Week 13: Towards an Uncertain Future

Writing this weeks post feels a lot harder than writing the posts from earlier weeks. I find it extremely hard to think about where Latin America, let alone the whole world, is heading. We are faced with a pandemic, ecological disaster and global political instability. Jon asked us in the lecture, now after thirteen weeks, to think about three things that come to our minds when thinking about Latin America, and all I could think about was: inequality, struggle and neoliberalism. My idea about the region has definitely gotten much darker, and therefore, my idea of its future isn't much brighter. However, as the world is continuously more globalized, I don't think it is realistic to talk about the Latin American future excluded from the global context. While every place has its own histories, and therefore also their own futures, they develop in relation to one another. As we have seen, first the involvement of the Europeans, then that of the United States has played crucial role in creating the Latin American present. However, as Max Cameron points out in his interview, the involvement of the US and inequality has decreased in Latin America and democracy is doing surprisingly well in many parts of the region, which gives me at least some hope. I don't know if it makes any sense to look at the past to predict the future but I wonder (and simultaneously worry) how Latin America will continue to develop. 

This weeks documents highlighted the harmful impacts of neoliberalism and how careless business operation caused severe ecological problems. The first document was a summary of the court judgement of Chevron in an Ecuadorian court, whereas the second document was a district judge's opinion of the Chevron Company versus Steven Donziger case in New York. Both presented the case from their point of view, the first one highlighting the shortcomings of Chevron and the second one focusing both on the involvement of Donziger and on the inefficiency and corruption of the Ecuadorian government. After reading these documents, I was left with a sense of Chevron acting as being above the Ecuadorian laws and regulations. As a North American corporation, it seemed as if they thought they were superior to the Ecuadorian Indigenous and were never to be held responsible over the damage they'd caused. Therefore, it was extremely satisfying to me that they were after all ordered to recompense the Indigenous. On the other hand, I also believe that as the Ecuadorian government was weak, it was vulnerable to manipulation from both sides, which I think is the point of the second document. 

Events like this where nature has been destroyed for profit always gives me the creeps, especially in areas that are crucial for the entire earth, such as the Amazon. Although Dawson points in his text that "Future Texaco's are well aware that they cannot act as they did in the past" (p. 378) I am unconvinced the exploitation of nature in Latin America ended after this lawsuit. Max Cameron points out in the interview that extraction also creates jobs and wealth, which can then be used to social welfare. Therefore, it creates a difficult problem for Latin American governments to decide between conservation and upholding an economy. This is however something the entire world seems to be struggling with and thus I wonder will there actually ever be a way out of this? 

Questions: 

What kind of future do you think Latin America is faced with? 

Is exploiting the environment a condition for a thriving economy?