Ithaca College

Patricia Rodriguez, Assistant Professor of Politics at IC, investigates the impacts on land redistribution of political and mobilizational tactics by land & resource related social movements in Brazil, Ecuador, Chile She will address the Monday IC Environmental Seminar, talking about post-Pinochet policies in Chile that favor economic and development priorities over community integrity and environmental sustainability, and the indigenous response expressed through environmental and land rights struggles.

Chilean citizenship was profoundly debased by the repression and radical neoliberalism of General Pinochet's military dictatorship. Redemocratization since 1990 has resurrected a top-down, institutionally mediated citizenship that has diluted the promise of participatory politics in practice. Environmental policy formation and implementation typically sidelines citizen participation, yielding predetermined policy outcomes that favor economic and development priorities over community integrity and environmental sustainability.

The construction of a more vital Chilean citizenship has begun to appear in the environmental and land rights struggles of the Mapuche indigenous peoples. Professor Rodriguez will discuss the Mapuche quest for environmental citizenship, examining setbacks and challenges, but also new describing forms of activism, alliance formation, and the development of innovative platforms for the expression of indigenous cultural, economic, and environmental demands.

Please join us in CNS 112 on Monday 4 October at 4:00 pm for her presentation! Individuals with disabilities requiring accommodations should contact Carol Hansen at 274-1822 or chansen@ithaca.edu. We ask that requests for accommodations be made as soon as possible.