The path we have taken is the following: to use extractivism temporarily in order to gen-
erate conditions that satisfy a basic minimum of the necessities of people. (El Deber, 2015)

Thus, García Linera clearly recognizes the tension-ridden relationship between extractivism and the
protection of the rights of Nature, though trying to escape the Catch-22 through a passus on tem-
porality. This tension is further problematized by present Minister of Foreign Relations and Aymara
intellectual Fernando Huanacuni Mamani:
We are leaving the logics of modernity and entering this other logics of life culture, of caring for life:
Vivir Bien/Buen-Vivir … The states now face crucial challenges. They cannot continue with extracti-
vism, with the deterioration of Mother Earth. But, since we are entering the new logics and considering
the need to provide employment and food for everybody, it is a true challenge. For that reason we insist
that the ancestral cosmovision of the indigenous-native peoples should be added [after the fulfillment
of these fundamental human needs] … Without human dignity we cannot speak of Vivir Bien. So,
there is still a historical debt converted into a social and economic debt. Who should respond to
that debt? The government, the Plurinational states are building up their social capacities; capacities
to treasure life, to initiate the crucial redistribution. Obviously, the [Andean] governments are initiating
that process, although still far from being completed. (Huanacuni Mamani, interview, La Paz, 13 April
2015)

In this interview, realized almost two years before his nomination to the cabinet, Huanacuni Mamani
thus tries to escape the Catch-22 conundrum by making an argument that we may link directly to
Foster’s ecosocialist reasoning in which the class-defined rights and human dignity are core values
and first priorities.
More generally speaking, the central grievances of the Bolivian rural indigenous populations
toward the state – both among oppositional and government supporters – frequently have more
to do with infrastructure, health, and education, than with ecological concern or ethnic-cultural
rights, as perceived during fieldwork in the Amazon (Beni department), and the lowlands of El
Chaco (Santa Cruz department) (Observations and interviews, November–December 2015). Indi-
genous intellectual activists Edwin Armata Balcazar (Quechua) and Walter Limache Orellana
(Aymara) make a clarifying remark on this issue. Ecologism may not generally constitute the
superior element in the indigenous identity [and conceptualizations of Vivir Bien], but when extrac-
tive projects threaten the traditional livelihoods of the concerned peoples they tend to react (inter-
view, La Paz, 18 December 2015).
As in the Bolivian case, the Ecuadorian government has frequently expressed that extractivism
will be used precisely to reverse the dependence on extractivism (Ramírez Gallegos, 2010). In
December 2012, Rafael Correa pronounced the following regarding human–nature relations and pri-
orities in state development policies:
Always [human] life first; and there is no mutually excluding relationship here [between extractivism
and the environment], as some people pretend. On the contrary, I insist, our non-renewable natural
resources will not only be used to cherish this biodiversity, our nature, but we must not forget that
even if Pachamama has many important things (locus of reproduction and generation of life),
human beings remain the most important. (Correa Delgado, 2012)
 GLOBALIZATIONS 13

Correa emphasizes the supremacy of human values vis-à-vis nature, as the justification of legitimacy
amidst progressive neo-extractivism, namely that the revenues derived from resource extractivism
are needed for the common good, i.e. to improve infrastructure, health, education, and poverty
reduction. Returning to the Catch-22 from the viewpoint of the state, understood as the impossibility
to achieve a perfect net gain in the equation of welfare reform financed by extractivism while con-
sidering the protection of nature and the indigenous peoples. Correa claims that ‘there is no mutual
relationship here’, downplaying that extractive activities always produce a degree of negative conse-
quences for nature and local society, a lesson learned by numerous ‘most affected’ indigenous
peoples (see also Lalander, 2016).
This pragmatism concerning the dilemmas of resource governance and human–nature relations
is expressed also by Pedro de la Cruz of the Kichwa-Otavalo indigenous nationality, leader of the
socialist peasant-indigenous organization FENOCIN (Confederación Nacional de Organizaciones
Campesinas, Indígenas y Negras) who has held important posts within the Correa administration:
Our mission to eradicate poverty is complicated; from the viewpoint of basic facilities and economic
issues. We have wealth in nature, but for which purpose? Should we always keep it in Pachamama’s
belly or should we use it to fix the lack of basic facilities, such as education and health and move towards
equilibrium in terms of a redistribution of wealth? It’s a dilemma. We respect Pachamama, but how to
use or not to use her resources? So, we say that we have to use the resources of Pachamama with respon-
sibility. (interview, Quito, 12 March 2015)

