Land, race, and (slow) violence: Indigenous resistance to racial capitalism and the coloniality of development in the Caribbean

Penados, Filiberto, Gahman, Levi and Smith, Shelda-Jane ORCID: 0000-0002-8947-9294 (2023) Land, race, and (slow) violence: Indigenous resistance to racial capitalism and the coloniality of development in the Caribbean. Geoforum, 145. p. 103602.

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Abstract

This article, which has been informed by sustained engagement with an autonomous social movement and long-term participatory action research, offers a critical structural analysis of the Maya land struggle in Toledo District, Belize. We contend that state-sanctioned violations of Free, Prior, and Informed Consent (FPIC) reveal both the coloniality and misanthropic skepticism inherent in conventional ‘development’ agendas and the Westminster-modelled liberal state. More specifically, by drawing from revolutionary theories of race and decolonisation and placing the concepts of racial capitalism and slow violence into an integrated anticolonial frame, we explain how economic development projects and government sponsored FPIC violations are aiding and abetting land dispossession, ecosystem damage, heritage destruction, the criminalisation of environmental defenders, and disavowals of Indigenous governance. Ultimately, the piece illustrates how extractivist-driven refusals of good faith consultation with Indigenous communities in the Caribbean exacerbate environmental degradation, undermine Indigenous self-determination, and constitute contemporary manifestations of colonial power, racial-capitalist exploitation, and structural (slow) violence.

Item Type:	Article
Uncontrolled Keywords:	Clinical Research, 16 Peace, Justice and Strong Institutions
Divisions:	Faculty of Science and Engineering > School of Environmental Sciences
Depositing User:	Symplectic Admin
Date Deposited:	05 Jul 2022 10:30
Last Modified:	15 Mar 2024 08:48
DOI:	10.1016/j.geoforum.2022.07.004
Related URLs:	Publisher
URI:	https://livrepository.liverpool.ac.uk/id/eprint/3157794