Ecozones of the North and the South: Models of Development, Extractive Practices, and Tensions in Freedom and eRRor, un Juego con Tra(d)ición

Ecological Crisis and Cultural Representation in Latin America

Lexington Books

Lugar: Lanham, MaryLand; Año: 2016;

Extractivism is one of the most controversial practices of human intervention in the environment. It generally refers to mining activity, that is, the extraction of minerals from the earth?s crust, but, in a broader sense, it also includes the extraction of soil nutrients in industrial agricultural production. At the macroeconomic level, it is associated with neoextractivist development, which has generated mounting concerns in bioregional economies. As Svampa writes, neoextractivism may be defined as ?the pattern of accumulation based on the over-exploitation of natural resources, non-renewable in large measure, as well as the expansion of the frontiers of capital to territories previously considered unproductive? (4). In Jonathan Franzen´s novel Freedom (2010) and the play eRRor, un Juego con Tra(d)ición (eRRor, a Tra(d)itional Game; 2011), a production by Argentinian performance collective BiNeural-Monokultur, there are references to extractive activities presented from different positions and by means of varied rhetorical devices. This essay examines the tensions provoked by extractive activities and the different strategies used by both texts to represent these practices. It establishes relations between the texts´ positions toward extractivism and underlying conceptions regarding interactions between humans and nonhumans, as well as the intersections between individual, social, and environmental rights.