Re-imagining care: women’s everyday struggles against extractivism in Latin America – Diana Vela-Almeida

This presentation draws attention to the everyday, ordinary, often invisible and undervalued care practices carried out by women—practices that are fundamental to sustaining life in territories condemned as sacrifice zones. Through these practices, women not only reshape their territories but also transform their identities—from being perceived as passive victims of a capitalist, patriarchal, and extractive system to becoming active agents of life and resistance in places worth defending. Women’s deep-rooted connection to their territories compels them to engage in care as a political practice—an ongoing, daily resistance in defense of life. In this presentation, I will explore three cases of women who have long resisted the erasure of their existence through subtle, yet equally powerful, forms of care and struggle. These cases from Ecuador and Chile challenge dominant narratives that portray sacrifice zones as lifeless and desolate, instead framing them as relational spaces imbued with meaning and possibilities for reimagining life. 
 

Diana Vela-Almeida is an Assistant Professor at the Copernicus Institute of Sustainable Development, Utrecht University. She combines political ecology and feminist critical geography to study extractivism, neoliberal environmentalism, and socio-environmental resistance. She is currently working on two projects: TRANSFEM - “A just TRANSport TRANSformation? A TRANSnational, FEMinist analysis of the social reproduction of the lithium and copper supply chain”, studying the reproductive labor powering the lithium and copper supply chains in Chile and Sweden; and the DEFENDBIO - “Biosphere defenders leveraging legal and governance tools for just sustainability transformations”, focusing on environmental defenders resisting extractivism in Ecuador and Colombia.
 
This inaugural lecture of the Extractivism Research Group will be introduced by Martina Angela Caretta, an associate professor at KEG and member of the Extractivism Research Group. She will present the profile and members of this interdisciplinary Research Group and welcome undergraduate and graduate students interested in doing research focused on extractivism.