She combines feminist geography, political ecology, and political economy to study how green capitalism within the energy transition agenda perpetuates colonialism and the exploitation of reproductive labor that underpins the energy transition globally.

Critical Conversations is a series dedicated to exploring feminist, decolonial, and grassroots perspectives on just transition — perspectives that are frequently absent from mainstream climate and energy debates. Through these dialogues, we aim to connect lived experience and critical analysis to policy conversations, fostering space for reflection and collective sense-making.

Diana is a feminist academic and researcher who combines geography, political ecology and political economy to study questions of mining and extraction, particularly how the industry is affecting communities in Ecuador. We were excited to talk to her about what form resistance to extractive projects takes and, more specifically, what community governance and decision-making in navigating questions around these projects looks like.

The transcribed interview below has been edited for length and clarity.

WEDO: We’re excited to talk to you about your strong analysis of mining and extraction, which highlights questions of community consent, FPIC legal frameworks, and sovereignty. Can you tell us more about your research on mining in Ecuador? How do you think through the layers of power and consent in that national context? What can it teach others about the regional or global context of extraction of critical minerals? 

Diana: I think it is better to contextualize it in the context of “what is extractivism?” The literature has been changing for the last 10 years or so. At the beginning, most studies were centered on the traditional extractive sectors: on mining, on fossil fuels, the implications for those sectors, and what they do for communities and territories. Later, the literature expanded to think about forms of extraction through agrarian expansion, or the agro-industrial sector, to the process of “green grabbing”. 

In general, the concept of extractivism tries to explain the particular forms through which extraction occurs and how capital accumulation happens. This is different than thinking about a production process, because much of the profit comes from owning and controlling access to these resources themselves, not the production or the productivity of any of these industries. These are processes of capital accumulation that have territorial consequences. That is where my work happens to be. 

I'm Ecuadorian, and a lot of my research happens in Ecuador. If I show you the map of Ecuador, for example, you'll see where the mining concessions are located, and in most cases, they overlap with Indigenous territories or with protected areas that have certain ecological considerations because they are vulnerable ecosystems. Extractive projects will normally transform the places where they occur and bring large social and environmental impacts. Ecuadorian law establishes that there needs to be a process of consultation with people who live in those territories, because they will be impacted by these projects. That inherently creates contestation over who decides over the development of these places. 

In most cases, governments determine that these extractive projects are strategic for national development or for specific economic purposes. [When an extractive project is located in an Indigenous territory, this needs to be approved by the communities because] Indigenous lands are particularly protected by constitutional rights. In the case of Ecuador, like you see in many constitutions around the world, Indigenous Peoples have collective rights and rights for self-determination over the decisions that happen on their territories. They are also internationally protected by treaties such as the ILO 169 Convention, which are legally binding and establish the rights of people to have Free, Prior and Informed Consent and consult, to decide over the future of their territories. They do have the right to say no if they don't want [these projects to exist in their territories] because they think the consequences will affect the social reproduction* of the territories and the peoples. However, in many cases, their rights are being violated.

In many places in Latin America where extractivism is happening, extractive industries have destroyed the environmental and social conditions for the reproduction of the people and the environment. You have pollution, you have water scarcity, you have ecosystem degradation, you have violence, you have community degradation, and that particularly affects women because of the historical forms in which women have been marginalized in those places. It increases the burden on care in places where social reproduction has deteriorated. The debate is critical at the local and national levels because these resources, or the extraction of these resources, connect with specific considerations for justice. Questions such as: who benefits from extraction and who loses? Who is impacted by the social and environmental costs of this extraction? How are the benefits distributed? Are the benefits distributed equally or not?

This is also critical for international conversations because these natural resources are part of a global economy and become commodities within the global supply chain connected to the energy transition. These resources are connected to what is known as “green industries,” like electromobility, digitalization, and even more concerning industries such as the military-industrial complex or surveillance AI technology. The ultimate question, then, is what is the purpose of extraction? Who gains and who benefits from it? [Does it contribute to social wellbeing when critical minerals are extracted to be used for the military-industrial complex?]

