Extractivism and Universality: Inside an Uprising in the Amazon

Extractivism and Universality tells the inside story of a spontaneous uprising in the Ecuadorian Amazon in 2017, in which mestizo, Black and Indigenous workers and communities confronted the combined forces of a multinational oil company and a militarized state. It documents a rapidly evolving battle that achieved a remarkable victory, and captures the flourishing of an insurgent form of political universality in which racial, ethnic, and cultural divisions were suddenly and powerfully overcome. Intervening in debates on the resistances and alternatives developed by the inhabitants of resource extraction zones, the book takes the reader deep inside a rebellion on an Amazonian oil frontier and offers a unique insight into insurgent universality in the lived reality of its material existence. It argues that the dominant decolonial dichotomy between Eurocentric universalism and an Indigenous pluriverse should be replaced by an approach that is attentive to manifestations of universality performed by diverse subaltern subjects. And it does so through a fast-paced fusion of radical political theory with the raw first-person style of gonzo journalism. It will appeal to scholars and students across the social sciences with interests in political and social theory, social movements, labour relations, and the political ecology of extractivism.