For activists with the Popular Committee for the World Cup, the Pan American Games were a watershed as it revealed the Brazilian government's inability to manage public funds in a democratic and transparent manner, or to open a space for effective dialogue with civil society on the legacy of the Games (Comitê Popular da Copa e Olimpiadas do Rio de Janeiro, 2012). For the social movement, the games were an opportunity to create a broad and stable coordination that could bring people together, overcoming localism and fragmentation.

“Our people have awakened, and we’re not going to give in to those who want take away what is ours as indigenous Lenca people,” said Francisco Sanchez Garcia, President of the Indigenous Council of the Council of Indigenous and Popular Organization of Honduras (COPINH).

Colombian human rights organization CINEP notes an exponential rise since 2008 in the number of social movements protesting extractive industries such as carbon, gold, and petroleum, seemingly in response to the increased economic focus on mining. Although Colombians are exercising their constitutional rights in mobilizing against these devastating large-scale mining projects, the recent murders of brave defenders show the high risks involved in confronting the powerful economic and political interests at stake in large-scale extractive projects.

“Queremos agua! Queremos maíz! Multinacionales fuera del país!” yelled the protesters on October 26th as they marched through the streets of El Carmen de Viboral in Eastern Antioquia, Colombia. Around 1,000 people representing 60 grassroots organizations from 17 municipalities of the region traveled to participate in the fourth annual Water Festival, “for the autonomy, defense of territory, life and peace.”

October 27th marked seven years of Brad Will living in the memory of Oaxacans, as well as those other fallen 26 from 2006. It marks seven years of demanding justice for them all. Every year hundreds of people mobilize and leave flowers and offerings at the Calicanto barricade. Some people bring food, coffee and bread to share with those participating in the activities and to the rhythm of son de la barricada [a popular protest song of the uprising].

In the months leading up to the first national elections since the 2009 coup in which members of the Resistance movement will participate, state-led terror and the criminalization of social protest have intensified.The terrorizing of activists like Edwin Espinal falls within the context of criminalization of social movement leaders like Berta Cáceres and Magdalena Morales. It is also part of a recent pattern of apparently politically-motivated military police-led home invasions.

Are there alternatives to this re-embrace of state-led capitalism? Evo Morales gained international attention by staking a strong discursive claim that global climate change was the result of the sins of capitalism. He posed indigenous cosmovision as the alternative: he declared that by embracing indigenous notions of reciprocity and communality, societies could learn to “live well” and sustainably instead of trying to live “better” than others through increased consumption.

In the chilly town of Santa Maria Tlahuitoltepec, perched in the Sierra Norte of Oaxaca, Mexico the Second Continental Summit of Indigenous Communication was held from October 7-13, 2013.