Doctoral Dissertation Research: African Oil Palm Plantation Expansion and Geographies of Hope in the Ecuadorian Choco Region

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In the last decade, northern countries concerned with the relationship between carbon emissions and climate change have committed to increased use of biofuels and carbon trading. Policy frameworks such as the Kyoto Protocol's Clean Development Mechanisms motivate investment in African oil palm plantation expansion in the global South to 'store' carbon in these 'forests' and to produce palm oil-based biodiesel to substitute for 'fossil' fuels. This research examines the motivations and consequences of greatly intensified African oil palm cultivation in the canton of San Lorenzo in the Chocó region of coastal Ecuador. There, Afro-Ecuadorian and Indigenous peoples confront the effects of extensive landscape change, as rainforest is replaced by monoculture oil palm plantations. The project's research questions investigate intersections of the following: 1) global climate change policies; 2) Ecuadorian state development plans to increase African oil palm cultivation; 3) the environmental, social and economic effects of African oil palm plantation expansion for local people; and 4), the strategies that the region's residents are mobilizing to secure their livelihoods in the face of expanded cultivation of oil palms. These research inquiries engage with political ecology literature and connect to scholarship on geographies of hope and ethnodevelopment. They are also framed by the broad climate change and alternative fuel policy literature. The methods employed include archival research, policy analysis, interviews, and in depth qualitative research in two differently impacted communities in San Lorenzo. The overall research objective is to produce and analyze original empirical data that will enable a better understanding of the following: one, how global climate change mitigation efforts, together with national-level policies, are transforming local landscapes; and two, how local communities are developing strategies to counter aspects of these ongoing changes and are generating their own geographies of hope. This research project's significance lies first, in its timeliness. Climate change, increasing production of biofuels, and policy frameworks like the Kyoto Protocol are of critical importance to scientists, policymakers, and human communities in general. For those directly impacted, such as people living in the Chocó region of Ecuador, these are very immediate, everyday concerns. This research, focused on two impacted communities, contributes to an innovative social science agenda that explores and highlights the myriad ways in which communities, groups, and individuals respond to multi-scalar economic and political processes. It takes seriously the experiences and perspectives of these historically marginalized people. By focusing on how communities potentially take control of their own lives in light of extensive palm plantation expansion, this work questions fatalistic discourse on global capital and climate change. Overall, the research will enable a rich, empirically solid contribution to deliberations over the local costs and benefits of prevailing global climate change mitigation strategies.