Imaginaries, transformations and resistances in Patagonian territories from a socio-ecological perspective.

P LATERRA; L NAHUELHUAL; M GLUCH; PL PERI; G MARTÍNEZ PASTUR

Ecosystem Services in Patagonia: A Multi-criteria approach for an integrated assessment

Springer

Lugar: Cham; Año: 2021; p. 397 - 427

Socially shared expectations about people?s behavior and worldviews,both in terms of how they work and how they should work, are part of the conceptof social imaginaries. Beyond representing the idiosyncrasy of a society, imaginariescan play cohesive, critical, or transformative roles over societies and their supporting systems. Therefore, we postulate that by modulating nature-societyrelationships, social imaginaries can represent transformative or resistance forcesaffecting the provision, capture, and distribution of ecosystem services (ES). Weanalyze nature-society social imaginaries (NSI) based on previously publishedinformation, with particular attention to their influences on the provision, capture,and social distribution of ES in Patagonian landscapes of Argentina and Chile.Firstly, we built and used a conceptual NSI framework that integrates the conceptsof ES, social imaginaries, and the governance of natural capital. Secondly, weapplied the NSI framework to selected case studies addressing four main drivers ofchange in Patagonian socio-ecological systems (SES): (i) land dispossession, (ii)industrial forestry expansion, (iii) touristification, and (iv) damming of rivers forhydroelectric uses. According to our analyses, Patagonian SES are being affectedby typical transforming forces of the modern imaginary (e.g., short term, productivity,reductionist-mechanistic vision, individualism) as well as forces of resistancethat characterize postmodern (e.g., intergenerational concern, ecocentrism,holism) and indigenous (e.g., territorial ancestral rights, living well in harmonywith nature) imaginaries. These three main NSI underlie controversies around publicpolicies and governance of ES, by influencing the shared perception of naturecontributions to well-being, the shared expectations about human behaviors (governanceinstitutions), and/or the final decisions affecting natural capital. We discussthe variation of the relative importance of these three mechanisms acrossNSI types.