THE GENDER OF OIL: GENDER DYNAMICS AND OIL EXTRACTION IN THE ECUADORIAN AMAZON Dayuma Albán A dissertation submitted to the faculty at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the Department of Anthropology. Chapel Hill 2021 Approved by: Florence Babb Arturo Escobar Rudi Colloredo-Mansfeld Jocelyn Chua Angela Stuesse © 2021 Dayuma Albán ALL RIGHTS RESERVED ii ABSTRACT Dayuma Albán: The Gender of Oil: Gender Dynamics and Oil Extraction in the Ecuadorian Amazon (Under the direction of Florence Babb) Since the early 1970s, oil exploitation has largely formed the basis of the Ecuadorian economy, and as a result indigenous groups in the country’s Amazon region have lived through significant cultural, social, economic, and territorial changes as a direct consequence of the oil boom. The Waorani were the final indigenous group to face colonization and integration into Ecuadorian society, occurring with the intervention of the Summer Institute of Linguistics (SIL) in 1958. Until that time, the group lived in isolation from other groups as hunter-gatherers. The narrative and setting of this colonization are deeply interconnected with the growth of the exploration and extraction of oil within the country. This work investigates the impact from oil drilling on Waorani men and women by exploring women’s political organizing and their ways of responding to the oil industry. It places special focus on the political organization of the Waorani Women’s Association, Amwae, based in the city of Shell in the Pastaza Province. I argue that the reconfiguration of Waorani society, with notable gendered effects, resulted from this oil extraction. Beyond analyzing the ways in which oil extractivism affects Waorani territory, society, and gender dynamics, this dissertation examines the response to and resistance against oil drilling from the organized Waorani women of Amwae. In considering how the latter defend their territory from oil-related activities, I argue for the vital importance played by the political and organizational development of the indigenous peoples of the Ecuadorian Amazon. Moreover, I demonstrate the importance of indigenous iii cosmovision and ways of engaging with and symbolically representing the Waorani territory. Most notably, I show that the organized women of Amwae are emerging as activist-leaders in much the same way that male warriors did in the Waorani past. iv ACKNOWLEDGMENTS First and foremost, I thank the Waorani people of Tiwino. Specifically Rosita Ima, Ike Ima, Olguita Dahua, Byron, Alan, the late Babe Ima, Ana Omaca, Tademo Ima, Weto, Daniel, and Juana for their generosity, for letting me stay in their territory, and for sharing stories from the mythical times of the forest and the ancestors. I also thank them for sharing their experiences, concerns, and hardships from living in oil extraction zones. My deep gratitude to the staff of the Waorani women’s organization, Amwae, who opened their doors and provided spaces for collaboration. To Manuela Ima, Menkay Nenkiwi, Helena Tocari, Silvia Omene, Tania Caiga, Omari Yeti, Waninga Tocari, and Rome Papue. To the staff of the Nawe organization. My time as a graduate student at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill has been especially important to me. Firstly, I want to thank the members of my dissertation committee, which was chaired by Florence Babb and also included Rudi Colloredo-Mansfeld, Jocelyn Chua, Angela Stuesse, and Arturo Escobar. I thank Florence for her guidance, dedication, feedback, patience and support at any moment. I thank Rudi and Jocelyn for giving me the self-confidence to build my voice. I am grateful to Angela Stuesse for encouraging me to engage with activist research. To Arturo for enabling me to conceive that other worlds are possible, and for his generosity. I also thank the faculty members of the Anthropology department at UNC, moreover to Don Nonini for his solidarity, to Paul Leslie for his guidance and friendship. Special thanks to Mark Sorensen and Silvia Tomášková for their support. Particular acknowledgement to Flora Lu at the University of California, Santa Cruz for her encouragement. v I am thankful for the presence of friends and graduate colleagues at UNC, Carrboro and beyond without whom I would have never reached this moment: Julio Gutierrez, Amelia Fiske, Molly Green, Lisl Hampton, Lisa Nebie, Eric Thomas, Sierra Schelegle, Andreina Malki, Mario Lucero, Javier Pabon, Ana Buckner, Miguel Rocha, Alejandra Cabrera, Alexandra Costales, José Manuel Moreno, Lucia Stavig and Florence Siman. I am particularly grateful to Eloisa Berman and Saydia Gulrukh Kamal for their friendship and solidarity. To my neighbors Kathy Peillot, Ilan, Alfonso Blanco and Magda