Emilie Dupuits: Transnational movements and grassroots struggles around water in Latin America

In this episode, Dr. Emilie Dupuits joins GWF’s Jesper Svensson to share her insights about how local communities engage in transnational mobilisations to defend their rights and what impact it has on local commons in Latin America. Latin America has a number of distinct features. It is home to more than 800 indigenous groups with a combined population of approximately 42 million. Latin America is also a region with significant inequality where eight countries are among the 20 countries with the highest income inequality worldwide. At the same time, the region exhibits one of the highest rates of biodiversity and ecosystem services (ES) loss worldwide with high asymmetry in access to ecosystem services benefits. Over the last two decades, environmental protests have been on the rise ranging from Bolivia and Peru to Ecuador and Chile around water and infrastructure projects. However, significant variation exists in the region in terms of what drives grassroots struggles and how they are scaled up to the transnational level. Dr. Dupuits says that in the context of globalizing transboundary environmental challenges, strategies to protect and secure the local commons such as water resources have been increasingly scaled up. Consequently, local communities have started to engage in transnational mobilisations to defend their rights and express their concerns. This often implies the adoption and institutionalisation of emerging global norms, principles and modes of framing and claiming – such as the Human Right to Water or the Rights of Nature – which will interfere with and may even go against local understandings, meaning, and rooted struggles or initial claims made by grassroots movements. The appropriation of expert knowledge and technical idiom may improve their recognition and access to political and financial support. However, transnational involvement may also (re)produce misrecognition or exclusion on the ground for community-based organisations. Interview Q&A 1. What is the relationship between neoliberalism and social resistance movements in Latin America over the last two decades? (2:08) 2. How have governments, market-led institutions and local communities interacted in global environmental arenas over the last two decades? (8:25) 3. When, where and how have grassroots movements developed strategies to scale up their activities in order to improve their access and representation in global arenas and transnational processes? (14:55) 4. Are there examples and patterns in Latin America where governments, markets and local communities can co-exist in desirable outcomes? (23:48) 5. What about the role of women? (30:57) 5. When a mobilization occurs and is scaled up to the international level, what is the effect back on the local ground? (32:47) 6. Which institutional and actor configurations contribute to protect and secure local commons such as water resources? (40:52) 7. What can states outside of Latin-America do to address Bolsonaro’s violations of indigenous people’s lives and livelihoods? (43:40)