Criminalization of environmental protest

While protesters for a fair climate treaty in Copenhagen were detained due to “precautionary reasons”, a march against “looting and contamination” was held in Cordoba at the 11th UAC. When attempting to set off, some of the Argentine citizen assemblies decided to stay behind and not join the demonstration. Firstly because political parties had joined the march, and secondly because there was an organization where some of the members carried sticks and had their faces covered. The two events both connect to ideas about violence and where the limits for civic protest are set. This is sometimes discussed as “criminalization of social protest” – all depending on the ideological belonging of the discussant of course. One camp considers that the criminalization of social protest is a conscious strategy by the State to weaken social movements, by making certain acts illegal, like covering the face or charging individuals for what the collective does, as seen in Copenhagen. This is while the other ideological camp considers that the security of the rest of the citizens is protected when the protesters’ rights are limited. A common practice seems to be to categorize or represent the protesters as “terrorists” or delinquents. This is how a Cordobese newspaper framed the activists who participated in the demonstrations the following day – as eco-terrorists. In extension, the media contributes to the social construction of what is considered as violent acts. This in turn may veil structural inequalities, and even more importantly, contribute to a complete neglect of the real arguments and demands expressed by the protesters. The criminalization of social protest limits the possibilities to participate in the environmental politics, where wide political participation has been emphasized ever since the global policy Agenda 21.

While attempting to settle the disputes at the Assembly meeting the following day, about the participation of people with sticks and faces covered, two kinds of arguments were presented. The first to be articulated was that no participants should have their faces covered in the peaceful marches organized by UAC, since that tends to contribute to more violence. The other opinion concerned the safety of the, mainly very poor and marginalized, members of the organization which had their faces covered to hide their identity from the police. Several stories of how politically active youngsters are documented and later persecuted by the police were expressed. Even if some participants certainly left the meeting with a bitter taste in the mouth due to different interpretations of what symbolizes violence, the assembly managed to increase my understanding of what not only social protest for the environment mean in Argentina, but also what violence can be taken to mean.

Action competence or action paralysis?

Injustice can paralyze. So can knowledge about overwhelming environmental problems that seem beyond cure. With the aim of creating a “participatory” environmental photo project, these issues have been central. I have been guided by the work performed by Ellen Almers (2009) who investigates what she calls action competence. The concept has been developed by Danish pedagogues like Bjarne Bruun Jensen among others. In general, action competence implies a process for engagement to take action. It is ideologically and conceptually related to democracy, empowerment and critical pedagogy. Action competence means “the development of these competencies, understandings and skills that enable students to take critical action” (Grant 1997:1). In environmental contexts this kind of pedagogy is often connected to education for sustainable development.

The opposite of action competence is action paralysis. What good would it do the kids who participate in the workshops by ph15 if they “only” learn about what environmental problems which exist? It may seem as if the barriers to take action, in the sense of social, political and economic structures, are insuperable in their barrio, what I called “ecological action space” in my dissertation. My attempt to circumvent these problems has been to contribute with tasks that help the participants increase their capacity to analyze other’s representations of the environment, discuss and reflect on whose responsibility the environment is, and to discuss and share ideas on what can be done to find ways to act. As have been pointed out time and again before, knowledge about what can be done for the environment has to be translated to practical and feasible activities that yet don’t individualize the responsibility and neglect the larger political context within which the individuals act. To find a formula for how this can be done is most likely any environmental politicians’ or environmental activists’ dream.

An interesting point of reference in the work by Almers is that she (in an interview) emphasizes that she believes that it is more fundamental that the students (through the formal schooling) get less stories of misery, and more examples for how to discuss solutions to the problems. This prepares them for action competence rather than helplessness and action paralysis. In ph15 we discussed the role of images of misery and suggestions for action through a set of governmental posters. The group concluded that environmental catastrophies and misery had a major impact than suggestions for action, since the later didn’t connect to what problems that could be avoided.

