ABSTRACT
Latin America in recent years has become the focal point for diverse debates as to the development and resistance dynamics of extractivism—the advance of resource-seeking ‘extractive capital’ (investments in the extraction of natural resources for which there is a strong demand in capitalist markets). A key issue in these debates is the search for alternatives to extractivism, which in its diverse forms has had a devastating level of negative and destructive socioecological impacts not only in regard to the environment but also on rural livelihoods and Indigenous communities on the extractive frontier. With reference to these negative impacts and the search for alternatives to extractivism, the author raises a series of critical issues for further study and debate, which are addressed by other authors in this volume. They include the contradictions of capitalism and neoextractivism as a model of accumulation, as well as the emergence of socioecological conflicts on the extractive frontier, and alternative scenarios associated with or created in the search for viable alternatives to extractivisms.
