Direct violence against environmental defenders. Questions and research lines from the Argentinian case

FIGUEROA, LUCAS M.

Ginebra

Congreso; From Disparities to Diversities: Shaping the Future of Latin America; 2023

Latin America Network Iniciative - The Graduate Institute of International and Development (IHEID)

Latin America is a region that possesses an important amount of natural resources.Historically, states and corporations have sought to extract those resources with theaim of increasing the economic benefits. However, the cost of this process was anenvironmental harm that has affected the livelihoods of different communities and thepopulation in general. Since the commodity boom at the beginning of 2000,extractivism has had a new impulse. At the same time, the resistances in the territorieshave increased and with them the number of socio-environmental conflicts. However,these conflicts have dissimilar trajectories. In some of them, the conflict resulted inhomicides of environmental defenders. This presentation intends to discuss why somesocio-environmental conflicts result in direct violence against environmentaldefenders. To address this question, I analyze three Argentine provinces where theexpansion of the agricultural frontier has expanded, causing socio-environmentalconflicts: Chaco, Formosa, Salta and Santiago del Estero. However, the number ofhomicides is different, being Santiago del Estero the most dangerous province forenvironmental defenders. The intention of this comparison is to start a reflectionabout the multiple causes that make some regions a dangerous place forenvironmental defenders.