Bodies-Territories, Collective Health and Community Autonomies: Care Practices Facing Environmental Necropolitics in Latin America
Year: 2026
Type: article
Abstract: This article examines the relationships between extractivism, collective health, and community autonomies in territories affected by socio-environmental conflicts in Latin America. Drawing on the concept of bodies-territories and the theoretical contributions of critical epidemiology and political ecology, it analyzes the health, social, and ecological impacts of extractive regimes, as well as the collective responses that emerge in communities facing these processes of dispossession. The analysis is based on more than a decade of participatory action research conducted in Ecuador in territories affected by oil extraction, large-scale mining, and urban waste economies.Findings show that extractive territories concentrate multiple forms of harm, including environmental contamination, increased chronic and acute morbidities, psychosocial distress, deterioration of living conditions, and violations of collective and nature’s rights. These dynamics configure what many communities describe as sacrifice territories. At the same time, communities develop collective care practices such as participatory environmental monitoring, community epidemiology, territorial health assessments, and strategies for territorial defense.The article argues that these practices constitute forms of community autonomy and collective health production. In extractive contexts, defending health necessarily involves defending territory and the ecological conditions that sustain life.
Source: IdeAs
DOI: 10.4000/16wwk
Author: María Fernanda Solíz Torres
Language: English
Subfield: Sociology and Political Science
Field: Social Sciences
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: diamond
OpenAlex ID: W7220830617