Epistemic and Environmental Violence in Latin American Decolonial Environmental Thought

Kurzfassung/Abstract

From the Latin American Decolonial Environmental Thought (LDET) contributions, environmental violence can be defined as the deterritorialization of life expressed as the acceleration of the entropic dynamics of the biosphere, the loss of cultural (ontological) diversity of the world, and the transformation of nature into an external and commodifiable thing. This chapter presents the content of environmental violence as the deterritorialization of life. It begins by exposing the notion of environmental conflict and violence in the LDET. Then, this chapter shows four knowledge-power strategies that illustrate four emphases among decolonial thought and, at the same time, the critical dimensions to understand environmental violence sources. These emphases and dimensions are: (a) the social reappropriation of nature that emphasizes the politics of cultural difference; (b) the re-enchantment of the world, which emphasizes the politics of affect; (c) EcoSimia, a concept which emphasizes the difference-diversity of forms of production; and (d) peace as a restitution of the collective functions of territory, which emphasizes territorial difference. The chapter concludes by reflecting on the implications of LDET to understand environmental violence by arguing that the ultimate political ally to stopping violence is nature.