For de la Cruz too, a Catch-22 solution/compromise could be to combine extractivism with a

respectful and responsible usage of Mother Nature. But what does respectfulness signify in this
regard? The answer may differ, depending on the normative position of actors regarding resource
governance and Buen-vivir. Several critics highlight the cultural normativity behind extractivist-
based social welfare reforms. Instead of emphasizing the possibility of respectful extractivism,
they criticize the lack of cultural sensitivity and subsequent harm to the indigenous way of life. Sal-
vador Quishpe of the Kichwa-Saraguro people, Prefect of the Morona Santiago province of the
Southern Amazon and a central adversary of Correa, argues the following:
The big question is what development means to the Chinese mining company. What’s development for
President Correa? What’s development for the Shuar communities? What kind of development do we
want? Of course, we have things in common; we need a highway, a bridge, electric energy and so on
… The problem is that they want to expand their occidental, capitalist, monetarist conceptualization
… In the Amazon, there are people without dollars but with a good living standard, with peacefulness,
harmony and happiness. So, what is poverty then? (interview, Quito, 9 December 2015)

At first sight, the difference between the arguments of Quishpe and de la Cruz indeed seems mini-
mal. Neither of them neglects the importance of welfare reform, nor the necessity of certain degrees
of extractivism. However, Quishpe rejects the way in which welfare reforms have been inserted into a
westernized, capitalist-led, developmentalist argument. Instead of speaking in terms of ‘eradicating
poverty’, ‘redistribution’, and ‘the wealth in nature’, Quishpe’s argument centres on the ideal of a
peaceful and harmonious standard of living. A similar critique of the dominant development para-
digm is voiced by Humberto Cholango, former president of the oppositional indigenous confedera-
tion CONAIE:
We understand that Sumak Kawsay or Buen-Vivir must consider human needs, to satisfy the basic
needs, although not only to eat, dress etc., but also the right to a healthy environment and a healthy spiri-
tuality. Of course, humans need education, health, public policies etc. But, we don’t approve the destruc-
tion of Yasuní or the Condor mountain range through extractivism. That’s not the path toward Sumak
14 R. LALANDER AND M. LEMBKE

Kawsay … We understand that Ecuador depends on oil-exports. We understand that we need an inter-
mediate time horizon for the transition. We don’t demand the closure of oil fields already by tomorrow.
Moreover, we argue that there could be possibilities of mining projects as long as they don’t affect the
water or the biodiversity. (interview, Quito, 6 March 2014)

As expressed in the quotation, Cholango, as García Linera in Bolivia, emphasizes the necessity of
some form of extractivism for the time being, though inserting it into a Sumak Kawsay argument
underlining the importance of biodiversity. Some prominent spokespersons of the Ecuadorian ecol-
ogist-indigenous movement launch an even harsher critique against extractivism without the caveats
of temporality or responsibility. Patricia Gualinga of the Kichwa-Sarayaku people represents the
Kawsak Sacha (Living Forest) project, an indigenous proposal to defy Climate Change. In her view:
We are peoples that reclaim the respect of the rights of the indigenous peoples … We are completely
against the idea that capitalists come here with their extractive industry, so destructive for the cosmovi-
sion of the indigenous peoples and for the environment, despite their promises of top technology … Our
objective is to keep the Amazonia intact and construct an alternative that is not completely excluded
from the occidental world, because that would be impossible, but still based on our sustainability and
cosmology, although perhaps with some positive elements from the Western world. However, this
must be without losing our indigenous vision and essence and not only in theory. (interview, Puyo,
11 February 2015)

