Here’s an idea that doesn’t get nearly enough consideration in the development community: poor countries are poor because they’re hot. Okay, I’m not going to try even a half-assed defense of that statement. I’m pretty sure there’s no shortage of peer-reviewed articles that disprove the climate-development link, and that if I thought for four seconds… Continue reading Heat
This weekend, I was the future of the Huaorani nation. This may sound like a rather strong and paternalistic statement coming from a non-Huaorani, but I’m pretty sure the four Huaorani guides with which I travelled this weekend would agree. Indeed, ask almost anyone in the Ecuadorian Amazon what they will live off of if… Continue reading Ecotourism Will Save Us All!
I rarely have to ask more than a handful of questions in my interviews here: as soon as I mention “oil” and “Amazon” in the same sentence, people here can go on for hours. It’s better that way, of course, since it allows me to stick to a few Spanish paragraphs of explanation of my… Continue reading Location, Location, Location
If I actually had the wherewithal to draw up a budget for this trip, I think I would have to include a byline for what I give to mendigos (Spanish for “beggars”). As sure as it is that I will go to Café Amazonica every day in Coca—they get the whole vegetarian thing, and have… Continue reading Mendigos and Some Development Naivety
Q: How do I know Yasuní National Park is the most biodiverse place in the planet? A: Because on Saturday mornings, that diversity is on sale in Pompeya. I´m not quite sure what I was expecting to discover this Saturday, but I certainly didn´t plan on finding anything as disturbing as I did. One of… Continue reading Blood on All Hands
If laws on the books were all that mattered, I’d put Ecuador way ahead of the U.S. The new constitution gives a formal right to existence and protection to “nature”, and, somewhat more practically, offers civil unions to gay couples. Ecuador has nearly open-borders and strict gun control; almost the inverse of the U.S., where… Continue reading La Revolución Ciudadana Está En Marcha
Coca is shitty. Believe it or not, I chose this adjective to describe the town where I am staying—also known as Puerto Francisco de Orellana—carefully. It would not, for example, be fair to say that Coca is poor. In fact, according to my interviewees, Coca is, thanks to oil money, pretty well off, a claim… Continue reading Festive, If Ugly
We are trained to look for problems. We go into the field armed with theory that tells us that development programs are inevitably ill-conceived and incompetently managed. We assume that governments and NGOs never learn the lessons of past failures and that they always ignore feedback from local communities. We know we will always have… Continue reading Anthropologist’s Worst Nightmare
A few months ago, when it occurred to me that I was going to a country about which I knew almost nothing, I turned to the world traveler’s trustiest friend. No, not Lonely Planet. I mean the CIA World Factbook. I’ve been infatuated with the Factbook ever since my sophomore year of high school, when… Continue reading Means and Medians
When I embarked on my thesis project on freeganism, I envisioned myself as following the model of some of my favourite professors—Patricia Fernandez-Kelly, David Graeber, and Peter Singer come to mind—in combining genuine academic inquiry with a strong commitment to social change. Ít wasn’t enough to just be a neutral observer of a group confronting… Continue reading Promises I Can Keep
Alex V. Barnard - Sociology 