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Abstract

Within current literature on social movements, the existence and interrelations of multiple counter-hegemonies remains heavily undertheorised. Indeed, while the existence of such phenomena is acknowledged, in as much as scholars recognise that hegemony and counter-hegemony exist in plurality and in variegated forms, attention to the interactions between simultaneously existing counter-hegemonies is underexplored. In this article I draw attention to the ways in which multiple counter-hegemonies exist within a single social movement, and how those counter-hegemonies come into conflict with one another. Specifically, I show how one counter-hegemonic struggle comes to reproduce the hegemony against which the other is fighting. I situate this discussion within a case study of the rights of nature movement, operating in variegated forms within Ecuador and the United Nations’ Harmony with Nature Dialogues.

Keywords

Civil society environmentalism extractivism geography

Introduction

Social movements around the world continue to provide important examples of grassroots and subaltern challenges to dominant power. Central to the formation of radical politics, the role of social movements in imagining, articulating and crafting potential futures remains of vital significance to addressing myriad problems which manifest as a result of global capitalism. However, it is necessary for us to understand, when these struggles conflict with one another, how power manifests and social relations are produced along the ideological fault lines of groups who might otherwise be regarded as allies.

In the context of social movements, Gramscian (and neo-Gramscian) scholarship and the concept of (counter-)hegemony have proven popular theoretical lenses to interrogate questions of power and resistance across diverse geographies. Fundamentally, social movements attempt to disrupt hegemonic social structures through contentious politics and by attempting to establish new forms of meaning (and subsequently ‘common sense’) around political issues such as rights, the environment and identity (Lipschutz, 2005).

Within current literature on social movements, however, the existence and interrelations of multiple counter-hegemonies remains heavily undertheorised. Indeed, while the existence of such phenomena is acknowledged, in as much as scholars recognise that hegemony and counter-hegemony exist in plurality and in variegated forms (Sevilla-Buitrago, 2017), attention to the interactions between simultaneously existing counter-hegemonies is underexplored.

In this article, I draw attention to the ways in which multiple counter-hegemonies exist within a single social movement, and how those counter-hegemonies come into conflict with one another. Specifically, I show how one counter-hegemonic struggle comes to reproduce the hegemony against which the other is fighting. To reiterate, these dynamics exist within a single social movement, reflecting the complex nature of social movement relations, but also the complexity of counter-hegemony as it exists as a social phenomenon. I locate this discussion in the context of the rights of nature movement, where I first outline two cases of counter-hegemonic struggles being fought by different elements of the movement, one in Ecuador and one at the United Nations. I argue that the counter-hegemony which is espoused by grassroots activists in Ecuador is fundamentally anti-state in its character, targeted at the national neo-developmental political economy of extractivism. Whereas international activists engaging with the United Nations (through the United Nations Harmony with Nature Dialogues) articulate a counter-hegemony targeted at an all-encompassing paradigm of nature–society relations. I then go on to discuss how these struggles interact and conflict, namely through the appropriation and misrepresentation of the case of Ecuador by the latter in order to strengthen the latter's counter-hegemonic claims. Crucially, I argue that the counter-hegemonic discourse crafted by international rights of nature activists at the United Nations reproduces the hegemony of the Ecuadorian state, thereby running in direct conflict with grassroots activists in Ecuador.

Context

The notion of ‘giving rights to nature’ is an idea that has been gaining significant ground in recent years (Borràs, 2016; Margil, 2017; Rühs and Jones, 2016). In contexts of extractivism (Valladares and Boelens, 2017), climate change (Espinosa, 2014) and sustainable development (Kauffman and Martin, 2017), it has begun to permeate local, national and international discourses on our place in the world, as well as the ontological underpinnings of nature–society relationships (Rühs and Jones, 2016; Youatt, 2017). At the time of writing, the governments of Ecuador and Bolivia have inscribed such rights into their national constitutions, while others, such as the Mexican government, have developed similar frameworks at regional levels, or developed them on case-by-case bases, such as in India and New Zealand. The idea has also featured heavily within discussions of sustainable development at the United Nations (Espinosa, 2014). Evidently, then, the idea of constitutional rights for nature spans a wide variety of places, scales and cultures.

Ecuador marked the first formal case of national constitutional rights for nature, inscribing such rights into their constitution in 2008, with Bolivia following quickly afterwards by writing similar (yet importantly, different) rights into its constitution in 2010. Both of these cases relied on significant efforts from civil society organisations (Espinosa, 2014), and marked a radical shift in the way that nature–society relations were portrayed in the highest legal documents of both countries (Acosta, 2015; Humphreys, 2017).

This article is based on my own ethnographic research with rights of nature activists in Ecuador between 2014 and 2015, along with my analysis of the publicly available documents published by the United Nations Harmony with Nature Dialogues. I argue that within the rights of nature movement, there exist numerous counter-hegemonic struggles, centred on the singular idea of promoting and defending rights of nature frameworks as viable political projects. However, these struggles, I posit, can come into conflict where the interests of one are undermined by the interests of another.

Social movements and counter-hegemony

Social movements attempt to disrupt hegemonic social structures through contentious politics. This is achieved by engaging in and also producing a form of civil society, which is receptive to such issues. However, hegemony and, therefore, counter-hegemony operate at different scales. For example, in many cases social movements attempt to disrupt the hegemony of the state, by seeking to challenge and critique its legitimacy through their new forms of meaning and their political positions within civil society. This has been evident in Latin America across many countries, but especially those which contain politically strong Indigenous movements such as Ecuador, or those with well-organised agrarian movements such as Brazil (Vanden, 2007). In other cases, social movements have targeted international institutions that represent key figures in the neoliberal global political economy such as the World Trade Organisation and the International Monetary Fund (Stephen, 2011). However, it is important to note that these struggles are often not mutually exclusive, and that hegemony is inherently multi- and inter- scalar (Brand, 2012; Karriem, 2009).

