Território, autonomia, soberania e extrativismo: panorama de conflitos socioambientais na Bolívia durante a pandemia a partir dos casos do TIPNIS, Chepete-El Bala e da extração de lítio

Abstract

This paper seeks to analyze socio-environmental conflicts in Bolivia during the pandemic period of Covid-19. More specifically, we analyze the social mobilizations around three cases: TIPNIS, Chepete-El Bala and of lithium mining. The article analyzes the mobilizations in Bolivia within the time frame between April 2020 and April 2022. Thus, in order to map the conflicts, we are oriented by the following questions: i) Who were the actors involved in the conflicts?, ii) What demands did they put forward?, and iii) How were these demands claimed in the pandemic? In methodological terms, we used secondary sources (newspapers and alternative media) and mapped the social networks of the movements involved in the cases. In light of the contemporary discussion on extractivism and neoextractivism in Latin America, we conclude that during the pandemic there is a maintenance in the patterns of state-natural resources relationship by the government, unchanged even with the government transitions between 2020 and 2021. We conclude, however, that even within the same grammars of autonomy and struggle for territories, there is a new repertoire of action being created, with a transformation in the forms of claims by social actors.