Gualinga emphasizes what seems to be a dominant position among the representatives of the ecol-
ogist-indigenous movements, namely that the current mode of resource governance is a foreign,
negative, environmentally disastrous and ethnocidal element that serves as a pretext for capitalist
expansion. For the sake of socio-economic justice, however, extractivism may be accepted in the
short term and if responsibly conducted. From the government horizon, resource governance is
legitimated through repeated references to the need of extractivist activities to achieve funding to
ensure redistribution, attack poverty, and enhance welfare programmes, mainly infrastructure,
health, and education. The tendency is for government representatives to belittle the ways in
which extractive projects threaten constitutionally sanctioned ethnic and environmental rights,
applying a more pragmatic approach (Lalander, 2016, 2017). Nonetheless, applying different empha-
sis, both camps – government representatives and ethnic-environmental opposition – acknowledge
the necessity of promoting socio-economic as well as ethno-environmental rights.
While finishing this article, the Rafael Correa presidential period ended and his former vice-pre-
sident Lenín Moreno triumphed in the elections of April 2017, as a representative of PAIS. Though
still premature to characterize the new administration, it is worth noting that dialogue with opposi-
tional sectors has marked the first months of Moreno’s presidency. For example, one of his first
meetings was with the indigenous movement and Humberto Cholango, former President of CON-
AIE, was the nominated director of water in the cabinet. Moreno has also called for a popular con-
sultation that will address issues such as a reduction of the oil extraction area in the Yasuní national
park and the prohibition of mining activities in protected and intangible areas. Moreover, after a
meeting with CONAIE in December 2017, Moreno declared the ending of all new mining and oil
concessions unless prior consultation with affected peoples is held according to the constitution.

Conclusions
The Andean Catch-22 of resource governance is real. This essay has analysed the discursive position-
ing of indigenous activists and government representatives towards Sumak Kawsay/Vivir Bien and
resource governance. In the context of the resistance against global capitalism, it takes issue with a
 GLOBALIZATIONS 15

dominant presumption of two virtually irreconcilable lines of thought, an ecosocialist one, largely
neglecting ethnic-cultural concerns; and another, rooted in ancient indigenous cosmovisions –
Sumak Kawsay/Vivir Bien – in which class concerns are relatively downplayed. Accordingly, the
weakness of the ecosocialist thought is the presumption that class interests define the prioritized
politics aimed at the common good and economic redistribution, while ethnic-cultural and environ-
mental rights are relatively sidestepped. By contrast, the weakness of the Vivir Bien-argument is the
idea that ethnic-cultural and environmental interests must be prioritized in order to benefit a par-
ticular group of ‘most affected people’, thus downgrading class concerns and the cry for universal
rights to welfare.
In much of the contemporary academic writing, this irreconcilability – this Catch-22 – is not only
detected between government representatives and indigenous environmentalist advocates, but also
in the constitutions, that is, in the backbone of progressive resource governance. The perception
seems to be that one cannot support one of the arguments without sacrificing the other. Our ethno-
graphic findings to a certain extent support this view. However, the results also suggest that the dis-
cursive difference between these two camps has often been overstated and that this ontological
manicheism also manifests itself in the political discourse of indigenous scholars and activists.
We have likewise illustrated how the Catch-22 permeates the worldviews anchored in Sumak
Kawsay or Vivir Bien. Indigenous peoples are not only ‘ecosystem people’ (Foster, 2002, p. 86), ‘guar-
dians of the forest’, or ‘most affected peoples’ inhabiting the areas of extractivist expansion. They are
also citizens entitled to, and calling for, class-based socio-economic rights. In order to fully grasp this
complex relationship between universalism and particularism, we agree with Le Quang and Vercou-
tère (2013) that a marriage between ecosocialism and Sumak Kawsay/Vivir Bien philosophy is war-
ranted among scholars. Such amalgamation requires a careful and empirically based analysis of class
and ethnic components. Unlike these authors, however, we have shown that this combination of
values already exists in the logics and discourses of both government and oppositional actors,
with a strong emphasis on class-defined rights.
Sumak Kawsay cannot be reduced to a notion solely encapsulating ethnic-environmental con-
cerns. Inspired by Alfredo Viteri Gualinga, we underline the importance of bringing back class to
the analysis of indigenous struggles and ontological-epistemological principles. Such an inclusion
would assist in constructing a more convenient analytical tool to deal with the realpolitik of
state–indigenous relations. Such politics always include a question of choices and priorities; a certain
degree of compromises and sacrifices of specific rights, interests, and values. In day-to-day state–
indigenous encounters, the irreconcilability of Catch-22 is constantly bridged towards something
more akin to García Linera’s notion of creative tensions. Evidently, most of the actors involved
seem to accept that there is no way to achieve a perfect net gain between universal welfare and eth-
nic-environmental concerns. However, whether sympathizing with ecosocialism or any of the vary-
ing interpretations of Vivir Bien or Sumak Kawsay, there is awareness among actors that the Catch-
22 must be addressed. They acknowledge that the tensions and polarization embedded in the Catch-
22 are real, although also – at times – bridgeable.