References:
Almers, Ellen (2009) Handlingskompetens för hållbar utveckling: Tre berättelser om vägen dit. Diss. Högskolan i Jönköping.
Grant, Col (1997) ”Action Competence - Factors which promote and constrain”. Background Paper for International Research Conference in Environmental Education at Christchurch.

“A (de)colonizing gaze?”

During the last weeks I have been completely consumed by the photographic project with ph15, how to teach non-formal environmental education in an engaging way, and how to visualize environmental problems. The response from the kids was beyond my expectations, and the first photo excursion into the Hidden City, or Ciudad Oculta as the neighbourhood is called, left me overwhelmed by all the impressions. During the hour long walk through the winding streets, we took hundreds of photos, of children playing, of a massive reddish hospital building abandoned before completion, of barking dogs eating from the garbage bags, and of rubbish from what were once houses. I further attempted to document the excursion and photographic discussions that were held by the participants. After the first excursion into Ciudad Oculta I went on a tour to the Tigre Delta, and the social and economic contrasts were striking. Back home I tried to digest all the impressions and furthermore all the photos, and after up loading a selection of the pictures that I had taken on facebook I started reflecting on my representation of the kids, the project and the neighbourhood. Only then did I consider whether my attitude and actions could be considered a voyeuristic tour into the “hidden”? All the reactions from Argentineans that I have talked to about my project and/or who have seen the selection of photos at facebook have also contributed to the need to reflect on the practices of the project. Issues that have been raised deal with whether it is at all meaningful to discuss the environmental conditions and problems with people who are poor, others have said that it is great that I participate in the visualization of the “reality” in the slum, while yet others have questioned my security when walking around in the neighbourhood. My initial aim was to contribute to the endeavour by the organization to strengthen the confidence and self esteem among the participants, by applying a participatory approach in the project. Anyone who has attempted to deal with this issue knows that it comes with a whole array of challenges. To start with, I was the one who contacted the organization and suggested that the project focus on the relationship between humans and environment, and the theme was thus not generated by the participants. Another matter is the auto-representation of the kids, of their neighbourhood, of all the rubbish and the poor material living conditions, and how this is connected to their ideas about what others think about them or expect of them. My initial idea of calling the project “Visualization of the relation between humans and environment” was to open up for the possibility to not only focus on bad or poor conditions, but also on good or desirable conditions, and possible solutions to environmental problems. However, the first photo excursion seemed to result in mainly negative images, and for some reason this made me ponder on the ethical aspect of the practice, and whether this could possibly contribute to any strengthening of the kids self esteem. Of course it is too early to draw any conclusions, and the project has only started, which means that there is time to open up discussions on these issues and develop the project taking them into deeper consideration. Personally I will look in the literature on postcolonialism where I hope I will find some ideas on how to decolonize my gaze and practice.

”Una terrorista de las 70s”

A few weeks ago I went to a book presentation by Javier Rodriguez Pardo at the cultural centre Chico Mendez in Buenos Aires. Pardo presented his book Vienen por el oro, vienen por todo: las invasiones mineras 500 años después [They’re coming for the gold, they’re coming for everything: Mining invasions 500 years later]. The book was used for the documentary that Pino Solanas made, Tierra Sublevada (2009) which I commented on earlier, and is a typical example of how the environmental movement is concerned with the ongoing colonization. At the presentation Pardo was accompanied by the sociologist Maristella Svampa, who gave her tribute to the role that Pardo has played in the constitution of the environmental movement in Argentina. I left the presentation feeling like I had received an important piece for my investigation on the mobilization of the environmental movement in Argentina, and with the book by Pardo in my bag. As many times before during my fieldwork the book has made me reflected on the possible comparisons one can do with Sweden. At a section in the book Pardo describes how he was called an “ecological terrorist from the 70s” by provincial officials in San Juan, who feared his capacity to inform the citizens of the province of the environmental consequences of the mining business. Here I will not delve into the issue of how this is a clear example of environmental activists being criminalized, which was one among the current concerns that Svampa expressed, but how the environmental movement relates to historical political experiences. It made me think about a consideration that one of the participants in the march in San Lorenzo in September shared with me. He said that he was happy that there were so many young people who participated. I responded spontaneously that in Sweden it seems like marches and demonstrations are more common among the younger sections of the populations. He responded in turn that this has to do with the experiences of the dictatorship during the 70s and 80s, which have made younger people afraid of political mobilization. It is obvious that the environmental movement, and the way environmental politics is done, has to be understood in relation to these historical experiences, which most likely have repercussions for trust in authorities and governmental possibilities to govern environmental challenges. At the same time one cannot neglect the more recent experiences like what took place under the rule of President Menem during the 1990s, or what is currently happening for that matter, which often turn up in the discussions I have with environmental activists.

