Antípoda. Revista de Antropología y Arqueología

Antipod. Rev. Antropol. Arqueol | eISSN 2011-4273 | ISSN 1900-5407

Territorial Voice, Dispossession, and Resistance to the Expansion of Coal Extractivism in Southern La Guajira

No. 58 (2025-01-10)
https://doi.org/10.7440/antipoda58.2025.04

Abstract

Voice, as an expression of individuality, serves as a powerful political tool, embodying identity and agency in communication with the surrounding environment. However, it is also vulnerable to suppression by dominant forces. Drawing on Adriana Cavarero’s political philosophy of voice and Jacques Rancière’s concept of the distribution of the sensible, this article explores the erosion of territorial voice as a precursor to the dispossession inherent in extractivist projects. These projects target lands inhabited by deeply rooted communities whose existence is intertwined with their autopoietic relationship to their territories. This study is based on participant observation and in-depth interviews conducted between 2023 and 2024 with members of communities affected by coal mining in La Guajira. These include the displaced peoples of Roche, Chancleta, Patilla, and Tabaco, as well as the community of Cañaverales, which inhabits land designated for a new coal mine. The expansion of coal extractivism in southern La Guajira demonstrates how the dispossession of territorial voice is a defining feature of totalitarian extractivist regimes. Such regimes suppress individuality expressed through voice, imposing homogenization, obscurity, and impoverishment on human experience. Extractivism systematically ignores territorial voices, enforcing its dominance by silencing them. Genuine engagement with the unique voices of rooted communities requires a sensitive openness—a readiness to be affected by and resonate with their sounds, stories, and singular expressions of historical becoming. This article offers an original contribution by framing voice as a metaphysical category that captures the intimate bond between a people and their territory. It also sheds light on the metaphysical struggles waged against the relentless advance of extractivism.

Keywords: Distribution of the sensible, extractivism, La Guajira, philosophy of voice, prior consultation, territorial metaphysics

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