* Social reproduction can be defined as the social processes, human relations, social institutions, and ecological life-producing structures and relations, associated with the creation and maintenance of individuals, households, and communities, and ultimately, the foundations on which all production associated with the global political economy rests. Source: Bakker, I., & Gill, S. (2019). Rethinking power, production, and social reproduction: Toward variegated social reproduction. Capital & Class, 43(4), 503-523.

WEDO: You’ve also written about community participation and decision-making around natural resources, particularly in the context of mining. What have you learned about the challenges and possibilities in Ecuador, and more broadly, in developing stronger systems of community input and participation? What barriers exist to implementing stronger community-led processes in shaping policies and demands around critical minerals extraction?

Diana:  I'll start with saying that people have the right to decide what happens in the places they live. That is the basic question in thinking about how we respect the conditions for securing the social reproduction of people. What I've seen is that when formal mechanisms for exercising the right to participation are denied — we talked about Free, Prior and Informed Consent — people use other legal mechanisms [to defend their rights]. You see in many countries that people do public or local consultations to decide over the future of their territory. In many cases, they are bottom-up initiatives that are highly democratic because they connect to the right of direct democracy, people themselves deciding over the future of their places. In many cases, they are not recognized [officially].

[In the case of Ecuador, popular consultations are legally recognized in the Constitution. Yet, we see that the outcomes of these consultations] don't determine the ultimate decision-making over what happens in those territories, especially in the case of strategic resources or strategic decisions, [which is a violation of the principle of direct democracy and the right to participate in decision-making].

When the rights of the people to participate in decision-making are violated, people try to open the doors of participation using other mechanisms in the absence of institutional doors that allow them to exercise democratic means to participate. These other mechanisms to participate can be protests or boycotts or blockades, and these are part of repertoires that people use to shape decision-making. They are highly democratic. In many places, rights to protest are constitutionally protected. But what we see is an increase in the use of force and state repression when people demonstrate [in the streets]. That reflects the condition of current times, where many countries have authoritarian governments– and how these governments are “managing” social conflict through state repression, through criminalization and use of force. These are tactics that are being legitimized globally [today]. I think that is also something that feminism denounces: the use of patriarchal violence that comes from this force — use of violence and enforcement to [control] social unrest in people. 
 

WEDO: You powerfully explained the ways that folks find their own avenues to influence decision-making when the institutional doors do not exist. For folks who are less familiar, can you describe what community participation and decision-making in these processes looks like? What institutional doors do exist? What is the status of community engagement in questions of extraction and mining?

Diana: Specifically for Indigenous communities, you have the right of Free, Prior and Informed Consent. But what happens if these projects happen in places where there is no Indigenous recognition, and people are denied the right to use this mechanism? In most countries in Latin America, legislation provides protection based on environmental considerations, so people have to be consulted [as extractive projects cause highly damaging environmental changes]. Whether this is legally binding or not is another conversation, but people need to be consulted over the environmental and social repercussions. [There are several institutional mechanisms to influence decision-making.] 

In Ecuador, the progressive character of the constitution allows forms of direct democracy, where we can have public consultations [over issues of public concern]. People within certain jurisdictions organize themselves and call for having a consultation, which is legally binding. If people decide you'll go to a referendum and you'll vote on a specific question, whether related to, let's say, a mining project, [everybody has the right to decide.] That means that the state has the responsibility to listen to the final decision. There have been three referendums [in Ecuador regarding extractive projects,] and the government is not listening to [the outcomes of the consultations].