Notes
1. Buen-vivir (Spanish) and Sumak Kawsay (Kichwa) are the conceptual labels used in Ecuador, whereas in
Bolivia the corresponding concepts are Vivir Bien (Spanish) and Suma Qamaña (Aymara).
2. Both constitutions are strongly inspired by the ILO Convention 169 on the Rights of the Indigenous
Peoples (1989) and the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of the Indigenous Peoples (2007).
16 R. LALANDER AND M. LEMBKE

3. The legal and rights-based FPIC mechanism has been practiced much more frequently in Bolivia than in
Ecuador and the majority of neighboring Latin American countries; numerous shortcomings have
characterized these procedures, such as insufficient decision-power and information of the involved
population, irregularities, and lack of transparency (Schilling-Vacaflor, 2013).
4. Regarding the rights of nature amidst the state control of vital industries – mainly hydrocarbons, mining,
and agro-business (Bolivia) – the Bolivian constitution declares the industrialization and commerciali-
zation of natural resources to be a key priority of the state, albeit taking into consideration rights of
nature and indigenous peoples and provided that revenues should be directed at the common good
(art. 355) (Estado Plurinacional de Bolivia, 2009). In Ecuador, the state’s right to exploitation and
commercialization of natural resources is expressed in terms of national strategic interests and as the
instrument to finance welfare reform (e.g. articles 275, 276, 277, 313, 314, 317 and 395–399 (República
del Ecuador, 2008). See also Gudynas (2014) and Lalander (2016, 2017).
5. In various ways, evidently, ethnic/indigenous rights and the rights of nature belong to distinct families of
political prerogatives. However, they frequently coincide in concrete extractive settings. Therefore, the
ecologist trait of actors and interests is onwards at times incorporated in the ethnic identity.
6. We should clarify that our aim is not to systematically sort out all the complexities and interpretations of
Sumak Kawsay/Vivir Bien. Neither do we consider these terms as synonyms. For an important contri-
bution on the diverse interpretations and intellectual roots of Sumak Kawsay/Buen-vivir, see Hidalgo-
Capitán and Cubillo-Guevara (2017).
7. Sumak Kawsay has been translated to Vivir Bien or Buen-Vivir in Spanish (good life). But, according to
our Kichwa-speaking contacts it would be more correct to traduce it to ‘Life in plenitude’, whereas Buen-
vivir should be the equivalent of Alli Kawsay (Alli = good, Kawsay = live, Sumak = plenitude). See also
Huanacuni Mamani (2015) and Yampara Huarachi (2016) for the Bolivian conceptualization of
Suma Qamaña. For an influential reflection on decoloniality as a project of delinking Eurocentric pol-
itical, economic, cultural, and epistemic-ontological power structures, see Mignolo (2007). See also
Hidalgo-Capitán and Cubillo-Guevara (2017).
8. We recognize the value of previous research on class-based indigenous struggle (e.g. Albó, 2008). In
different forms and with different emphases, the dual class-ethnic consciousness of the indigenous
peoples has been at the forefront of analysis all the way back to Mariátegui and influential scholars
on the issues of anti-imperialism, indigenismo, and ‘romantic Marxism’ (e.g. Becker, 2012; Webber,
2015).
9. In Ecuador, the bulk of the indigenous peoples where – until the acceleration of state-led Amazonian oil
drilling in the late-1960s onwards – either inserted into a semi-feudal highland-based hacienda system or
integrated as precarious cash-croppers into a boom-and-bust cycle of various coastal agricultural export
crops. Mining was not a strategic economic sector before the Correa government (Latorre, 2012). For an
overview of resource governance conflicts before and during the Correa era, see e.g. Latorre (2012) and
Lewis (2016).
10. Officially the project is known as the Yasuní-ITT. ITT refers to three untapped oil blocks known collec-
tively as Ishpingo-Tambococha-Tiputini.
11. The allegedly more ethnic organizations are: the lowland indigenous confederation CIDOB (Confedera-
ción de Pueblos Indígenas de Bolivia) and the highland Aymara and Quechua Council CONAMAQ
(Consejo Nacional de Ayllus y Markas del Qullasuyu). The four that are considered more class-intensive
are: the Bolivian Workers Central/COB (Central Obrera Boliviana), the peasant-indigenous union/
CSUTCB (Confederación Sindical Única de Trabajadores Campesinos de Bolivia), the Bartolina Sisa pea-
sant-indigenous women’s confederation (Confederación Nacional de Mujeres Campesinas Indígenas Ori-
ginarias de Bolivia Bartolina Sisa), and the intercultural communities’ confederation/CSCIB
(Confederación Sindical de Comunidades Interculturales de Bolivia). The backbone of this last organiz-
ation – the CSCIB – is the coca-growing migrants, originally from the highlands, but for many years
established also in the lowlands. These four organizations support the MAS government, whereas CON-
AMAQ and CIDOB have divided since 2010.
12. For an overview of resource governance and conflicts before and during the Morales era, see also Hum-
phreys Bebbington and Grisi Huber (2017).
 GLOBALIZATIONS 17