Indeed, social movements and states (and by extension, statist institutions) are intertwined in a complex relationship. For example, states often regulate and police the spaces within which social movements choose (or choose not) to mobilise and exist within. Likewise, many (although certainly not all) social movements advocate for change at the state level, sometimes becoming institutionalised into the political fabric of the state itself. The study of social movements’ engagement with states and statist institutions has resulted in the articulation of this power relationship as one characterised by contestation over (often diverse) meanings, rather than conformity and rigid path dependence (Schneiberg and Lounsbury, 2017). Important to this work have been debates surrounding ‘opportunity structures’ (e.g., political, discursive, cultural) which analyse the contextual moments and institutional structures that affect the timing and form of social movement mobilisation. As della Porta (2013) notes, such analysis allows us to understand the contextual shifts, which provide the windows of opportunity for social movement action. These shifts, akin to those of socio-political tectonic plates, produce ruptures in the infrastructure of hegemony, through which counter-hegemonic mobilisation can emerge and spread. However, when different elements of a social movement engage with different institutions and shape their resistance through different windows of opportunity, it is unsurprising that the formulation of multiple counter-hegemonies occurs.

This has particularly been the case in relation to multi-scalar social movements, where opportunities at one scale are very different to those at another, in some cases leading to a movement ‘jumping scale’ (Keck and Sikkink, 2014) so as to bypass especially closed or oppressive states. However, it is necessary to recognise that by engaging in multi-scalar politics social movements become intertwined with different, far from benign, power relations. Much has been written on local activist groups and organisations who are engaged with broader, often global or international movements (see: Christens and Collura, 2012; Doherty and Doyle, 2006; Keck and Sikkink, 2014; Rootes, 2007; Saunders, 2007; Soyez, 2001). This research finds that while local activist networks are fundamental to the functions and operations of the international networks within which they operate, there are often salient fragmentations and divergences when one compares local activist groups’ priorities and agendas with those of the international groups and organisations (Rootes, 2007; Soyez, 2001). Consequently, the manifestation of multiple counter-hegemonies within a movement must be understood within this context.

Furthermore, the civil society within which social movements operate has become increasingly global (McIlwaine, 2007; Munck, 2010), this is especially visible in the context of environmental social movements (McIlwaine, 2007). However, this global civil society is fraught with divergent politics and values, and is often ideologically dominated by activists located within, or networked across, the Global North, often leading to a voicelessness of grassroots activists from the Global South (Batliwala, 2002). In the context of the environment and environmentalism, scholars have shown how differing values can underpin entrenched inequalities in visibility, recognition and access to political capital. For example, Guha and Alier (2013) highlight how environmental values dominant within social movements in the Global North remain dominant in the international sphere, resulting in movements from the South often having to assimilate to this hegemonic discourse in order to gain access to key resources.

The existence of diverse environmentalisms, underpinned by diverse environmental values, have become much better understood in recent decades (Doherty and Doyle, 2006), as globalisation (in its ever-contradictory nature) has laid bare the fallacy of universalism and homogeneity. Lawhon (2013), for example, shows the significance of understanding place-based and contextual politics within networked environmentalisms, and that it is imperative to understand the ways in which these networked environmentalisms are situated across space, place and scale. Consequently, it is important to pay attention to how divergent environmentalisms affect the functionality and power relations of hegemony and the manifestation of counter-hegemony, especially in the context of social movements in both an ‘inter-’ and ‘intra-’ sense. Drawing on the concept of hegemony, I build on the work of scholars such as Guha, Alier and Lawhon, to develop a Gramscian critique of how networked environmentalisms within a social movement diverge and conflict.

Gramscian scholarship notes how social movements engage in ‘wars of position’, through which they produce counter-hegemony. In doing so, they ‘create new political spaces within civil society and alter the content of hegemony’ (Carroll and Ratner, 1994: 21). The activities and mobilisations which constitute a war of position are central to the cultural reconfiguration desired by counter-hegemonic movements through a ‘struggle over minds and strategic places’ (Muhr, 2013: 7). As Carroll (2009) reminds us, it is these struggles, which produce the conditions under which new futures and potentialities can materialise and thrive. Consequently, wars of position are not only about mobilisation in a material sense; they rely on the representation and articulation of visions, values and alternative politics in order to manifest radical ideology. The production of counter-hegemony through social movements has often been conceptualised as necessitating a unified war of position, resulting in a unified counter-hegemony, in order to be successful (Jakobsen, 2001). However, little research has paid attention to the ways in which fragmented and divergent wars of position and counter-hegemonies interact with one another in a social movement context. In this article I work towards filling that gap, by analysing how differing environmental values (and consequently, environmentalisms) within the rights of nature movement underpin a key fragmentation, which results in one counter-hegemonic struggle reproducing the hegemony against which another struggle within the movement is fighting.

Methods

This article draws on ethnographic data obtained during two separate fieldwork trips I conducted in Ecuador (primarily in Quito, but also in Otavalo, Ambato and Riobamba), the first between June 2014 and December 2014, and the second between February 2015 and December 2015. This ethnographic data is accompanied by a discourse analysis of 108 documents released by the United Nations which make up the corpus of material that is publicly available on the United Nations Harmony with Nature project.

The ethnographic research from which this article draws is comprised of 27 semi-structured interviews, as well as approximately 12 months of full-time ethnographic ‘deep hanging out’ (Wogan, 2004), participant observation, unstructured interviews and informal conversations with activists who seek to promote and defend the rights of nature in Ecuador. Research sites included (but were not limited to) protests which took place during a wave of civil unrest in 2015 which saw protests erupt across the country, largely in response to tax rises and President Correa's plans for indefinite re-election. Research was also conducted with participants in informal settings such as local parks, cafés, bars and at their homes. This data, comprised of interview transcripts and fieldnotes, was organised and analysed thematically using NVivo and by hand, while also undergoing an interpretive analysis, so as to capture the subjective nuance of what was said or inferred by participants (Pile, 1991). Participants’ names have all been anonymised with pseudonyms.

