Protecting Environmental Defenders: an Intersectional Analysis of Vulnerability and Violence

With Brendan Coolsaet

Our project starts from a paradox: while rights to and of nature continuously expand, so does violence against those who fight to defend them. This is particularly visible in South America, where recent records show a dramatic increase in violence against environmental defenders. We seek an ISRF Flexible Grants for Small Groups to facilitate the establishment of a long-term trans-Atlantic research initiative studying this paradox through the twin concepts of violence and vulnerability. Using an intersectional approach (focusing particularly, albeit not exclusively, on the intersection between gender and race), our work will focus on deepening understanding of the dynamics of continuity and discontinuity between vulnerability and violence against environmental defenders in 3 Andean focus countries: Colombia, Ecuador, and Chile.