Skip to main content Accessibility help
×
Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-t7czq Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-22T16:20:35.995Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

14 - ‘Obedecer a la Vida’: Environmental Citizenship Otherwise?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 March 2024

Dimitris Papadopoulos
Affiliation:
University of Nottingham
Maria Puig de la Bellacasa
Affiliation:
University of Warwick
Maddalena Tacchetti
Affiliation:
University of Nottingham
Get access

Summary

Obedecer a la Vida (Obey Life, Abide by Life) was the expression Roberto Saenz used when referring to what made him feel and think. This is the way he expressed his commitments to the Tenasuca Lagoon (located in the Tequendama Andean Cloud Forest of Colombia); to his colleague Arnovis, who worked every day in agroecology; and to his private nature reserve and small organic market. In addition, he added, “I do not practice civil resistance. I obey life.” Roberto’s statement struck me deeply and led me to think about the different ways of considering emergent practices for repairing a certain place. These practices respond to what the situation demands in the face of changing ecological and social conflicts. However, in my interpretation, Roberto’s practice doesn’t follow the same framework as the nation-state’s liberal environmental policies – at least, in Colombia. What kind of environmental-oriented action are we talking about? How does the statement ‘obey life’ relate to concrete practices in the field of agriculture? And then, how does this practice differ from other ways of practicing a policy that addresses nature conservation? These are some questions I will unravel in this chapter. My aim is to elucidate whether liberal citizenship can promote and support ecological reparation. More broadly, I wonder if the liberal framework of political thought is the only way in which the current environmental crisis might be addressed. Colombian nature conservation policy has centred on the production of discourses, knowledge and subjectivities that aim at, on the one hand, overcoming the negative effects of development, and on the other, securing strategic ecosystems in terms of biodiversity. However relevant these efforts are, biodiverse ecosystems are still valued under a utilitarian logic based on capitalist profit-making. In this sense, sustainable development discourses are articulated within liberal societies’ economic structure.

To this end, I will narrate the story of agroecological practitioners in the Tequendama region of Colombia, aiming to elucidate how their practice explains what ‘obey life’ means. If the liberal framework is based on the notion of rights and obligations (and its cognate notions, namely, individuality, universal thinking, self-interest and antagonism among political actors), ‘obeying life’ seems to follow another framework.

Type
Chapter
Information
Ecological Reparation
Repair, Remediation and Resurgence in Social and Environmental Conflict
, pp. 208 - 222
Publisher: Bristol University Press
Print publication year: 2023

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure [email protected] is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×