The discourse analysis is focused exclusively on written texts, which were written by individuals as part of their contributions to the United Nations Harmony with Nature Dialogues, totalling 108 documents. These included speeches, letters and emails made available by the United Nations; therefore, all data collected in this manner was done so through access to publicly available secondary sources. The Dialogues take place annually at the United Nations headquarters in New York, and are attended by state representatives, as well as NGOs, IGOs, stakeholders and experts from across the physical and social sciences.

I collated these two, very different, bodies of data in NVivo and analysed them through thematic coding. Codes related to elements such as environmental values, framing of the rights of nature, strategies of resistance and representations of the state.

Grassroots rights of nature activism in Ecuador

As neoliberal hegemony was dismantled across much of Latin America in the early 2000s, neo-developmentalism has seen the establishment of new, state-centric hegemony in many countries including Ecuador (Féliz, 2012; Gudynas, 2016). Fuelled by the leveraging of natural resource wealth to empower the state through policies of protectionism and nationalisation, rather than disempower it through unfettered privatisation, neo-developmentalism has re-placed national hegemony firmly within the hands of the state. Consequently, anti-extractivist counter-hegemonic struggles in Latin American countries such as Ecuador have in turn re-positioned their ire, gazing inwards rather than outwards (McKay, 2020). Therefore, it is within this context that we must situate rights of nature activism in Ecuador.

The constitutionalisation of the rights of nature in Ecuador is inseparable from broader counter-hegemonic struggles in the country, particularly that of Indigenous social movements’ and progressive leftist parties’ fights against neoliberalism. Similar to other countries in Latin America who formed part of the ‘pink tide’, or wave of ‘21st century socialism’, Ecuador's experience was often observed as a form of postneoliberalism (Elwood et al., 2016). One of the central tenets of postneoliberalism is a political economy born out of resistance to neoliberal hegemony (Grugel and Riggirozzi, 2012), a resistance of which the rights of nature (which formed a central part of a wider development philosophy of ‘living well’) in Ecuador were a flagship legal and political statement. This, in turn, must be understood in the context of Indigenous and environmental social movements’ decades of resistance to extractivism. Indeed, while the alliance between these social movements’ counter-hegemonic struggles has sometimes been fractious (Lewis, 2016), resistance to the extraction of natural resources has consistently remained as a key point of unity. This was also true during the drafting of Ecuador's new constitution, and in particular the writing of the rights of nature. Through these social movements’ eyes, resistance against extractivism, depicted as emblematic of neoliberal hegemony, proved an important strategic lens, through which the counter-hegemonic move to forge a new political economy could be framed (Tanasescu, 2013).

After the constitutionalisation of the rights of nature in Ecuador in 2008, the political landscape as regards environmental politics, particularly in a radical sense, changed significantly under the presidency of Rafael Correa. Rights of nature activists, environmentalists, land defenders and Indigenous rights activists faced increasing political pressure from the government, including imprisonment and harassment (Appe, 2016; Becker, 2013; Dosh and Kligerman, 2009; Humphreys, 2017).

Much grassroots rights of nature activism in Ecuador is, I show, predicated on an anti-state and anti-extractivist ethos, which is simultaneously intertwined with material struggles for human rights. Across Latin America, more than fifty percent of the world's murders against environmental activists and land defenders occur (Global Witness, 2018). This, combined with the displacement of communities because of rampant extractivism, is reflective of the deeply interconnected relationship between human rights and the non-human environment – a relationship within which the rights of nature in Ecuador are embedded. Consequently, the assertion that ‘nature's rights are human rights’, a phrase echoed in many conversations I had with activists while in Ecuador, cannot be understated. Importantly, this sentiment can be traced back to the constitutionalisation of the rights of nature in 2008. Initially sceptical of including the rights of nature articles in the constitution, Indigenous social movement representatives stated that they would only back the notion of rights for nature if the wording existed in such a way that these rights could be used as a tool for Indigenous struggles over rights, territory and culture (Tanasescu, 2013). However, the final draft did not significantly reflect this desire, instead it focused on the intrinsic value of nature in a holistic sense.

When speaking to a group of young rights of nature activists during a protest in Quito (part of a wave of widespread civil unrest in 2015), they told me they were attending in order protest against the government's extraction policies, in as much as they were viewed to be in direct violation of the rights of nature laid out in the constitution. Three participants stated:

‘We are here to defend the constitution against the extractivist government. The rights of nature are not safe in Rafael Correa's hands. These rights are also human rights… They should be a legal tool to help to protect the communities who are affected by the exploitation of nature and their territory’.

(Martín, activist, conversation during a protest in Quito on 19^th March 2015).

‘The government's decision to exploit oil in the Yasuní shows that the rights of the Pachamama aren’t important to them at all. That is to say, the rights are written…. They are official, but the government doesn’t care about the constitution!’

(Paola, activist, conversation during a protest in Quito on 19^th March 2015).

‘For the rights of nature, Rafael Correa and his criminal administration do not care. He steps on the law and nobody punishes him, so we are here to punish him. And when we are here to protect the law and our constitution?…. He steps on us’.

(Fede, activist, conversation during a protest in Quito on 19^th March 2015).

For Martín, Paola and Fede, the issue of protesting in defense of the rights of nature is one which is directly framed with an anti-state sentiment, particularly in the context of the extraction of natural resources. In years prior to the Correa administration, when issues around extraction were protested, it was often the companies themselves which have been the targets of protesters’ anger, such as during the Chevron–Texaco protests¹ during the 1990s and 2000s (Sawyer, 2001, 2002), and echoed by the large amount of graffiti that has appeared around the country's capital Quito over the years regarding the Chevron–Texaco issue. However, as has been touched on by Morley (2017) and Becker (2013), the decisions to drill in the Yasuní National Park² (as part of the XI Oil Round³), and to conduct large-scale open pit mining in parts of the country, turned environmentalists instead against the state, reflecting its central role in producing neo-developmentalist and neo-extractivist hegemony.