Corredor for welcoming me like family. My endless gratitude to my friend Evan for his unconditional help. I would not been able to write this dissertation without the support of my family: my parents María and Amilcar, my brother Félix Atahualpa, and sisters Grecia and Manuelita. I am deeply grateful to my family for being a space of creativity, art, critical thinking, and love - and foremost for letting me be. Gratitude to my aunties Rosario, Carmen, and Susana, to my cousins Isabel, Stephanie, and my late grandmothers Dolores and Graciela for their support. This dissertation would not have been possible without the logistical and financial support of the Anthropology Department at UNC, the Diversity and Student Success (DSS) program at UNC, The Institute of the Study of the Americas at UNC, and the Inter-American Foundation Grassroots Development Fellowship. vi TABLE OF CONTENTS LIST OF FIGURES………………………………………………………………………...……..x LIST OF ABREVIATIONS……………………………………………………………………...xi CHAPTER ONE. INTRODUCTION……………………………………………………………..1 Field site and research methods…………………………………………………………...8 Contributions to the scholarship on oil extraction in indigenous territories in Ecuador………………………………………………………………………………..10 Theoretical background………………………………………………………………….17 Methodological considerations……………………………………………………….….26 Chapters description……………………………………………………………………..28 CHAPTER TWO. THE WAORANI HISTORY: THE SIL AND THE OIL BOOM…………...32 The Summer Institute of Linguistics and the evangelization of the Waorani: a tale starring women…………………………………………………………………….35 Warriors, shamans and hunters…………………………………………………………..43 The oil boom in Ecuador and the intrusion of the oil companies in Waorani territory…………………………………………………………………………….…….46 Oil and the creation of the Tiwino community as a zone of extraction……………….…47 Conclusions………………………………………………………………………………52 vii CHAPTER THREE. THE WAORANI TERRITORY: OIL AND TERRITORIAL TRANSFORMATIONS……………………………………………………………………..…..53 Creating territory and Waorani-being………………………………………………..…..55 The Waorani territory: a relational mesh of humans, plants, and animals………………59 The ruins of the forest: time and territory……………………………………………..…64 The history of Waorani territory……………………………………………………....…68 The Waorani territory, a territory of many layers………………………………….…….74 Territorial/social transformations…………………………………………………….…..75 Zoning of the Waorani territory: Dynamic-territories of extraction and of resistance to extractivism………………………………………………………………………...…….80 Zone 1. Toñampare. Former Protectorate………………………………………………..85 Zone 2. Vía Auca Oil Extraction Area…………………………………………………..86 Tiwino Community………………………………………………………………………87 Work in Tiwino ……………………………………………………………………….…89 Oil development and contamination……………………………………………….....….93 Zone 3. Vía Maxus Oil Extraction Area…………………………………………………97 Zone 4. Tagaeri-Taromenane Intangible Zone………………………………………….99 Conclusions……………………………………………………………………………..100 CHAPTER FOUR. WAORANI POLITICS AND THE FORMATION OF THE WOMEN’S ORGANIZATION AMWAE…………………………………………………………………...102 Territorial transformation and gendered political transformation…………………...…103 The formation of AMWAE……………………………………………………………..105 Amwae’s productive projects for women………………………………………………110 viii Amwae’s Politics…………………………………………………………………….....116 The March of Amazonian Women for Life…………………………………………….127 Conclusions……………………………………………………………………………..130 CHAPTER FIVE. TERRITORY AND WOMEN´S RESISTANCE TO OIL EXTRACTION………………………………………………………………………..131 Dynamic-territories of resistance……………………………………………………….133 Culture and territory are inseparable……………………………………………………137 The territory, the legacy of the warrior ancestors………………………………………145 The lawsuit against the state led by the women of Pastaza…………………………….151 The women of Amwae: Resistance to extractivism in defense of the territory………...158 Conclusions……………………………………………………………………………..166 CHAPTER SIX. CONCLUSIONS……………………………………………………………..168 REFERENCES………………………………………………………………………………....177 ix LIST OF FIGURES Figure 1. Map of ancestral Waorani territory and phases of legalization in 1983, 1990, 2001……………………………………………………………...….70 Figure 2. Map of the previous distribution of Waorani clans within the current limits of Waorani territory…………………………………………………………...76 Figure 3. Map with three car routes constructed for oil extraction that traverse Waorani territory…………………………………………………………………………………..………79 Figure 4. Map of oil blocks that are superimposed onto Waorani territory……………………...80 Figure 5. Map of the zoning of the Waorani territory……………………………………………83 Figure 6. Map of the distribution of the communities, oil roadways, oil wells, registry of incidents with Indigenous Communities in Isolation in Waorani Territory……………………..84