A Fight Against Fracking

Source: Esteban Ignacio (Flickr)

The beginning

Indigenous communities have faced generations of displacement and dispossession with the occupation and seizure of their territories by corporations and national governments. The situation challenging the Mapuche community of Argentina, an ancestral people with their own culture and cosmovision is no different. They have been and are being subject to displacement and dispossession of their lands, to make space for the exploitation of Vaca Muerta, the biggest non-conventional oil and shale-gas site in Argentina, is no different.

Vaca Muerta is home to 34 different Mapuche communities and is the home of the world’s largest shale gas reserves. Fracking, which began in 2013, has systemically devastated the land and contaminated water supplies, caused aggressive levels of pollution, killed livestock, and even caused major earthquakes. It has also been a site of painful experiences of destruction, pillage, and death for the Mapuche communities.

To the Mapuche community, reciprocal relations with nature are foundational. They practice agriculture, with older generations teaching the newest generations their approaches and practices. Cooperation and solidarity are fundamental values for communal food production. They consider soil a pillar of their cosmological worldview, as they connect with their ancestors through Mother Earth, or ñukemapu. Shale and gas are fossil fuels that contribute to global warming and climate change when used. Added to this is the mounting concern of pollution from shale and gas exploration on these sites, which affects the Mapuche’s rivers and livestock. However, leaving the land in the hands of the Mapuche is to resituate existence to a state of harmony and reciprocity with nature – and arguably even a way to keep the climate crisis in check.

In the Mapuche worldview, there is no distinction between nature and culture, and there is no room for capitalistic dynamics of accumulation of surpluses and making profits. They consider the natural world inseparable from the social world, meaning that there is no separation between production and reproduction – a factor that has consistently motivated women to be on the forefront in resistance movements.

Resisting Displacement and Dispossession

In 2015, six Mapuche women in Argentina took state colonialism, imperialism, extractivism, and capitalism head-on by chaining themselves to fracking drills in protest against a wide-ranging fracking project. Since then, several lawsuits have been filed calling for an end to the fracking projects and restoration of the land to the Mapuche people. However, in 2021, the Argentine government announced new subsidies of up to USD 1 billion a year for four years for oil companies operating in the site – on the ground that producing gas domestically will reduce expenditures incurred on imports, given that the state is heavily indebted. In 2022, as many as 50 Mapuche people assembled to blockade entrances to the fracking sites in Vaca Muerta. They held their red, green, and blue flag, and demanded that the shale and gas exploration efforts on their land be drawn to a close.  

Their fight still continues, and it isn’t just about protesting the appropriation of their land, but also to fight the triple intersectional threat they face as Indigenous women working with the earth. They are also actively resisting the occupation of their land by their own government, backed and supported by transnational corporations and other countries such as the US – whose machines are involved in trawling these lands – that are actively seeking these shale and gas resources. Given that this systemic exploitation of these lands reflects a “mechanistic rationality associated with masculinity” and is “positioned as superior to non-rational ways connected to feeling, the earth, and taking care of life,” these women struggle against extractivism (Moreno, 2016).

References

Cirefice, V. and Sullivan, L. (2019). Women on the Frontlines of Resistance to Extractivism. https://www.developmenteducationreview.com/issue/issue-29/women-frontlines-resistance-extractivism

Goñi, U. (2019). Indigenous Mapuche pay high price for Argentina's fracking dream. https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/oct/14/indigenous-mapuche-argentina-fracking-communities

Kaksrud, A. T. (2022). Indigenous Rights and Fracking in Patagonia: An Ecofeminist Perspective. https://nmbu.brage.unit.no/nmbu-xmlui/bitstream/handle/11250/3029264/Kaksrud.pdf?sequence=1&isAllowed=y

Livingstone, G. (2022). Standing firm against fracking. https://newint.org/features/2022/04/04/fracked-earth

Moreno, N P (2016) ‘Six Indigenous women at the heart of fracking resistance in Argentina’, TeleSUR, 29 March, https://intercontinentalcry.org/argentina-6-indigenous-women-heart-fracking-resistance/    

Reingold, J. (2021). The Mapuche tribe fights for a way of life in harmony with nature . https://www.oneearth.org/the-mapuche-tribe-fights-for-a-way-of-life-in-harmony-with-nature/