The issue of the Yasuní and the XI Oil Round was ubiquitous in my discussions with rights of nature activists in Ecuador, reflecting the inseparability of the place-based eco-political context in which these rights manifest and the grassroots activism which seeks to defend them. For example, the phrase ‘La mano sucia de Correa’ (the dirty hand of Correa) was often referred to by rights of nature activists in my conversations with them. The phrase is a play on words, referring to a popular photo of President Rafael Correa. The photo depicts President Correa holding up one of his hands covered in crude oil whilst on a trip to the Amazonian province of Sucumbíos, one of the regions heavily affected by Chevron–Texaco's oil spills, in order to show the lingering impact of the firm's business in Ecuador. Taken in August 2013 and entitled ‘La Mano Sucia de Chevron’ (The Dirty Hand of Chevron), the image had become famous both in Ecuador and across the world as a symbol of the country's fight against Chevron–Texaco (and, supposedly, of Rafael Correa's environmentalist credentials). However, in changing the phrase from ‘Chevron’ to ‘Correa’, activists used it mockingly to reference President Correa's supposed corruption, disingenuous nature as regards the environment, and connections with oil and mining industries. On the subject of the photo itself, Jessy, an activist based in the city of Ambato told me:

‘This photo represents the propaganda that the government used for so long to try to show that the President cared about the people and the environment. And you know what? This photo was taken the same year that he sold the Yasuní. So we use it against him. His hands are still dirty and we are not going to forget’.

(Jessy, activist, interview on 12^th June 2015)

Anti-mining rhetoric was also fervently espoused by rights of nature activists in Ecuador. The case most frequently mentioned in this respect was that of the Intag valley in the province of Imbabura (for in-depth discussions on mining in Intag see: Avcı, 2017; Buchanan, 2013; Davidov, 2014). The case of Intag came to feature more significantly in my conversations with rights of nature activists after April 2015 when local land defender Javier Ramírez was sentenced to ten months in prison for fighting against armed police who were attempting to enter the community of Junín in Intag. These police were raiding Junín in response to local activities against the Ecuadorian state mining company ENAMI-EP and the Chilean state company CODELCO who were responsible for the Llurimagua mining project in Intag.

On the issue of Intag, two activists stated:

‘Intag and the people of Junín are currently at the front of the fight against mining in Ecuador and against the criminal government and the police, and the military, who try to displace people for the sake of money and corporations, and that only wants to drain the blood of our land, while giving nothing back’.

(Henry, activist, interview on 31^st May 2015)

‘What is happening in the valley of Intag… It is a region that is not just suffering now, but has been suffering for decades at the hands of numerous governments. They have all wanted to give the valley to the mining corporations, with no care for the environment or the people living there. Mining is a curse on our country and our people, and we now have two forms of rights to fight back against it, human rights and the rights of nature. Hopefully each one can help the other’.

(Joselo, activist, interview on 19^th September 2015)

These examples serve to reinforce the point that, from the Yasuní, to Chevron–Texaco, to Intag, rights of nature activism in Ecuador is often constituted by an anti-state discourse, and that this anti-state discourse exists in tandem with a broader anti-extractivist agenda, underpinned by struggles for human rights. Indeed, these facets work together as one, as the state is portrayed as inseparable from the extractive industry itself, reflective of the anti-neo-developmentalist character of the rights of nature as a counter-hegemonic discourse. In this context, ‘nature's rights are human rights’, and within the nexus between the state, civil society and extractivism in Ecuador, the primary concern of grassroots activists is that these rights should be symbiotic.

It is evident, then, that this counter-hegemony is positioned against neo-developmentalism in Ecuador, and the extractivist state as its embodiment and vanguard. Therefore, the hegemony that is challenged, while concerned with ideology, is also very material for many of these rights of nature activists. The materiality is particularly salient in the intertwining of the state's violations of the rights of nature (and of activists), and the effect this has on the security and livelihoods of marginalised communities in Ecuador. Consequently, the production of this counter-hegemonic discourse is inseparable from the place-based context within which these rights manifest.

Rights of nature at the United Nations

On 22^nd April 2009, the United Nations declared that each year, this day shall henceforth be known as ‘International Mother Earth Day’. Formerly, the 22nd April was known simply as ‘Earth Day’, designated as the anniversary of 22nd April 1970, when tens of thousands of people across the United States mobilised in order to promote ecological and environmental consciousness. However, on this day in 2009 it was not a North American environmentalist that was standing in front of the United Nations General Assembly, but the Bolivian president Evo Morales. At this time, Bolivia was in the process of enshrining rights for Mother Earth into its constitution, similarly to Ecuador, during a period of constitutional renewal (Bolivia's law would come to be formalised in 2010). Morales and his United Nations delegation headed the push for the recognition of the 22^nd April to be known as International Mother Earth Day, taking charge of the drafting of the resolution, securing the support of approximately 50 other member-states and took responsibility for the presentation of said resolution to the General Assembly.

As a result of this meeting, In December of the same year the United Nations General Assembly adopted the first resolution on ‘Harmony with Nature’. The resolution was a result of the General Assembly's concern over the documented environmental degradation and the negative impact on non-human nature stemming from human activity, and consequently would henceforth use the 22^nd of April every year to promote and discuss the Harmony with Nature agenda amongst member states and international, regional and sub-regional organisations. What has followed from this has been a series of Dialogues between member states, organisations including NGOs and IGOs and experts in areas such as law, policy, environmental and ecological economics, as well as both the physical and social sciences.