Running the risk of taking this blog entry in an awkward direction, I cannot help but reflecting on the “globality” of the mining business. While taking a break from the book - where I was just reading about the connections that Pardo does between what is happening in Argentina, and the relationship between Barrick Gold and the civil war atrocities in the Democratic Republic of Congo – I skimmed a Swedish newspaper and found an article about a report by Global Witness. They argue that the hunt for metals for Western mobile phones and computers aggravates the civil war, since all participating actors in the civil war are involved in the armed conflict. I further read a related article about the systematic rapes that Congolese women face, and feeling how a grip of hopelessness about the world seizes my mind, I wonder what a true definition of a terrorist would be?

Tierra Sublevada by Pino Solanas

Today (September 28, 2009) I went to watch Pino Solanas’ last documentary Tierra Sublevada [something like Raising Land]. Two things struck me apart from the general message about the neo-colonial practices that the mining business implies, and they are how the Argentinean environmental movement relates to nationalism, and the role that Pino Solanas plays in outlining the discourse for this same movement or rather, what the relationship is between him and the movement. Through the documentary I heard the same slogans as I have during the two UAC I have participated in: water is worth more than gold, life is worth more than everything else, and no one touches the glaciers. The practices, or the looting, that the multinational corporations are supposed to be involved in were central in the story. Solanas describes how the multinational corporations that extract the minerals only pays 1-1,5% in royalty since they can deduce costs for extraction and transportation, and how this is only the case for 3 out of all the dozens of minerals that are extracted. This is further information that is possible to find at his official website as well (www.pinosolanas.com). The documentary has obviously been filmed and concluded during the last months, because events which I have been able to observe in my study were present like the charge against the activists who blocked the road to Famatina. Solanas described how the protests have been criminalized, how politicians are selling the common goods, and how politicians in the major mining provinces are corrupt and favoured by impunity by the juridical systemHe also highlights how the mining company Alumbrera Ltd pays 50 million pesos for the education at the University in Tucuman, an issue which has been heavily debated within the environmental movement since April or May, which have even led some departments to reject the funds.

To continue the reflection I initiated above on the relationship between nationalism and the Argentinean environmental movement, I find it captivating (or perhaps scary is a better term) to think about the privatization of the common goods that is possible to observe. It is difficult not to agree on the relevance of the question that Solanas poses: how can there be so much poverty in a country which is so rich? Like a banner at the demonstration in San Lorenzo on the 12th of September said: “At this port the wealth is shipped out, and we are left with poverty, contamination, explosions and ill health”. So the interest in nationalism is both relevant in the light of globalization concerning what it is that moves over national borders, as well as internally concerning who benefits from and who can participate in the decisions for how to use common goods.

