ABSTRACT
Although global flows of capital over the past three decades of neoliberal globalisation have become increasingly speculative and disconnected from the production process it is revealing to trace out the changing pattern of capital flows, especially in regard to North–South flows of foreign direct investment and resource-seeking ‘extractive’ capital, which have increased dramatically in recent years. This chapter analyses the outcome of this phenomenon in the Latin American context—Latin America being the microregion where the neoliberal model and policy agenda have been implemented most forcefully, with devastating consequences. The chapter deconstructs and dissects the forces of transformative change and resistance generated on the extractive frontier. It turns out that the resistance is taking different forms, but primarily as an eco-territorial struggle of communities on the extractive frontier to reclaim their territorial rights and to protect Mother Nature from the depredations of both industrial and extractive capital. One of several conclusions drawn by the author is that the resistance is taking the form not only of social movements and political conflict but the construction of a non-capitalist alternative to both the neoliberal policy agenda and capitalism.