In order discuss the emergence of the rights of nature within the United Nations Harmony with Nature Dialogues, it is necessary to first highlight another crucial international advocacy process which occurred around these rights in 2010. The process to which I refer is the development of the Universal Declaration of the Rights of Mother Earth (UDRME) during the World Peoples’ Conference on Climate Change and the Rights of Mother Earth (WPCCCRME) in Bolivia. The UDRME is regularly mentioned within the Harmony with Nature Dialogues as a key milestone in the international advocacy of rights for nature, and is recommended as an effective framework through which these rights should be recognised by the United Nations.

The UDRME was drafted in 2010 during the WPCCCRME, which took place in Cochabamba, Bolivia, and was convened by Bolivia's first Indigenous president, Evo Morales. The WPCCCRME was attended by approximately 35,000 people, of which roughly 25,000 were Bolivians, many of them Indigenous (Lindisfarne, 2010). However, this large and heterogenous group included a multitude of social movement actors and organisations, including environmentalists, rights activists, as well as a wide variety of Indigenous groups (Espinosa, 2014). One of the outcomes of this conference was the drafting of the UDRME, which was instigated, and guided by, many of the key organisations and actors, which drive the international rights of nature movement (these include individuals and organisations from Australia, India, Italy, Romania, South Africa, Switzerland, the United Kingdom and the United States) (Espinosa, 2014), many of which have now been taking part in the United Nations Harmony with Nature Dialogues.

As Espinosa (2014) shows, many key actors within the drafting of the UDRME from the Global North were eager to write the document from a position of biocentrism, that is to say, focusing on the intrinsic value of nature in a holistic sense. However, this clashed with some advocates from the Global South, particularly certain Indigenous delegations from Ecuador and Bolivia, whose perspectives were more concerned with the protection of sovereignty and territory, particularly against extractivist governments. As with the conflict of environmental values which was reflected during the constitutional redrafting in Ecuador, so too would these fragmentations resurface here. The ideological battle between the intrinsic value of nature and the preservation of human lives and livelihoods had direct implications for the war of position (and subsequent counter-hegemony) which the UDRME would go on to support. Ultimately, the biocentric position succeeded as the dominant ideology underpinning the document, with the intrinsic value of holistic nature forming the basis upon which its articles were written.

This ideological lineage persisted into the United Nations Harmony with Nature Dialogues, where many of the key actors who took part in writing the UDRME continued their fight to internationalise the rights of nature, in an effort to redefine the hegemonic paradigm of nature–society relations. Indeed, the pursuit of establishing of the Dialogues was the logical next step after writing the UDRME, as it enabled the promotion of rights for nature through hegemonic institutional mechanisms (i.e., the United Nations) in contexts of development and sustainability. With the support and endorsement of President Morales, the transition from Bolivia to the United Nations was successful. Since then, the Dialogues have provided a space for members of the Rights of Nature movement, often characterised through a network of translocal actors and organisations (Kinkaid, 2019), to exist and speak within the supranational institutional sphere. That is also to say, not every member of the Dialogues should be considered a part of the rights of nature movement; for example, many of the national political representatives present might not consider themselves as such. However, the Dialogues function as an important institutional space within which the rights of nature movement have established itself as a central node in the production of knowledge.

The notion that we must establish a ‘new paradigm’ is frequently referred to within the Harmony with Nature Dialogues. Most commonly, the current paradigm (and its problems which are deemed to be in need of change) is identified as being dictated by a pervasive anthropocentrism which exists within global society. The Dialogues seek to address this by advocating and exploring ethics and approaches to social organisation which place the intrinsic value of non-human nature as paramount, thereby leading humanity (in theory) towards a sustainable future. For example, the concept note⁴ from the 2014 dialogue states the following:

‘The concept of harmony with nature incorporates ideas of non-anthropocentric approaches to development i.e., approaches that consider the intrinsic value in every part of the environment’.

(Concept Note for the 2014 Harmony with Nature Dialogue: 1)

Within the Dialogues, the issue of re-conceptualising nature–society relations is mentioned frequently. In fact, from 2014 the idea that we must fundamentally re-conceptualise our relationship with the wider web of life (specifically, moving away from anthropocentric philosophies and ethics towards more biocentric ones) was placed as a central aim of the entire Harmony with Nature Dialogues – this is evident within the excerpt from the 2014 concept note quoted above, and is repeatedly reflected in the Dialogues that took place from 2014 onwards. I here show how this re-conceptualisation of nature–society relations, as a fundamental part of a desired ‘paradigm shift’, is primarily guided and contextualised by claims of non-anthropocentric ethics. In this sense, a hegemonic paradigm (anthropocentrism) is identified by those taking part in the Dialogues and is regarded as something that must not just be altered slightly, but as something that is in need of being replaced by its binary opposite (anthropocentrism → non-anthropocentrism). For example, elements of the Dialogues over the years have stated:

‘Nature around us is whole and interconnected. Though human beings are part of nature, we do not yet fathom her depths, and our actions often do not embody her wisdom. A fundamental shift in our way of viewing the world is necessary if we would contribute to nature’s unity rather than dissolution. The Harmony with Nature initiative of the United Nations General Assembly provides a welcome forum for encouraging a new paradigm that embraces nature's wisdom in shaping a healthy future for all’.

(Statement from the Nature Institute of Ghent, contribution to the 2015 Dialogue on Harmony with Nature)

‘Earth law by definition, must be non-anthropocentric. We have placed ourselves at the top of ‘the hierarchy’! We have lived by very hierarchical principles that seek to control and dominate the natural world. We need to rethink the philosophical base, and ethical foundation as we attempt to solve the sustainability challenge of our time’.

(Laura Ballentyne-Brodie, Environmental Lawyer, contribution to the 2016 Virtual Dialogue on Harmony with Nature)

‘The requisite ecocentric philosophy aligns with the deep sustainability of co-evolving environments, where, biodiversity and “Earth justice” take priority over competitiveness and individual profit’.