Information overload

“There is no shortage of activities” an activist concluded at a meeting I attended, and asked the other 7 participating activists to please keep to the program for the evening where they were to decide on how to arrange a public event in October, while he tried to keep his 4-year-old son busy and not disturbing the meeting. A woman in her 50’s commented that her family will have to put up a picture of her in her home, since she is never there but constantly attending meetings and activities with the environmental organization and related networks which she is working with. She continued with a sigh that there is not one single weekend that isn’t filled with activities until Christmas. The issue of having sufficient time for all the meetings resonated in an interview which I performed with a man who is deeply involved with a national organisation, and in an interview I performed with an activist who is dedicated to Greenpeace campaigns which she can help out with from home over the internet. Two girls I interviewed the other day commented on how unhealthy they eat when they are in reunions all the time when someone stops by the “kiosco” to by something sweet to nibble on for the group. “We will get really fat soon” she said and laughed while she opened a box of alfajores and placed in on the table where we were going to perform the interview.

Ruth Lister et al. observe that citizenship studies gain from “a multi-tiered analysis, which pays attention to the spaces and places in which lived citizenship is practiced” (Lister et al. 2007),which the above is an example of. But it also relate to what is commonly called “information overload”. That at the same time as social movements gain from the possibility to communicate and share information at a low cost, having time to read all that one has the possibility to read, and to sort between sources and bountiful information is more difficult. During the last month I have probably received 300- 400 e-mails with invitations to public events, reports on the results from marches and protest activities, invitations to facebook lists and pages, new blog entries, news letters, excerpts from interviews with leading activists and scholars, and “heads up” about advancements and environmental impacts by companies which are extracting the Argentine resources. Some of the information is sent over and over again by people from different lists, and it is possible to notice patterns and repetitions in the information. Based on this one cannot only draw the conclusion that activists have problems making it to all the events, reunions and network meetings, but more importantly that there ARE so many activities organized with the attempt to influence environmental politics. The questions a researcher can pose based on this is what the activists believe they accomplish, how they keep the faith when their attempts do not seem to result in any changes, and moreover how the continuous flow of information about what other participants in the movement do and think all over the country influences individual participants’ identity as members of a social movement.

Having your “own” scientist and scientific (in)dependence

A central element in environmental movements’ work is to translate and interpret scientific studies and facts that establish relationships between humans and the environment. I watched a TV program where the environmental organization “Conciencia Solidaria” discussed the dangers of open air mining, in a debate with “La Camara Argentina de Mineros”. One of the arguments by the representative from the Chamber was that there are no scientific studies whatsoever that shows any direct link between the mining practices and the chemicals used, and health problems like cancer, for example. This shows how scientific results, or lack of them, are used in environmental communication.

Here I want to discuss two issues that connect the environmental movements in Argentina, with scientific matters. The first concern financing of university studies, and the second a specific scientific study performed by Andrés Carrasco which has received a lot of attention in relation to the movement against the herbicide gliphosate. The discussion about science and universities in Argentina relate to general issues of trust and scientific independence. I have heard several expressions of distrust in scientists in my interviews and observations, or the belief that scientists are paid by multinational companies to find only what they are expected to. This is why it becomes important for the environmental movement to find scientists that are considered as “one of us”.

It was at UAC in Jujuy that I first heard demands to reject the university funding from the mining business Yacimientos Mineros Aguas del Dionisio (YMAD), or the Alumbrera as it is commonly called. The funding is part of the law 14.771 from 2008, which evidently gave the National Interuniversity Council 50 million pesos from the mining business to distribute to universities, money which is now rejected by some universities, scholars and student movements due to the supposed environmental destruction that the mining causes. The matter places focus on who is funding education, and whether funders can demand certain results or research projects, issues which in turn relate to scientific independence, and in what ways that neoliberal policies have influenced public education. Critical voices of the funding from YMAD claim that it is part of a campaign to legitimize the environmentally destructive mining activities, which in turn says something about the expectations on political representatives who created the law to start with.

