Be(y)on(d) the map: Collaboratively activating Geographies of (De)CO2loniality/H2Ope in the Ecuadorian Chocó borderlands

Abstract

This article is positioned within the Chocó borderlands of Ecuador and Colombia. I delve into the historical and contemporary everyday struggles of two communities within the Santiago-Cayapas Watershed—the Afro-descendant community of La Chiquita and the Awá Indigenous community of Guadualito. Yet, I also discuss the methodological aspects of “us-formation”: the multi-dimensional trials and tribulations of a collective quest for justice. The goal: to situate their largely invisibilized 20+ years of legal struggles against two oil palm companies ‘on the map' and demand reparations. The oil palm companies violate Human Rights and Nature's Rights by contaminating rivers and destroying the sustenance of ancestral communities’ lives. Through honing into the entanglements of collaboratively activating five dimensions of Geographies of Hope-in-Praxis—place, alliances, the (un)thinkable, perseverance/resilience, and the (im)possible—the paper traverses a multi-dimensional journey-destination of interdependent processes: 1) (De)CO 2 loniality: decolonizing research, “official” versions of history, and now, “climate change mitigation development”, that attempt to silence and choke out Indigenous and ancestral peoples and territories; and 2) H 2 Ope: carving out new relational spaces bound together by establishing networks to revindicate human/ancestral rights to water and the rights of La Chiquita River. Geographizing hope reveals that the route toward hope-with-justice is a nonlinear, constantly shifting, unpredictable pluriverse of possibilities ripe for action.