The Fight to Protect the Amazon: The Environmental Discourse of the Waorani Resistance Movement

Abstract: Ecuador has experienced a drastic political transformation since the return to neoliberalism under the reign of president Lenin Moreno. Political contentions between the government, environmentalists, and indigenous peoples have led to increased social resistance, protesting the use of extractivism and other neoliberal policies to increase economic growth and relieve national debt. In 2019, the Waorani, an indigenous population living in the Amazon, filed a lawsuit against the Ecuadorian government while simultaneously starting a resistance movement. The lawsuit was successful and has set a precedent for indigenous communities to fight for their right to self-determination throughout the Amazon. The research will build upon the theory of discursive democracy by highlighting how members of civil society through coordination of spontaneous order can achieve democratic deliberation with nature. Using a qualitative content analysis of documents from the narrative of the Waorani throughout the resistance, this research will assess the environmental discursive storyline of the Waorani resistance lawsuit and its effects. The analysis concludes that the Waorani resistance discursive storyline can be situated in the categories of green consciousness and green politics within the discourse of green radicalism. It is further concluded that the effects of the Waorani discourse have implications for other indigenous communities in the Amazon, Ecuador and beyond.