Aguinda v. Texaco Inc.: Expanding Indigenous "Expertise" Beyond Ecoprimitivism

This article analyzes a series of litigations that began with the Aguinda v.Texaco Inc. case as a site of production of new legal subjectivities forindigenous communities in the region of the Ecuadorian Amazon polluted byoil extraction activities. They engage in the transnational and local legalstructures, contribute to and generate legal and scientific knowledge andexpertise, and articulate multiple legal subjectivities that position them not onlyas homogenous plaintiffs in a highly publicized lawsuit, but also as legal actorsin complex relation to each other, and to the state. Through such engagementswith this legal process, indigenous actors are recrafting their collectiverepresentations in ways that challenge the ???ecoprimitive??? stereotypes ofindigeneity, historically associated with the ???paradox of primitivism.???