(Article 65 of the Expert Summary of the 2017 Dialogue on Harmony with Nature)

What is evident here, is that the counter-hegemony espoused by rights of nature activists taking part in the Harmony with Nature Dialogues is fundamentally concerned with overturning the eco-philosophical underpinnings of an anthropocentric world system, in favour of a biocentric paradigm emblematic of ‘deep ecology⁵’, where the intrinsic value of holistic nature is sacred. As Espinosa (2014) shows, deep ecological principles were also central to the drafting of the UDRME, with members of the committee citing prominent deep ecologists such as Aldo Leopold as an ideological influence. Unsurprisingly, given the role of key drafting members of the UDRME now held within the Harmony with Nature Dialogues, this deep ecological ethic has been embedded within the Dialogues. Consequently, the ways in which the rights of nature manifest here are ideologically contextualised in suit.

Divergent environmentalisms

The manner in which the rights of nature should be used is a key point of conflict between these two elements of the rights of nature movement. That is to say, the end goal and ultimate priority which should be maintained by promoting and defending these rights differ. This cleavage lies at the crossroads of environmental values as they are embedded within diverse rights of nature activism. On the one hand, many grassroots rights of nature activists in Ecuador see the rights of nature as inseparable from parallel struggles for human rights. This is emblematic of Joan Martinez-Alier's ‘Environmentalism of the Poor’ (Martinez-Alier, 2002), where financially poorer communities strive for environmental justice through social movement mobilisations which position environmental issues as intertwined with material concerns around security, health and human rights. Consequently, the war of position through which this counter-hegemony is constituted remains largely (although not exclusively) anthropocentric in its environmental values. As many of my participants in Ecuador stated (and as highlighted earlier), rights of nature pertain to the human just as much as the non-human, and their delivery, implementation and underpinning ethos should reflect this.

Importantly, the role of divergent environmental values has been present since the embryonic stages of constitutionalising rights for nature in Ecuador. While key political figures, such as Alberto Acosta (who was president of the transitional Constituent Assembly which oversaw the re-writing of Ecuador's constitution) were, in combination with rights of nature NGOs in the United States, influential in bringing the idea of rights for nature to the re-drafting of Ecuador's constitution, it was the support of Indigenous social movements which proved instrumental to the success of the formalisation of these rights (Tanasescu, 2013). However, the issue of conflicting value systems was salient, as Indigenous representatives viewed these rights as useful only in as much as they represented a tool for protecting Indigenous rights, particularly around claims to land and territory (Espinosa, 2015). This contrasted with the vision being put forward by Acosta and consultants from the United States, which framed the rights of nature as a progressive, biocentric advancement of society, thereby immediately binding the rights of nature with a ‘double personality’ (Tanasescu, 2013: 850). Indigenous social movements and campesino land defenders represented in the Constituent Assembly were concerned with the level of power such rights would bestow upon the state, however ultimately ended up supporting the idea. Clearly, these rights were, from the outset, defined by conflicting environmental values ‘from above’ and ‘from below’, representing the multiple counter-hegemonies in which they were embedded, even then.

If on the one side we can see an environmentalism, which is concerned with human rights, land rights and territory, positioned against a neo-developmentalist state fuelled by extractivism, on the other side we have an environmentalism which is concerned with reconceptualising and redefining the nature–society relationship. This second environmentalism, embodied by many of those taking part in the Harmony with Nature Dialogues and by elite environmentalists in Ecuador and their international consultants, is the one most dominant across the rights of nature movement. It is the international representation of the movement which operates at the macro scale. As I highlighted earlier, this manifests within the Harmony with Nature Dialogues through a proposed ‘paradigm shift’, where humanity's future is defined by a biocentric earth jurisprudence of ‘deep ecology’ which should guide sustainability and sustainable development. This divide mirrors that which was evident during the constitutionalisation process in Ecuador as well as the writing of the UDRME, where the tenet of ‘nature's rights are human rights’ voiced from below are forgotten (or unheard) by those who espouse a grander (and internationalised) narrative of our very place in the world.

The significance of deep ecology's environmental ethics here cannot be understated. While many movements emerged from the growth in popularity of biocentric ethics, one of the most successful was the deep ecology movement. Framing their position as one that was opposed to ‘shallow ecology’, they stated that the notion of being ‘deep’ came from a greater depth of critical inquiry and understanding of humanity's place in relation to all other living things, therefore representing a fundamentally non-anthropocentric view of the world (Naess, 1973). It was grounded in particular notions of value; not economic value, but moral value. Rejecting ideas of human exceptionalism, they challenged the ‘shallow’ ecologists who they believed to be preoccupied with humanity's wellbeing (and in this sense the value that the environment held only in relation to humans’ use for it), and instead promoted the idea of intrinsic value held by everything within the web of life (including, at least in theory, humans), regardless of humanity's perception of, or interaction with it. This view of the nature–society relationship has been central to much of North American and Western European environmentalism for over a century, however it was the deep ecologists who popularised it in its most recent iteration (Rawson and Mansfield, 2018).

Deep ecology has regularly been critiqued for being misanthropic (Avery, 2004) in that it denies the significance of human interests. Espinosa (2014) notes how many rights of nature advocates (particularly those engaged with the internationalisation of these rights) have been keen to avoid such a dichotomy between human rights versus nature's rights. However, as I argue here, the discursive production of these rights in international contexts such as the United Nations versus how they are articulated by grassroots activists in Ecuador reflect how this divide does indeed exist This stems from the long-standing battle between anthropocentrism and biocentrism; the ultimate question of where (and upon what) environmental values are focused. Recent work which considers the intersection between environmentalism and the Anthropocene has considered how the conceptual divide between biocentrism and anthropocentrism has been disrupted (Lorimer and Driessen, 2014; Wapner, 2014). However, while rights of nature frameworks and activism may have the potential to transcend this binary (Kotzé and Calzadilla, 2017), the practicality of this remains to be seen. Potentially, the point at which this binary is in fact overcome might mark the point at which these environmentalisms once again converge. In Ecuador, there are budding signs of this, principally in the case of the Sinangoe Decision⁶ where rights of nature laws were deployed alongside the A’i Cofán people's right to prior consultation, resulting in the revocation of 52 mining concessions. Importantly, though, this case still reflects a clear distinction between human rights and the rights of nature, although the precedent for their combined use is significant.

