ABSTRACT
Since the European conquest of Latin America, mechanisms and justifications for unequal access to and control over natural resources have developed in tandem with racial ideologies and institutions. Conceiving race and racism as socio-cultural systems that evolve historically with and through the organization of human– environment relations, this chapter considers cases in which racism supported the expropriation of land from subordinate populations for purposes of colonial profit or national/capital development, together with recent cases in which resignified racial visions have been mobilized by non-dominant groups in struggles to “reclaim” land. Differential rights to and powers over land, and differential visions for land use, have been key in the construction of diverse racial identities, and in accompanying senses of entitlement, agency and political possibility.
