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Conflicting Narratives on Development and Environment in Argentina

Source: Photo credits ‘no-al-litio’: Ramiro Barreiro, Latfem.org

Conflicting Narratives on Development and Environment in Argentina. What can we learn from lithium exploitation in Argentina?

Written by Mariana Paterlini

Argentina is an unequal country where the gap between the rich and the poor keeps widening, while its economy still depends on large-scale agriculture for export. However, since the 90s, and influenced by the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund, mining has emerged as a potential source of economic growth. Furthermore, in the last ten years, the Northwest region has gained visibility as part of the "lithium triangle". Along with Bolivia and Chile, this area concentrates 85% of the world's reserves of this crucial metal for the energy transition. Simultaneously, the consolidation of different actors questioning the benefits and negative impacts of the dominant development model has increased over the last twenty years, giving rise to a national scenario populated by environmental conflicts.

Lithium is often presented as a critical mineral in the transition to renewable energy. Currently, governments in the North promote its exploration and, in line with their international environmental commitments, link it to sustainable mining contributing to decarbonisation. Thus, it reproduces a Modernity discourse that conceives the environment and its resources as commodities ready to serve the human economic organisation. However, its extraction implies intensive water use that alters soil conditions and negatively impacts the ecosystem, thus an exploitation of the environment. Furthermore, this practice often violates the rights of local communities. Specifically, indigenous peoples who have remained marginalised since colonial times.

This research, conducted as the dissertation to finish an International Development MA at the University of Warwick, examined cultural products related to lithium exploitation circulating in national media, guided by a transdisciplinary theoretical framework that merges postcolonial development studies, political ecology, and sociology of culture, through discourse analysis. This approach made it possible to engage with how diverse actors conceptualise their relationships with the environment differently and consider Argentina's position in relation to the current centres of economic power. Then, five development narratives were identified while observing the relation of each model with the environment, the reproduction of colonialism each one entails and their efforts towards an ideal of emancipation for the country.

Here culture is thought of as a historical process anchored in common sense, habits, and beliefs which materialise the social relations of inequality between different groups involved. Therefore, exploring the cultural dynamics in the case of lithium exploitation makes it possible to decentre the hegemonic development narrative and expand the political imagination presenting alternative possibilities at stake.

The five development narratives identified through this exercise -orthodox extractivism, extractivism with industrialisation, green new deal (GND), degrowth, and community autonomism-shape heterogeneous ways of materialising human relations with nature. Moreover, they entail fields of possibilities and practices with which different groups can identify and between which relations of opposition or articulation are established, considering the power disputes across them. Therefore, based on the frequency of circulation, the actors legitimising the narratives and the media outlet in which they circulate, orthodox extractivism and extractivism with industrialisation are residual narratives, GND is the dominant one, and degrowth and community autonomism are the emergent.

Regarding the environment, whereas residual models assimilate it as natural resources intended to be exploited intensively (lithium appears as a commodity that brings in foreign currency, referred to as the "new oil", "white gold", or a "hidden treasure", allowing local communities to leave their "primitive" original state), the dominant model frames this exploitation within environmental standards that remain unclear (lithium appears as key for an energy transition, and refer as part of a "sustainable mining" linked to accountability and efficiency). In contrast, the emergent narratives understand the environment as the co-creation of a relationship between the biophysical and its inhabitants, entailing caring relationships (indigenous peoples expose how their identities and culture disappear if their ecosystem dies). Connected to this arises the question of its management. While the residual and the dominant narratives discuss it in terms of strategic resources that provincial or national governments may administer, the emerging models stress recognising the legitimate participation of indigenous communities and organised civil society in the debate.

Regarding emancipation, orthodox extractivism is the only narrative that does not envision emancipation and reproduces colonial relations between the North and the South, assimilating development to economic growth. On the other hand, extractivism with industrialisation, GND, degrowth and community autonomism include an emancipatory aspect. Nonetheless, their understanding of emancipation differs; the two former links it to improving Argentina's position in the global market, neglecting power inequalities within the country, and understanding economic growth as the basis of development. The latter consider emancipation from a bottom-up perspective, undervaluing economic growth as the basis of development and connecting it to a shift in the relationship with the environment.

Finally, in the residual and dominant narratives, it is possible to trace persistence of the Modernity discourse with nuances, reproducing the marginalisation of local communities and focusing on the country's position within global dynamics. In this way, they neglect the differentiated impact these dynamics have in different sectors, particularly the negative consequences on already marginalised communities. On the other hand, the emergent models openly challenge this discourse, emphasising the reinforcement of local aspects to reverse the undesired effects of the current global ones.

This study showed that although emergent narratives usually appear on critical and alternative media outlets, they circulate in mainstream media to a lesser extent. Therefore, it made it possible to think that new futures, engaged with alternative development models, can be shaped by the massification of some unusual alliances already occurring in this arena. Thus, it might be relevant to delve deeper into the strategies for consolidating these unusual alliances while generating evidence to identify whether they effectively contribute to counteracting the reproduction of inequality.

Whilst the hegemonic development discourse aims to improve Argentina's position in the global system, it reproduces mechanisms that exacerbate the differentiated impact of this development model on different sectors of the population, producing environmental damages and more inequality. This analysis sought to deepen understanding of this situation and demonstrate alternative ways forward. The final goal remains on the side of hope and advocates for the plural construction of a development model intersected by the values of social justice, in which the motto of the Sustainable Development Goals becomes a reality: leaving no one behind.

Author Bio

Mariana Paterlini has recently graduated with an MA in International Development at the University of Warwick. She is a human rights activist whose practice has focused on feminism, gender rights, economic, social, and cultural rights and, more recently, the right to the future. Her master's dissertation addressed continuities and ruptures traceable in the narratives circulating in the public debate on development and the environment in Argentina. She was a Chevening scholar, and this piece was made possible by funding from the Chevening Scholarships, the UK government's global scholarship programme, funded by the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO).

Mouzayian Khalil : 09 Oct 2023 13:26 |  Tags: Argentina Development Development Discourse Environment Lithium Extraction |  Comments (0) |  Close comments |  Report a problem