Andrés Carrasco is considered by several participants in the environmental movement as “one of us”. He has performed a biological investigation of gliphosate, an ingredient used in the herbicide Roundup Ready and its impact on cell transformations in embryos. The fact that Carrasco is Argentinean makes his findings even more important, stated a university professor that I interviewed the other day. This can be demonstrated by the fact that Carrasco is not only invited to a lot of environmental events and travels the country to give speeches on his findings and experiences, but is also interviewed for radio programs and newspapers. Carrasco testifies of how he has been receiving threats, and how he has been accused for attempting to participate in the conflict between the government and “el campo” (read the large land owners). His testimonies give strength to the preoccupation within the environmental movement about corruption in scientific studies, which I would argue further contribute to the notion of distrust.

The two cases demonstrate that knowledge production is always part of a political and social context, and sometimes they become part of political struggles or social movements. However, even if only certain studies, results or scientists get “agency” and are enrolled in social movements, it is fundamental to remember that also those that don’t, or those which are silenced are part of the political context. How this is done is a fundamental issue for the research field social studies of science and technology (STS), which has a lot to offer the investigation of how science is used in social and environmental movements, and in politics in general. When taking as a point of departure that all knowledge production is ideologically tainted, it is logical to require transparency and recognition of what assumptions about the world that scientific conclusions are based on. By this I mean that is difficult to produce “neutral” knowledge, we can only attempt to show how it has been done. For my current study however, it is a lot more interesting to continue the investigation of how science is enrolled in the Argentinean environmental movement.

The Wall - Poor man’s poster and the use of public space

Recently I read a list of the songs that were prohibited during the dictatorship in Argentina. Among them was “The Wall” by Leonard Cohen. A wall can give many different connotations. In the book Patas Arriba by the Uruguayan journalist and writer Eduardo Galeano he refers several times what has been “written on the walls”. Now I am not particularly interested in what has been written on the walls, but more specifically in the use of writing on the walls of public buildings as a use of public space, as a way to express political views. The use of wall writing as a political method in this geopolitical region was corroborated a few days ago when I read in an article about a Uruguayan politician, who recently seemed to have changed political opinion by switching from the alpargatas that he has been wearing since the 70s to dress shoes and tie, which had been questioned in Fray Bentos by someone who had “written a question at the wall”. I cannot help but do a comparison with Sweden, where writing on the walls is often considered a sign of decadence and public pollution. However, here I believe that the possibility to express opinions in the form of stencils and spray painted slogans on the walls have to be considered as the poor or alternative wo/man’s posters. This while the authorities have the option to cover the city in posters on dedicated sites.

Is taking side part of the “understanding”?

A research dilemma has approached me during the last couple of weeks when I have realized that I tend to take sides. Through my academic training I have come to consider that science and knowledge production are never innocent, they are part of political processes, for example by what research is promoted and then how results are negotiated and used, and whose knowledge counts (as valuable). In academic circles the discussion about objectivity, impartiality and neutrality has been alive and thriving and is far from new, dealing with whether it is at all possible, or if we have to admit that we always have a partial perspective, that we never look from everywhere or nowhere (Haraway 1991), and further that the researcher has a “privileged speaking position” (Back and Solomos 1993, cited in Hammersley 1999).Others have suggested that it is necessary to take side and that it is not even desirable to attempt to be neutral (Galis 2007). The ideal is then to be an “engaged intellectual” with a commitment to values and offer a worldview or interrupting the process of socio-cultural reproduction (Hammersley 1999:8). This is distinct to being committed to a category of persons, or to a political organization. So, since my own concern about “taking sides” is not new, I want to discuss the specific issues that have made me delve upon the area recently.