For the rights of nature movement, it is important to recognise that these rights represent different things to different people, predicated on their place-based contexts and associated values. This results in the rights of nature being perceived and utilised as different tools depending on the environmentalism they are being channelled through. Consequently, when we consider the rights of nature and rights of nature activism fundamentally as a form of resistance (a common thread across the articulations in this article and other rights of nature contexts around the world), it becomes clear that these rights are being used to underpin diverse resistances which may or may not align ideologically. In the cases I have outlined in this article, these ideologies do not wholly align, and they remain fraught with divisions which are certainly not new within the wider picture of variegated environmentalisms. However, both convey a story of resistance and of a counter-hegemonic effort to challenge and overturn a dominant system which they see as unjust and destructive.

The issue, I argue, does not rest at the point of divergent environmental values. Indeed, differing values is something which social movements have had to contend with probably for as long as they have existed. The issue is not divergence in itself, but rather the conflict that emerges as a result of these values. In the following section, I go on to show how these divergent values in turn produce two counter-hegemonies which conflict, with one undermining the other.

Conflicting counter-hegemonies

The cases I have outlined here represent two separate wars of position and two separate, yet intertwined, counter-hegemonic struggles. One is best characterised as an ‘environmentalism of the poor’, and the other an extension of the ‘deep ecology’ of the Global North. I posit that these two environmentalisms and counter-hegemonies are not only divergent but also in conflict. While they diverge at the point of environmental values and ideology (the role of anthropocentrism and the significance of human rights in the rights of nature discussion), the point at which they reconvene is fundamentally material.

Principally, this manifests within the role of the Ecuadorian state in administering the rights of nature. While the counter-hegemonic struggle being fought by grassroots rights of nature activists in Ecuador is firmly positioned against the state, the efforts of international rights of nature activists taking part in the Harmony with Nature Dialogues praises the Ecuadorian state for its administration of the rights of nature. This endorsement in a supranational arena such as the United Nations subsequently reproduces the hegemony of the Ecuadorian state, thereby conflicting directly with the counter-hegemonic efforts and constituent war of position being mobilised by grassroots activists in the country.

By representing Ecuador as a successful case of rights of nature implementation, the international element of the rights of nature movement seeks to strengthen its own war of position. Owing largely to the fact that they exist at the constitutional level (and that Ecuador was one of the first countries to inscribe these rights into the country's highest legal document) there is a clear inference that the experiential capital offered by Ecuador is of significant value to promoting the rights of nature movement at the international level. For example:

‘The fact that some governments like Ecuador and Bolivia, in Latin America have adopted the rights of nature in their constitutions and other countries following this initiative is showing that the movement is taking momentum’.

(Mersha Yilma, written contribution to the 2016 virtual dialogue on Harmony with Nature)

‘These precedents join those such as the Ecuadorian Constitution […] in building a body of jurisprudence which recognises the laws of the Earth’.

(Gaia Institute, contribution to the 2015 Harmony with Nature Interactive Dialogue)

‘Court decisions and administrative actions in Ecuador support the rights of nature’.

(Linda Sheehan, Earth Law Center, written contribution to the 2016 virtual dialogue on Harmony with Nature)

While these assertions are technically accurate, the representation is an essentialisation of the reality of the rights of nature in Ecuador. For example, the increased harassment of, and violence towards, environmentalists and land defenders in Ecuador is largely ignored. Likewise, the mistrust of the state, and the scepticism of its ability and willingness to enforce the rights of nature held by many activists operating in Ecuador is of little importance to the Dialogues. This is most likely due to the lack of representatives from Ecuador invited to take part in the Harmony with Nature Dialogues during these years, resulting in the country's experience being spoken about by others, rather than those on the ground. One of the few individuals from Ecuador who has taken part in the talks is Natalia Greene (a well-known Ecuadorian environmentalist who was involved in the constitutionalisation of the rights of nature in Ecuador). In the 2016 Dialogue she wrote:

‘The problem is that not only are these rights not guaranteed, but the rights of those protecting nature are also violated since there is a persecution and criminalization of defenders of Nature’.

(Natalia Greene, written contribution to the 2016 virtual dialogue on Harmony with Nature)

Greene's comments were not acknowledged by other participants in the Dialogues (that year's or those afterward). Instead, the majority of contributors chose to continue representing Ecuador and the Ecuadorian state as positive examples of rights of nature implementation. This, I argue, is because the counter-hegemonic struggle to which Greene refers is conflictual with that of the Dialogues. Consequently, we see a highly problematic relationship between the Harmony with Nature Dialogues, the Ecuadorian state and grassroots rights of nature activists in Ecuador. The hegemony and legitimacy of the Ecuadorian state is strengthened by such positive discursive representations, and the war of position of grassroots activists remains ignored. Speaking of this process, not in relation to the United Nations, but regarding internet commentary on the rights of nature in Ecuador, one Ecuadorian activist told me:

‘I see a lot written online about the rights of nature, in magazines and on blogs, but it doesn’t seem to show what it's really like to be an activist trying to make these rights a reality in my country. I see the government being celebrated like it's them who work to defend these rights, but it's not like this, it's us against them. It frustrates me. It makes our work harder […] because it makes it seem like the government are the good ones. Well, when they are punishing us for our activism does that make us the bad ones?’

