Unmaking the Nature/Culture Divide 123
This nature regime was also mobilized and made explicit at two different side
events, one organized directly by the IIFB, the other by the CBD Secretariat
together with the IUCN. In both cases, the IIFB is a stakeholder, and it was
two representatives from Latin America who intervened, namely Ramiro Batzin
(Maya Kaqchikel Guatemala, co-chair for the IIFB) and Yolanda Terán (Kichwa,
Ecuador).
These four interventions (from Charlie Patton, Josefa Isabela Tauli, Ramiro
Batzin, and Yolanda Terán) differed in offering specific viewpoints on the way
that a particular group conceptualizes its relationship to nature. Nonetheless,
they overlapped on a key point: in their interventions, the various speakers
argued that it does not make sense to oppose nature and culture. This fundamental point has been emphasized by various writers such as Escobar (1999) and
Viveiros de Castro (2014).
Moreover, in three of these interventions, a feminine figure was utilized in
order to clarify this integration of nature and culture: Mother Earth, Mother
Nature, or Pachamama. Significantly, it was the representatives of indigenous peoples from the Americas – Mohawk, Kichwa, and Maya – who made
these references. The emergence of Mother Earth seems to have been a North
American phenomenon in the first instance. Gill (1991), who has retraced
the emergence of this figure, shows that it was not familiar to all indigenous
peoples from North America, and that it was through dialogue between first
nations and academics that it gradually became established in the 1960s, then
becoming indispensable in the 1970s and afterward. The rise of Mother Earth
has gone together with the rise of environmental struggles that mobilize the
image of American first nations: the figure of the ecological Indian, in the
words of Krech (1999). Yet, it is not only a North American image. Since the
1960s, there has been an internationalization of indigenous and environmental
struggles. Links have been built with the Philippines and Latin America, in
particular. The link with Latin America, as we will see, has helped to extend
the reference to Mother Earth.
In the Latin American region in the 1980s, and even more so in the 1990s,
environmental issues were uniquely linked to social and cultural demands,
as Escobar (1999), Ulloa (2010, p. 31 and thereafter), and Ramos (1994) have
shown. The wide-scale adhesion of Latin American countries to Convention
n° 169 of the International Labor Organization (ILO, 1989) and the ratification of multicultural constitutions at the beginning of the 1990s allowed indigenous populations to claim a new status both nationally and internationally. In
Latin America especially, social demands were articulated around cultural differences that are now recognized by multicultural constitutions (Escobar, 1998,
1999; Ulloa, 2010, p. 31 and thereafter). The Colombian case study analyzed by
Escobar (1998) and the Bolivian case study analyzed by Canessa (2006) show in
an exemplary manner how environmental issues are closely associated with issues
of identity. Culture has thus gradually acquired a political value, a process that
Escobar (1997) and Povinelli (1995) in particular identify as “cultural politics”.
This nature regime was also mobilized and made explicit at two different side
events, one organized directly by the IIFB, the other by the CBD Secretariat
together with the IUCN. In both cases, the IIFB is a stakeholder, and it was
two representatives from Latin America who intervened, namely Ramiro Batzin
(Maya Kaqchikel Guatemala, co-chair for the IIFB) and Yolanda Terán (Kichwa,
Ecuador).
These four interventions (from Charlie Patton, Josefa Isabela Tauli, Ramiro
Batzin, and Yolanda Terán) differed in offering specific viewpoints on the way
that a particular group conceptualizes its relationship to nature. Nonetheless,
they overlapped on a key point: in their interventions, the various speakers
argued that it does not make sense to oppose nature and culture. This fundamental point has been emphasized by various writers such as Escobar (1999) and
Viveiros de Castro (2014).
Moreover, in three of these interventions, a feminine figure was utilized in
order to clarify this integration of nature and culture: Mother Earth, Mother
Nature, or Pachamama. Significantly, it was the representatives of indigenous peoples from the Americas – Mohawk, Kichwa, and Maya – who made
these references. The emergence of Mother Earth seems to have been a North
American phenomenon in the first instance. Gill (1991), who has retraced
the emergence of this figure, shows that it was not familiar to all indigenous
peoples from North America, and that it was through dialogue between first
nations and academics that it gradually became established in the 1960s, then
becoming indispensable in the 1970s and afterward. The rise of Mother Earth
has gone together with the rise of environmental struggles that mobilize the
image of American first nations: the figure of the ecological Indian, in the
words of Krech (1999). Yet, it is not only a North American image. Since the
1960s, there has been an internationalization of indigenous and environmental
struggles. Links have been built with the Philippines and Latin America, in
particular. The link with Latin America, as we will see, has helped to extend
the reference to Mother Earth.
In the Latin American region in the 1980s, and even more so in the 1990s,
environmental issues were uniquely linked to social and cultural demands,
as Escobar (1999), Ulloa (2010, p. 31 and thereafter), and Ramos (1994) have
shown. The wide-scale adhesion of Latin American countries to Convention
n° 169 of the International Labor Organization (ILO, 1989) and the ratification of multicultural constitutions at the beginning of the 1990s allowed indigenous populations to claim a new status both nationally and internationally. In
Latin America especially, social demands were articulated around cultural differences that are now recognized by multicultural constitutions (Escobar, 1998,
1999; Ulloa, 2010, p. 31 and thereafter). The Colombian case study analyzed by
Escobar (1998) and the Bolivian case study analyzed by Canessa (2006) show in
an exemplary manner how environmental issues are closely associated with issues
of identity. Culture has thus gradually acquired a political value, a process that
Escobar (1997) and Povinelli (1995) in particular identify as “cultural politics”.