Environmental Justice Networks in Latin America: compared experiences in Argentina, Brazil and Mexico

BERGER, MAURICIO

Environmental Movements around the World Shades of Green in Politics and Culture

Praeger Publishers

Lugar: Santa Barbara, California; Denver, Colorado; Oxford, England; Año: 2013; p. 105 - 127

After the apparent crisis of neoliberalism in the Latin America, progressive governments are enforcing neo-extractivist/ neo- developmentalism policies consisting in the plundering of the common goods and the destruction of forms of life and environment for economic growth and the new requirements of capital accumulation. In this context, the political practice of Environmental Justice Networks (EJN) unmakes the capital and state sovereignity creating forms of social cooperation and coordination based in self- government and self- defense. EJN practices consist then in the making of connections and solidarities between individuals and collectives, through a practical understanding of multiplicity for the expansion of democratic forms of organization within the struggles against the Capital dispossession. Within this frame, the objective of the chapter is to present and discuss the experiences of Environmental Justice Networks in Latin America (EJN): the Brazilian Network of Environmental Justice, the National Assembly of Environmentally Affected People from Mexico, and the the network of the Pulverizated/ Fumigated Peoples (Pueblos Fumigados) from Argentina. Starting from the different political contexts of each experience, we will also compare EJN´s frameworks and actions. From this reconstruction, we will focus the analysis on three aspects that we consider relevant to think about the limits and possibilities of EJN building of a political institution of another sort: a) the excercise of a Network- Autonomy, the defintion of a self- organization form from the refusal of traditional political representation, b) the practical understanding of multiplicity and its potentiality for expanding networking and c) network´s creativity as experimentation through diversity of tactics/ strategies in situation of environmental rights vulneration.