(Sandra, activist, interview on 20^th September 2015)

Sandra's comments reflect the contradictions of rights of nature discourses which represent the Ecuadorian state as a positive example of rights of nature implementation. Importantly, her words demonstrate the ways in which such representations negatively impact the counter-hegemonic war of position in which grassroots activists are engaged. By providing the Ecuadorian state with political capital as arbiters of the rights of nature, it becomes more difficult for activists to curate a positive image of their own.

Recent rights of nature cases which have been brought against the Ecuadorian state reflect this ongoing struggle between grassroots activists and the extractivist state. For example, the 2021 ruling⁷ which prevented the state-owned mining company ENAMI-EP from mining in Los Cedros cloud forest represented a landmark case, where rights of nature were successfully deployed against the vested interests of the state. However, the court's ruling reflects the continuing focus on biodiversity as a driving force of rights of nature success, thereby highlighting the ongoing dominance of biocentric values in the framing of these rights. However, Natalia Greene's comments remain salient to remember in that rights of nature in Ecuador are far from guaranteed, and that the fight to defend them is still often fought against the very state, which enshrined them in the constitution.

Furthermore, the state-centric discourse through which the Harmony with Nature Dialogues represent the rights of nature in Ecuador results in a reduction of complex and variegated social and political communities (e.g. the state and civil society) that exist within national boundaries, and reproduces hierarchical power relations that prioritise formal political institutions (Agnew, 1994; Kearns, 2008). Concurrently, the hegemony of the Ecuadorian state is reproduced, as it is regarded as the central actor and locus of power within which the rights of nature are realised and embodied within its own borders. As has been highlighted by scholars such as Kauffman and Martin (2017), the constitutionalisation of the rights of nature in Ecuador has empowered the state in many ways. Principally, the state possessing another tool with which to exert power over land and territory to protect its own interests (particularly in relation to who is allowed to conduct extractive activities and where these take place), has seen the original concerns voiced by land defenders during the constitutional redrafting vindicated. Recent developments (such as the case of Los Cedros), though, have shown that this power balance is seemingly beginning to shift, largely attributable to the education of lawyers and judges in the administration of rights of nature (Kauffman and Martin, 2021). However, the grappling between anthropocentric and biocentric values embedded within rights of nature advocacy from culturally and socio-politically diverse groups will continue to contextualise divergent power struggles within the movement until it is resolved.

Conclusion

The issue remains that many rights of nature advocates taking part in the Harmony with Nature Dialogues actively produce a particular imaginary of Ecuador and Ecuadorians’ experience with the rights of nature. It is one that serves primarily to advance the agenda of the international movement, and of those activists, experts and organisations who are taking part in the Dialogues. Consequently, inconvenient truths and local complexities that occur around the rights of nature in Ecuador are often overlooked, as they do not reinforce the counter-hegemonic war of position in which international actors are engaged.

It therefore becomes clear that the terrains on which these wars of position are being fought are different. As Brissette (2013) reminds us, to understand a war of position it is necessary too to understand the terrain on which it is mobilised. This terrain is at the same time both ideological and material – paved streets in the face of armed police, where human rights and environmentalism are intricately intertwined; or the meeting halls of the United Nations, where neoliberal rationalities of universalist politics are commonplace. This is not to prize one over the other, rather it is to elucidate the radically different contexts in which these struggles find themselves. One is located at the macro level, where grand narratives of global issues such as sustainability, development and climate change dominate the discursive context, with little space for embedded and complex place-based narratives; whereas the other is inward-looking, seeking to address problems at home rather than away. The problem arises due to these terrains overlapping, with one war of position relying on the terrain of the other to substantiate its own claims, but without regard to the other, in many ways allied war, which is being fought there. In contrast to what may be misconstrued as a unified ‘pluri-scalar war of position’ (Muhr, 2022), the variegated terrains on which these resistances occur produce two struggles which diverge at the point of environmental values, but come into conflict with one another as their terrains come into contact once again.

The case of conflicting counter-hegemonies I have analysed here shows us that divisions within social movements are not only significant in their fragmentation of potential unification and agenda setting (Avanza, 2018; Tranter, 2011), but that such conflicts may result in one struggle undermining another. The lens of (counter-)hegemony allows us to better understand this by critically analysing the ideological underpinnings and subsequent wars of position, which constitute such struggles. Therefore, what becomes clear is the necessity to not only acknowledge the existence of multiple counter-hegemonies within social movements, but also the impetus to understand how these struggles intersect and diverge along cultural and political lines. Crucially, and what I have argued here, is that we must pay close attention to the implications of this for those activists who are less well-networked, less visible and with fewer resources than their counterparts.

As socio-environmental conflicts continue to increase worldwide as a result of climate change, extractivism and green colonialism (Hess and Fenrich, 2017), it is vital that as experts we recognise the diverse cultural and place-based dynamics of resistance which manifest in response. We must challenge homogenising approaches which fail to recognise the complex and nuanced impacts of place and scale on the politics of resistance, especially as they pertain to lived experiences and multiple knowledges. In the context of the environment, it is necessary to closely analyse the ways in which values intersect with broader structures of power and representation, particularly in relation to alliances between groups with shared interests. In so doing, (often unintended) exclusion and marginalisation might be averted, thereby avoiding the reproduction of the problematic power relations we are so keen to challenge.

Highlights

Multiple counter-hegemonies exist within the rights of nature movement, which sometimes come into conflict with one another.

These conflicting counter-hegemonies are predicated on divergent environmentalisms and environmental values.

Scholars of social movements should pay closer attention to how multiple counter-hegemonies interact with one another and how they reproduce unequal power relations.

Footnotes

Acknowledgements

The author would like to thank the reviewers for their encouraging and insightful comments, as well as Dr Mary Lawhon and Dr Ale Boussalem for their comments on an earlier draft of this article.

Declaration of conflicting interests

The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding

The author disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: The Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC).

ORCID iD

Stefan Rzedzian

Notes

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