Latin American and Caribbean Environmental Geopolitics as a Theoretical Proposal for the Study of Forms of Environmental Domination

Abstract

Environmental exploitation in Latin America and the Caribbean has been intense and uninterrupted. Since the Conquest, control and domination mechanisms have been transformed and even accentuated to continue with the capitalist production process and accumulation worldwide. This situation has led to thinking on the relevance of studying the forms of environmental domination in specific times and spaces to account for the strategies carried out to exploit society, nature, and territory. This article aims to present a theoretical approach for the study of the forms of environmental domination. We present the Latin American and Caribbean Environmental Geopolitics framework as a proposal that integrates contributions from Latin American theorists, constituted by a series of previously articulated notions and, in terms of specificity, allow the analysis and explanation of the object of study. Thus, coloniality, Latin American specificity, the State, and hegemony are presented here as the categories used by this analysis framework.