The Rights of Nature Meaning-Making Experiments in Ecuador: A Pragmatist Inquiry

Author

Lourdes Aguas Gonzalez, State University of New York at AlbanyFollow

Date of Award

Summer 2025

Language

English

Embargo Period

8-8-2025

Document Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

College/School/Department

Department of Sociology

Program

Sociology

First Advisor

Aaron Major

Committee Members

Kristen Hessler; Barbara Sutton

Keywords

Rights of Nature, Ecuador, Thick Concepts, Pragmatism, Democracy

Subject Categories

Environmental Studies | Other Legal Studies | Politics and Social Change | Social Justice

Abstract

Ecuador is the first and only country in the world to recognize nature as a subject of rights in its national Constitution, with the most court cases to date, and with a vibrant moral imagination regarding the more-than-human world. Building on the pragmatist tradition, my research examines three questions: What are the rights of nature in Ecuador? How is nature politically represented in Ecuadorian legal forums? And how can collective problem-solving experiments around the rights of nature in Ecuador inform moral inquiry? To answer these questions, I bring sociology in conversation with philosophy. My theoretical and methodological tools as a Sociologist help me to describe and analyze empirical evidence of rights of nature case law in Ecuador including how different social groups conceive of nature and who makes claims for nature. However, since the rights of nature are deeply rooted in value judgements about the human and the natural, I borrow tools from pragmatist philosophy to explore the normative dimension of these rights. While I reference several rights of nature cases, my empirical chapters focus in-depth on the Los Cedros forest (2021), the A’I Kofan of Sinangoe indigenous territory (2022), and the Machángara River (2024). In addition to reviewing lawsuits, amicus briefs and rulings, I conducted 20 in depth semi-structed interviews with key stakeholders involved in rights of nature advocacy and litigation, including indigenous and rights of nature activists, scientists, artists, Constitutional Court judges, lawyers, and government officials. My research has three main contributions. The first is conceptual suggesting that a promising way to think about rights of nature involves blurring the nature-human dichotomy in important ways. The second one is political showing that the rights of nature in Ecuador are a tool in negotiations concerning authority, sovereignty, representation, and governance. The rights of nature are used in an effort to shift the existing balance of power by creating authoritative spaces for previously unheard voices to speak on behalf of marginalized humans and Earth Others. The third is evaluative, suggesting that the collective problem-solving model, which emphasizes participation and inclusivity to define and represent nature, is a better alternative to hierarchical politics and context-free forms of knowledge production. There is not a single expert in nature and for this reason the best solutions to complex problems like climate change, biodiversity loss and widespread social inequalities emerge from a community of inquiry that allows various stakeholders to present and negotiate their claims while maintaining the epistemic values of science and law.

License

This work is licensed under the University at Albany Standard Author Agreement.

Recommended Citation

Aguas Gonzalez, Lourdes, "The Rights of Nature Meaning-Making Experiments in Ecuador: A Pragmatist Inquiry" (2025). Electronic Theses & Dissertations (2024 - present). 285.
https://scholarsarchive.library.albany.edu/etd/285