When these institutional mechanisms don’t work, you’ll see a lot of the community-based forms of organization and protest that are happening. Then the decision-making process works through community assemblies, and normally it is sustained through the everyday forms of meeting, talking to people, and organizing. Sometimes you also have moments of rupture and explosion in the streets, and then you'll see people protesting [to defend their rights and their lands. These are also forms by which people defend their right to decide over their lives.] And Ecuador has a long history of protest and social unrest that has defined decision-making in the country. [Unfortunately,] we see current authoritarian right-wing governments [criminalizing and prosecuting social protests], and we see the use of force and violence to repress these forms of democratic expression. 

WEDO: Tactics like protesting and boycotts are responsive in nature to the fact that rights of consent and input are already being violated. When you think about what community engagement and more equitable governance over natural resources looks like, what are some of the ways you wish communities got to be involved, have a say, have power, and share co-benefits? 

Diana: It’s a difficult answer because you can grow to disbelieve the possibilities of policymaking and how transformative it can be. Nevertheless, it's important to keep pushing for those institutional spaces. I think any space is a space in dispute, [institutionally or grassroots]. Then it is also a call for always [supporting grassroots organizations] that are on the front line of experiencing these impacts from the extractive industries, listening to their stories, demands, and calls for justice and what justice would mean to them. I think it is important and will hopefully be translated in institutional arenas.

But at the same time, [supporting people's protests is fundamental as they have been] the biggest space historically for shaping decision-making in history. [Political changes have always been shaped by] protest and social organization — without romanticizing that because it's also a highly unbalanced space where people are susceptible to repression, violence, and criminalization. But I think it is also a space nurtured with care, solidarity, and reciprocity, and where you as a person learn about political commitments for justice and transformation.

WEDO: We’re also interested in your research at the nexus of social reproduction and just energy transition. How are these two areas linked, and what are the implications of your analysis for advocates working on gender and climate?

Diana: This is a fundamental question because it touches upon specific social and ecological relations that [exist in order to sustain the energy transition].

In considering the production of specific technologies within the energy transition, [you will require the extraction of large amounts of critical minerals. As I mentioned, extraction will produce heavy social and environmental damages that need to be put into the conversation of what is just and where justice is in the energy transition. Extraction causes the degradation of nature but also the exploitation of labor. Think about the global supply chains needed for green technology production, including] mining sites, processing plants or manufacturing hubs across a whole system of energy production and consumption, [labor is required at every industrial process. A lot of consideration has been given to the formal labor and the workers that will join the endeavors needed for the energy transition,] and people think about these spaces as male-dominated. But these places and these workers and these economies cannot operate without all the reproductive activities and care labor like domestic work, cleaning, food production, and emotional and community support, which are normally done by poor, racialized, marginalized women. [The industrial production of green technologies cannot operate without all the reproductive labor that exists to sustain the working conditions of the formal workers. This type of reproductive labor, which is mainly informal, is not considered in the debates of just transitions.]

Reproductive activities are fundamental for sustaining life. For me, it's important to put social reproduction and reproductive labor at the center of the discussions of the just energy transition. It’s important because it will expand the definition of just transition, which has normally been focused on formal employment and how secure employment within these specific sectors will become less carbon-intensive. They normally don't include conversations about informal and unpaid reproductive labor, in which most women fulfill those roles and activities. It’s important to ask questions such as: who sustains the transition and in what forms? Who is a worker? What is labor? What type of labor are we talking about? What are the ecological conditions of these places where the industries are being allocated? How are they defining specific conditions in which social reproduction is happening? How are they affecting livelihoods, food, clean air, or water conditions that are sustaining the social reproduction of people?

I think it's also important to [go beyond employment in market spaces, but also see the social provisioning around the industrial spaces of energy production, to] question whether or not certain public institutions or mechanisms secure the social reproduction of people beyond market spaces, such as school, housing, and certain labor protections? How do certain corporate interventions facilitate or neglect access for securing the social reproduction of these people?  What is important for me is making visible the gaps that the current discussion of just transition is not asking, and identifying where and how reproductive relations can be reimagined to think about more systemic changes awaiting the energy system.