Today, the Americas face an intensification of socio-environmental conflicts arising from the expansion of extractive frontiers (mining, agribusiness, large infrastructure projects, and corporate energy transition, among other examples). In this scenario, the violation of the human rights of traditional, peasant, indigenous and quilombola communities goes hand in hand with ecological degradation. This Working Group proposes to be an interdisciplinary space for debate that brings together Political Ecology and the defense of Human Rights. In this sense, we welcome papers analyzing:
* Power asymmetries in the appropriation and control of natural resources and the commons, and theories from political ecology addressing this issue;
* The criminalization and violence against environmental and territorial defenders on the continent, which constitutes an affront to the human rights of those who work for the environmental cause;
* Environmental racism and the distributive injustices affecting vulnerabilized populations;
* Strategies of resistance, international jurisprudence (such as decisions of the Inter-American Court of Human Rights – IACtHR), and local alternatives based on buen vivir, also considering environmental (in)justice, the climate issue, and socio-environmental public policies.
Theoretical and methodological contributions and case studies adopting critical, decolonial, political-ecology perspectives are welcome, promoting cross-border dialogue on the future of socio-environmental justice in the Americas.
