Presentation by Hannah Porada on bridging environmental justice struggles in Guatemala and the Netherlands

On September 25, 2024, Hannah Porada presented a part of her PhD research related to bridging distant local environmental struggles during a webinar organized by the NEWAVE project. Guadalupe Garcia Prado and Nienke Busscher were the invited discussants.

This webinar explored the extractive transformations of territories and related resistance struggles across the Netherlands and Guatemala. Departing from a political ecology perspective and empirically grounded in her ongoing PhD research, Hannah Porada explored the cases of gas extraction in Groningen, The Netherlands, and the mining of construction materials in Quetzaltenango, Guatemala. How have extractive industries and their mining interventions transformed these territories? Why and how do affected populations and social movements contest these interventions, resist extractivism and defend their territories? Beyond the place-based perspective on the territorial struggles, Hannah also reflected on the idea of translocal justice bridges: How can translocal, cross-cultural and multi-scalar bridges be built across the place-based struggles against extractivism in The Netherlands and Guatemala? How can bridging support the territorial defense and resistance movements? What challenges and risk come with the building of translocal justice bridges? What reflections does bridging generate in terms of positionality and ethics?

The theme of bridging between environmental collectives is highly relevant for the Riverhood and River Commons projects. The presented reflections on the bridging event Hannah organized provide valuable insights for bridging activities in the River projects.

The link to the youtube video is: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XUAer_CYwfc