Ecofascisms, Coloniality and Ecosocial Crisis: Substrates, Contexts, Causes and Triggers

Abstract

This paper aims to address in depth some of the essential aspects at the origin of current eco-fascist positions, understood as those that seek to preserve natural resources for a privileged minority through the exclusion of the great popular majorities. Currently, eco-fascist ideas are experiencing a moment of strong growth at a time of eco-social crisis, which is also taking place in the context of a major civilisational crisis. We understand that the origins of these crises are precisely linked to a worldview that encourages certain collective imaginaries about them and that, in the end, feeds these eco-fascist positions. This worldview is based, within the modern Western paradigm, on the idea of an unlimited human being. This inevitably leads to a cultural and practical configuration of an eco-colonial character that denies other peoples, who are thus subalternised. We argue that the temptation to overcome the socio-environmental crisis through techno-optimistic solutions will only deepen this model. Not only that. Technocracies pose a potential threat to democracy, as they can be a channel for the normalisation of authoritarianisms characteristic of eco-fascist projects.