Affect, Ecofeminism, and Intersectional Struggles in Latin America

List of Illustrations

Book Cover

Top: Berta Cáceres with COPINH and Río Blanco community members honoring colleagues killed during the two-year struggle. Honduras’ violent climate is well known to many, but few understand that environmental and human rights activists are its victims. (Photo: Goldman Environmental Prize)

Bottom: Berta Cáceres and the Lenca community’s efforts successfully kept construction equipment out of the proposed dam site. In late 2013, Sinohydro terminated its contract with DESA, publicly citing ongoing community resistance and outrage following Tomás’ death. Agua Zarca suffered another blow when the IFC withdrew its funding, citing concerns about human rights violations. (Photo: Goldman Environmental Prize)

Introduction

Fig. Intro.1 Berta Cáceres, 2015 Goldman Environmental Prize Winner for South and Central America, receiving her award. (Photo: Goldman Environmental Prize)

Fig. Intro.2 Berta Cáceres with her mother Doña Austra Berta in their home in La Esperanza, Intibucá, Honduras. Her mother, a midwife and social activist, took in and cared for refugees from El Salvador, teaching Berta and her siblings the value of standing up for disenfranchised people. (Photo: Goldman Environmental Prize)

Chapter 4

Fig. 4.1 Berta Cáceres, 2015 Goldman Environmental Prize winner for South and Central America, giving her acceptance speech. (Photo: Goldman Environmental Prize)

Fig. 4.2 Berta Cáceres founded the National Council of Popular and Indigenous Organizations of Honduras (COPINH) to address the growing threats posed to Lenca communities by illegal logging, fight for their territorial rights and improve their livelihoods. (Photo: Goldman Environmental Prize)

Fig. 4.3 Berta Cáceres tapes a radio segment in the studio of Radio Guarajambala, a community radio station at COPINH’s office in La Esperanza, Intibucá, Honduras. (Photo: Goldman Environmental Prize)

Chapter 5

Fig. 5.1 In 2006, community members from Río Blanco understood that an aggression against the Gualcarque River—place of spiritual importance to the Lenca people—was an act against the community, its free will, and its autonomy. (Photo: Goldman Environmental Prize)

Chapter 6

Fig. 6.1 Berta Cáceres on the banks of the Gualcarque River in the Río Blanco region of Western Honduras. The river is a source of water, food, medicine, and spiritual identity for the indigenous Lenca people. (Photo: Goldman Environmental Prize)

Fig. 6.2 With mandates from local community members, Berta Cáceres filed complaints against the Agua Zarca Dam with government authorities, bringing along community representatives on trips to Tegucigalpa. (Photo: Goldman Environmental Prize)

Acknowledgments

I have written this book through a myriad of conflicting affects accompanied by many thousand tears. The time devoted to the production of a book is often insurmountable due to extra life and work duties along the way. However, in this case, the timing was timely. The composition of this book was intermittently interrupted by social media and breaking news notifications on environmental disasters, on the increasing number of environmental activists killed, on more injustice enacted throughout Berta’s trial, on the burning of the Amazons, on climate change, global warming, and on the reality of unaffected governments characterized by tremendous greed and corruption. The main idea erupted for the love of an incredible woman whose power, persistence, brilliance, and devotion to social justice was suddenly shattered on the night of March 2nd, 2016. The tremendous affect of Berta’s death led me to embark on a personal affective journey that echoes the capacity to affect and to spread affection of social and environmental movements such as COPINH. During the process, I have often cried watching interviews with Berta and listening to her daughters’ words full of outrage and indignation because of the extreme levels of corruption and political impunity in Honduras. Nevertheless, their frustration often brought contagious energy and strength full of tenderness, love, care, and hope invested in their endless struggle for social justice. All the tears and sadness activated my desire to contribute, with this book, to action; to ←xiii | xiv→continue the legacy of Berta and to “move” and “touch” as many people as possible, so one day we can inhabit a better and fairer world.

Introduction

¡Berta no ha muerto, Berta se ha multiplicado! Paving the Way for an Affective Journey

“Berta no luchó por un río, su trabajo no era local. Murió por algo de lo que todos somos responsables: por la biodiversidad del planeta. No podemos dar la espalda a su causa.”

(Berta did not fight for a river, her work was not local. She died for something we all are responsible for: the Earth’s biodiversity. We cannot turn our backs to this cause.)

–GUSTAVO CASTRO