Feminización de las luchas antiextractivistas: el colectivo Mujeres Amazónicas Defensoras de la Selva

Amid the intensification of extractivist activities in Latin America, a transformative phenomenon demands attention: the feminization of resistance struggles. This shift foregrounds the entanglement of extractivism, coloniality, and patriarchy, revealing their shared role in driving the ongoing ecological and climate crisis. This paper delves into a paradigmatic example of these struggles, examining how they challenge and reshape patriarchal structures while acknowledging the colonial and racist dynamics embedded within them. I focus on the Ecuadorian collective Mujeres Amazónicas Defensoras de la Selva (Amazonian Women Defenders of the Rainforest) for their critical integration of gender debates into their agenda, their disruption of the sex-gender system through their emergence as a political subject, and their innovative proposal of the living forest (Kawsak Sacha), which reimagines nature and our relationship to it. First, I outline the collective’s formation and its primary political strategies. Second, I explore the living forest both as a concept and a methodological approach. Third, I analyze their agenda through the central notion of the body-territory connection. Finally, I argue that this collective represents a profoundly transformative force. Their defense of Kawsak Sacha as a legal framework enriches discussions on relational ethics, broadens the political inclusion of Indigenous women, and redefines narratives about nature in an increasingly technological era. Through their situated agency and epistemic authority as Indigenous Amazonian women, the Mujeres Amazónicas have redefined political resistance, introducing a powerful challenge to extractivist systems and transforming the political landscape at every level.