Politics of scale in Latin American Political Ecology studies

ROBIN LARSIMONT; FACUNDO ROJAS; LUCRECIA WAGNER

Brighton

Conferencia; POLLEN Biennial Conference 2020; 2020

ESRC STEPS Centre (IDS/SPRU, University of Sussex); The Political Ecology Network (POLLEN) Secretariat (based at Lancaster University 2017 -2019; and moving to the University of Copenhagen 2019 ? 2021).

In this paper we explore how Latin American Political Ecology studies can be strengthened by debates on scale in Critical Geography. We consider that the production of progress landscapes also produces rubbles landscapes (Gordillo, 2014); sacrifice zones (Lerner, 2010), peripheries (Prebisch 1949; Furtado 1964, Wallerstein 1979) and commodity frontiers (Moore, 2000; Hochschild, 2004).We rethink the "peripheral" category in relation to current debates and extractivism processes. Being convinced that "periphery" category has not lost its validity, but is resignified and rescaling. Different studies are explored to understand how landscapes of progress and rubblescapes are co-produced at local, regional, national and Latin American scales. However, some of these analyses do not elaborate enough or clearly on the relationship of the scalar processes that underlie these productions. From the lens of scale production (Smith, 2002; Brenner, 2001; González, 2005; Herod, 2011) we propose a re-reading of three cases: Portezuelo del Viento Dam; Sierra Pintada uranium mine and Argenceres olive company. These examples of Latin American extractivism and environmental conflict will be interpreted from the categories of politics of scale, scalar networks, multiscale and scalar confinements. In this way, the aim is to contribute to the debate that reflects on the dynamic character of the spatiality of environmental processes.