Today I have been inspired by Martyn Hammersley and his book Taking sides in social research: essays on partisanship and bias (1999). He quotes Patti Lather who has written that “Once we recognise that just as there is no neutral education there is no neutral research, we no longer need apologize for unabashedly ideological research and its open commitment to using research to criticize and change the status quo” (Lather 1986a:67; cited in Hammersley 1999:2). Hammersley argues that she takes this as a starting point rather than something which needs arguments to be backed up, and he cites a contradictory view offered by Patai. She claims that “In fact, putting scholarship at the explicit service of politics carries many (and rather obvious) risks, and should not be greeted with the facile assumption that of course it is what ‘we’ should do” (Patai 1994:68; cited in Hammersley 1999:2). The issue is interesting in relation to the expectation and policy directive that Swedish research should be socially relevant. It was only a few days ago that I received an invitation to a conference in Sweden concerning the theme on how to perform socially relevant research. My question is – for whom, and who decides what is relevant in a context where knowledge is valued due to the contribution of practical activities like political, professional or commercial (Hammersley 1999).

Through the university one is trained to perform valid studies. In an article on anti-racism by Back and Solomon, also referred to by Hammersley, they discuss what to neglect when presenting the findings publicly in order not to harm the people one is studying (Back and Solomos 1993, cited in Hammersley 1999). I found this interesting as well, not only in relation to what one reports at the end, but also in relation to what one decides to include in the project. I am currently debating with myself on whether to observe a specific activity that there has been commotion about within the movement that I am focusing on. Do they have the right, from a research ethical perspective, to question what I study or not? Would I betray them if I went? Would I close doors? Is my responsibility even to get engaged in a critical discussion with the actors of the opposing stand?

I consider that my research is “critical”. “Critical” research doesn’t imply that research per se is independent, but that it is independent from a dominant ideology (Hammersley 1999:3). It is here that I feel as if I have been absorbed by the field which I am studying (I am sure there is a concept, probably from psychoanalytical research for this phenomena or sensation). Through the interaction with the environmental movement I have been convinced that there is harmful cyanide in the water around the gold mines, of the cancerogenous qualities of gliphosate and electromagnetic fields, and of the environmental hazards posed by deforestation. Just like participants in the movement I interpret that this is a sign of poor political management, corruption and how neoliberal economic values rule. But my taking side does not only concern actors, but also different forms of political participation – individual vs collective forms, like demonstrations vs saving water in your bathroom, petitions for waste management vs recycling in your home. But wait a minute, do I dare to publish these thoughts on a public website? So, finally some views on the value of contrasts in keeping a reflexive standpoint to my project. In everyday studies which have been influences by surrealism there is a methodological appreciation for “surprising juxtapositions” (Highmore 2002:23). I mention this as a safety vault, in the sense that I hope I will manage to keep a healthy academic reflexivity on what my study indicates by moving between contexts, contexts that can offer contrasts, or juxtapositions, that highlight the norms, practices and discourses within the movement that I am studying and attempting to understand.

References:
Galis, Vasilis (2007) “Studying the Development of Athens Metro and the Greek
Disability Movement: Neutrality, Reflexivity, and Epistemological Choice”, conference paper at 4S, Montreal, October 2007.
Hammersley, Martyn (1999) Taking sides in social research: essays on partisanship and bias. Routledge.
Haraway, Donna (1988) “Situated Knowledges: The Science Question in Feminism and the Privilege of Partial Perspective”, Feminist Studies. Vol. 14, Issue 3, pp. 575-599.
Highmore, Ben (2002) Everyday Life and Cultural Theory. Routledge.

Violence, threats and criminalization of activism as part of the political context

When reading the book La zona gris (2007) by Javier Ayuero the question I felt like asking him was: “did you ever feel afraid during your field work?” The book gives an ethnographic account of the collective violence that took place during the crisis in December 2001 in Argentina, and investigates different interpretations of what happened. He describes and analyses the close to 300 lootings of supermarkets that took place, and relates this to how politics is done in the country. He deals with phenomena such as ‘punteros’, ‘cacerolazos’, and ‘clientelismo’. Especially for a foreigner the books serves as an interpretation and in many ways an explanation of the political context of what he calls the grey zone of politics, the quotidian practice that is carried out in the zone between formal and normal party politics, and “extraordinary” events like the looting and collective violence of 2001. To understand the political practices, formal as well as informal, seems vital for a study that wants to get to grips with the relationship between environmental struggles and the political culture.