Acknowledgements
Both authors would like to express gratitude to all those that helped us during the fieldwork periods in Bolivia
and Ecuador, specifically to our friends, colleagues and interviewees in the highlands and the Amazonia.
Special thanks also to the three anonymous peer-reviewers for highly constructive comments, as also to
Maija Merimaa, Alejandro González, Fernando Galindo and Pablo Ospina Peralta, as also colleagues at Söder-
törn University and Institute of Latin American studies (Stockholm University). Rickard Lalander wishes to
recognize the importance of the Swedish Research Council FORMAS for supporting his research until 2016
and Magnus Lembke is grateful to the Institute of Latin American studies for a shorter travel grant for field-
work in Ecuador.

Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Funding
This work was supported by Svenska Forskningsrådet Formas [grant number 2012–1828].

Notes on contributors
Rickard Lalander is a sociologist and political scientist; PhD and Associate Professor in Latin American
studies, Department of World Cultures, University of Helsinki. He works as senior university lecturer and
researcher in development and environmental studies, Södertörn University, Stockholm. Since the 1990s, he
is associated with the Institute of Latin American studies, Stockholm University. Lalander has taught Latin
American studies and political and economic studies at the University of Helsinki and sociology at Mid Sweden
University. In Latin America, he has collaborated with several academic institutions, such as the Universidad
Mayor de San Simón, Cochabamba, Bolivia and Universidad Andina Simón Bolivar in Quito, Ecuador. He has
published broadly on democracy, indigenous peoples’ struggle, social movements, identity politics, develop-
ment, and environmental issues in the Andean countries.
Magnus Lembke holds a PhD in political science, Stockholm University and has worked for two decades at the
Institute of Latin American studies, Stockholm University. His doctoral thesis analysed ethnically defined poli-
tics and the struggle for social justice among peasant-indigenous movements in Ecuador and Guatemala. His
areas of research specialization are social movements, indigenous peoples, territorial studies, and deliberative
democracy.

ORCID
Rickard Lalander http://orcid.org/0000-0002-2581-2588
Magnus Lembke http://orcid.org/0000-0002-7088-971X

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