Reality of dreams: post-neoliberal utopias in the Ecuadorian Amazon / Japhy Wilson.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Wilson, Japhy, author.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Politics and government.

Ecuador--Politics and government--21st century.

Ecuador.

Physical Description:

xiii, 289 pages : map ; 22 cm

Place of Publication:

New Haven, CT : Yale University Press, [2021]

Summary:

From 2007 to 2017, the "Citizens' Revolution" launched an ambitious series of post-neoliberal megaprojects in the remote Amazonian region of Ecuador, including an interoceanic transport corridor, a world-leading biotechnology university, and a planned network of two hundred "Millennium Cities." The aim was to liberate the nation from its ecologically catastrophic dependence on Amazonian oil reserves, while transforming its jungle region from a wild neoliberal frontier into a brave new world of "twenty-first-century socialism." This book documents the heroic scale of this endeavor, the surreal extent of its failure, and the paradoxical process through which it ended up reinforcing the economic model that it had been designed to overcome. It explores the phantasmatic and absurd dimensions of the transformation of social reality under conditions of global capitalism, deconstructing the utopian fantasies of the state, and drawing attention to the eruption of insurgent utopias staged by those with nothing left to lose.

Contents:

Machine generated contents note: 1. Enchanted Forest

2. The Politics of Awakening

3. Amazon Unbound

4. Cities of Black Gold

5. The Mirage Laboratory.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN:

9780300253429

0300253427

OCLC:

1241244814

Publisher Number:

99988804742