Extraction, Territory, and Inequalities: Gas in the Bolivian Chaco

Abstract

Conflicts over extractive industry have emerged as one of the most visible and potentially explosive terrains for struggles over distribution, territory, and inequality in the Andes. We explore these relationships in Bolivia, focusing on gas extraction in the Chaco region of the southeastern department of Tarija. We consider how the expansion of extractive industry intersects with territorializing projects of state, sub-national elites, and indigenous actors as well as with questions of inequality and inequity. We conclude that arguments over the territorial constitution of Bolivia are inevitably also arguments over gas and the contested concepts of equity underlying its governance. © Canadian Journal of Development Studies, 2010. All rights reserved.This is an original manuscript of an article published by Taylor & Francis in Canadian Journal of Development Studies in 2010, available at https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/02255189.2010.966929