Colombina Schaeffer
I'm a Chilean (sometimes German) sociologist trying to understand recent developments in Chilean and Latin American politics. I live in Santiago, Chile.
After writing a PhD thesis, I've been in and out of academia, working at civil society organizations in various projects. Today, I work as deputy director at an amazing NGO, Fundación Ciudadanía Inteligente (https://ciudadaniai.org/), whose mission is to fight for social justice and to transform Latin American democracies.
My dissertation explored the controversy surrounding the construction of a mega hydroelectric project (HidroAysen) in Chilean Patagonia (Aysen Region). It focused on the Patagonia Without Dams ('Patagonia Sin Represas') campaign, the biggest environmental campaign ever organised in Chile.
The thesis drew on recent contestation politics literature, as well as on the insights of science and technology studies and political ecology.
Supervisors: Ariadne Vromen
After writing a PhD thesis, I've been in and out of academia, working at civil society organizations in various projects. Today, I work as deputy director at an amazing NGO, Fundación Ciudadanía Inteligente (https://ciudadaniai.org/), whose mission is to fight for social justice and to transform Latin American democracies.
My dissertation explored the controversy surrounding the construction of a mega hydroelectric project (HidroAysen) in Chilean Patagonia (Aysen Region). It focused on the Patagonia Without Dams ('Patagonia Sin Represas') campaign, the biggest environmental campaign ever organised in Chile.
The thesis drew on recent contestation politics literature, as well as on the insights of science and technology studies and political ecology.
Supervisors: Ariadne Vromen
less
InterestsView All (9)
Uploads
Papers by Colombina Schaeffer
Talks by Colombina Schaeffer
In general, animals have been seen from the optics of politics as representation of something else (symbolism of animals) or as an ecological problem (e.g., concerns over extinction of species). Although these perspectives can be useful when analysing the role of animals in politics, and particularly in campaigns and movements, they do not always pay attention to the actual lives of animals as unique individuals. Further, they usually understand animals as external to the human world (Hobson, 2007). There is a tacit assumption that everything that needs to be known about animals is already available in terms of scientific and expert knowledge. This creates a priori assumptions that derive from animals understood as fixed objects (Hobson, 2007; Lorimer, 2007). With the help of the huemul deer and its role and participation in a Chilean environmental campaign (Patagonia Sin Represas, PSR), I started to be further interested in this deer and in the role of nonhuman animals in politics. The huemul played multiple roles in the controversy over the building of dams in Patagonia: an environmental impact (fauna to be preserved), contested knowledge, a politico-legal strategy, and a symbolic element linked to national identity. The controversy, PSR and the huemul itself have been key in the process of enacting this nonhuman animal in different ways, providing alternative narratives and realities, tensioning its standing as an object. However, I always felt that there is something “more” to the huemul, something ungraspable, which cannot be easily described or unraveled. In this workshop, I want to delve deeper into this “ungraspability”, finding ways to understand, think and write about it.
In general, animals have been seen from the optics of politics as representation of something else (symbolism of animals) or as an ecological problem (e.g., concerns over extinction of species). Although these perspectives can be useful when analysing the role of animals in politics, and particularly in campaigns and movements, they do not always pay attention to the actual lives of animals as unique individuals. Further, they usually understand animals as external to the human world (Hobson, 2007). There is a tacit assumption that everything that needs to be known about animals is already available in terms of scientific and expert knowledge. This creates a priori assumptions that derive from animals understood as fixed objects (Hobson, 2007; Lorimer, 2007). With the help of the huemul deer and its role and participation in a Chilean environmental campaign (Patagonia Sin Represas, PSR), I started to be further interested in this deer and in the role of nonhuman animals in politics. The huemul played multiple roles in the controversy over the building of dams in Patagonia: an environmental impact (fauna to be preserved), contested knowledge, a politico-legal strategy, and a symbolic element linked to national identity. The controversy, PSR and the huemul itself have been key in the process of enacting this nonhuman animal in different ways, providing alternative narratives and realities, tensioning its standing as an object. However, I always felt that there is something “more” to the huemul, something ungraspable, which cannot be easily described or unraveled. In this workshop, I want to delve deeper into this “ungraspability”, finding ways to understand, think and write about it.
With only two days away from the Human Rights in Latin America Film Event, we are proud to announce that we have a very special guest speaker coming all the way from Bolivia: Mr. Rosalio Tinta Cruz, who will also be part of the discussion following the film Even the Rain (También la Lluvia).
Rosalio Tinta Cruz was born in Bolivia and is an Electrical Engineer. He also has a Masters in Development Studies (2009) and is presently completing a Masters in Business Administration.
In 2010, Rosalio was nominated by the Bolivian Government as Vice-Minister for Electricity and Alternative Energy.
Rosalio will respond to the film by drawing on his extensive personal experience as an activist in the Bolivian Water Wars. He will explain how the indigenous communities organised themselves to successfully combat the corporate privatisation of water resources in Cochabamba and give an account of fighting this battle from the perspective of the indigenous communities.
Other guest panelists
Colombina Schaeffer will contextualise the film by sharing her research on the privatisation of water resources in another Latin American country: Chile.
Jorge Jordan will talk about his experience working with Indigenous groups in Peru, improving their advocacy skills on how to utilise the media to assist defend and promote their human rights.
Natalia Rodríguez-Uribe will share her research findings by comparing the legal status of biodiversity protection and indigenous peoples in Australia and Colombia; revealing the parallels between the experiences of these two groups of traditional owners.
Aunty Jacinta Tobin will respond to the situation facing Latin American Indigenous peoples by sharing with us her own extensive personal experience as an Aboriginal Elder, an ecologist and an activist.
Event date: Saturday 20 October 2012
Time: 5:00pm – 10:00pm
Place: Building Y3A, Macquarie University, North Ryde, NSW
Cost: Entry by gold coin donation
Contact: Laura Luna | 0411 328 063 | supporter@sydneylatinofilmfestival.org
Details: www.sydneylatinofilmfestival.org
RSVP: for catering purpose please RSVP through our Facebook page"
As demand for energy is growing and resources become scarcer, energy increasingly becomes the site of heated controversies in Latin America. In Bruno Latour’s terms, energy turns from a “matter of fact” into a “matter of concern”, as the consequences of power plants are exposed and experienced by concerned citizens. In these so-called socio-technical controversies, environmental movements often play a central role, highlighting what is at stake in these developments. This paper analyses the discourses and practices of two commissions established in Chile after the controversial approval by Sebastián Piñera’s administration (2010-2014) of a mega-dam complex in Chilean Patagonia. The first commission was a Government Commission (CADE) sponsored by Piñera’s administration to analyse the electricity sector and to set the basis for a new electricity policy for the country. Arguing that its members were representing the business sector and that it lacked the required legitimacy, activists, experts and politicians participating in Patagonia Sin Represas, an environmental campaign that opposed the building of dams in Chilean Patagonia, decided to organise a Parallel Citizen Commission (CCTP). By looking at the way these commissions were organised, the content of their reports and their public appearances, the paper argues that this controversy and related environmental campaign has made energy politics visible and contested in Chile. It relies on the notion of “hybrid forums” to understand the controversy, while also exploring its limitations in terms of instrumentalisation and power/knowledge asymmetries, particularly in the Chilean and Latin American context.