Black and green: Afro-Colombians, development, and nature in the Pacific lowlands

The author argues that neoliberal development processes and social movements shape each other in uneven and paradoxical ways. She analyzes the black social movements that emerged from the political and economic changes in Colombia's Pacific lowlands, or Chocó region, in the 1990s. At that time, the region was known as the largest area of black culture in the country (90 percent of the region's population is Afro-Colombian) and as a supplier of natural resources, including timber, gold, platinum, and silver. Colombia's Law 70, passed in 1993, promised ethnic and cultural rights, collective land ownership, and socioeconomic development to Afro-Colombian communities. At the same time that various constituencies sought to interpret Law 70, the state was moving ahead with large-scale development initiatives intended to modernize the economically backward coastal lowlands. Meanwhile conservation organizations were attempting to protect the region's rich biodiversity. She explores this juxtaposition of black rights, economic development, and conservation - and the tensions it catalyzed. She analyzes the meanings attached to culture, nature, and development by the Colombian state and Afro-Colombian social movements, including women's groups. In so doing, she shows that the appropriation of development and conservation discourses by the social movements had a paradoxical effect. It legitimized the presence of state, development, and conservation agencies in the Pacific region even as it influenced those agencies' visions and plans.

Black social movements and development in the making -- Afro-Colombian ethnicity : from invisibility to the limelight -- "The El Dorado of modern times" : economy, ecology, and territory -- "El ruido interno de comunidades negras" : the ethno-cultural politics of the PCN -- "Seeing with the eyes of black women" : gender, ethnicity, and development -- Displacement, development, and Afro-Colombian movement.