Luchas en red o luchas colectivas en la Amazonía del Ecuador: el caso de Tzawata / Networked and Collective Struggles in the Ecuadorian Amazon: The Case of Tzawata

resumen:

En esta investigación sostengo que, luchas indígenas y campesinas que usan redes externas de aliados para acceder y controlar recursos como tierra, deberían ser descritos y representados como procesos colectivos y como luchas en red. Así me sumo a los esfuerzos de otros investigadores que han teorizado el uso de ensamblajes de redes y realidades planas para representar procesos sociales. Estos conceptos dejan de lado marcos teóricos hegemónicos que usan lógicas escalares a fin de representar las formas en las que grupos subalternos incrementan su poder político. Yo sugiero que luchas locales, usualmente representadas como luchas marginales y luchas étnicas, son procesos que reflejan las preocupaciones e intereses de amplios sectores de la sociedad, involucrando a múltiples redes de actores e instituciones. La idea de lucha en red y lucha colectivas indaga el tipo y formas de relaciones, colaboraciones y coaliciones que se generan para combatir fuerzas estructurales que previenen que grupos subalternos accedan a justicia social.

I argue that indigenous and peasant struggles that actively use networks of foreign allies to access and secure land should be described and represented as networked or collective struggles and efforts. As other proponents of network thinking and acting suggest, this scheme is presented instead of using scalar politics to explain the ways in which subaltern groups scale up their concerns. In this research I illustrate through a case study that making subaltern networks and collaborations visible is politically important, this is because subaltern struggles are usually represented as locally bounded or as ethnically driven, when in reality a variety of actors and institutions located in different spaces of power throughout scales participate from these efforts often in positive ways. In such cases, these efforts should be seen as diverse in terms of actors, collective in terms of aims and multi-sited in terms of identities and positionalities.