The following article was first published by Volume Magazine in their 47th issue, The System*. You can read the Editorial of this issue, How Much Does Your System Weigh", here.

The Project of a Collective Line: Santa Cruz in Bolivia is an agro-export region dominated by transnational corporations. Image Courtesy of USGS

The following article was first published by Volume Magazine in their 47th issue, The System*. You can read the Editorial of this issue, How Much Does Your System Weigh", here.In 2006 Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez, Brazilian President Lula da Silva and Argentinean President Néstor Kirchner proposed the construction of a gas pipeline connecting Venezuela to Brazil and Argentina, called the Gran Gasoduto del Sur. Although the project was never built, its path through the Amazon rainforest foregrounds the violent nature of resource extraction. At the same time, the project raised unique questions regarding the architecture of collective politics, particularly if understood in the context of the last fifteen years of political transformations throughout Latin America.Neo-extractivismWe are now in the end of a fifteen-year cycle that has witnessed a ?turn to the left? in Latin America. We can see this in the elections of Hugo Chávez in Venezuela, Lula da Silva and Dilma Rouseff in Brasil, Evo Morales in Bolivia, Nestor and Cristina Kirchner in Argentina, Tabaré Vásquez and Pepe Mujica in Uruguay, Fernando Lugo in Paraguay...