With this academic introduction I do not only want to raise questions about ethical and practical issues like the possible dangers involved in doing this kind of field work and my responsibility to act on injustices, but also give some examples that I have come to hear about. A few days ago I received an e-mail from one of the many mailing lists that I belong to, that expressed severe concern about an aggressive act against some neighbourhood ambientalistas [environmental activists] who were putting up posters in Avellaneda, an area of Buenos Aires. They were attacked by several people who were travelling in a pick-up with a noticeable registration number. The ambientalistas were putting up posters that were criticizing a multinational corporation and the local politicians who let them start their waste treatment practices in the area. The aggressors questioned their criticism of both the company and the politicians. The ambientalistas interpreted that they aggressors were sent by the local authorities, and before leaving the ambientalistas the aggressors had evidently announced that “this time you were saved [by the police], next time you won’t”. The ambientalistas interpreted the act of violence as instigated by the local authorities, whom they criticized.

The second case that has been discussed extensively within the environmental groups that I interact with is the legal case against the environmental activists Carina and Marcela, in Famatina, the province of Rioja. They were put in prison after having blocked a road as an attempt to try to stop a so called mega mining business to start looting the communal resources. In the following video it is possible to view what evidently lead up to the prosecution, and according to the information that I have the men who are trying to carry the girls aside to be able to pass, are lawyers who work for the environmental office for the local authorities. You can read more and send requests for a fair treatment of the girls at the following link: http://www.hermanosdelatierra.net/secciones/en-el-tapete.html

The third case that I will relate to has received the most media attention, probably because it deals with an agricultural practice that concern 50% of the Argentinean agricultural land – the pesticide ingredient gliphosate that is part of the soybean package provided by the multinational corporation Monsanto. I am not completely sure that all 50% of the agricultural land which is grown by soybean is actually genetically modified and part of the package, but probably a large part is. The scientist Carrasco has performed a medical study of the toxicology of the pesticide gliphosate and his conclusion is that it has the capacity to change the embryonic development, i.e. that it can be harmful for human beings to be exposed to it. Since the revelation of his findings have become known, he has received several threats, and they credibility of his study has been questioned in various contexts. Of course, from one point of view it is possible to claim that all attention is good, and that the environmental movement which opposed the use of gliphosate can benefit from it, but here I want to pay attention to the construction of environmental knowledge, and the freedom of speech including the academic freedom. From my point of view, all three examples place emphasis on the use of public space, in both discursive and a more practical sense.

Unión de Asambleas Ciudadanias in Jujuy

The decision to go to the 10th UAC proved to be a very good one. I met a lot of interesting people, got a practical example of how it is possible to organize activists, and performed several interviews. The whole event started with a march under the same heading as the UAC – “Against the looting of our natural goods and contamination, and for food sovereignty and life”. Approximately 1000 people from different organizations marched the streets of San Salvador de Jujuy, handing out flyers, and not one single wall was left untouched by the spray cans and the slogans “water is worth more than gold”, “food sovereignty now”, “Agrarian reform now” and “Against agro business”. The march finished in front of the Provincial governmental building where a communication was handed over which questions the productive model that has resulted in contaminating mining business and monocultivation of sugar cane and soy beans. The communication further proposed that the Ordenamiento Territorial Participativo (OTP) [The Participatory Territorial Regulation] should be carried out properly.

The march was followed by a panel discussion on “Mega mining business, Agro business and Food sovereignty” at the old train station of Jujuy which now hosts a cultural centre. We had to endure the coldest day of the year, not the ultimate conditions for deliberation. But the message from the panellists was clear – the mining industry which uses cyanide and the monocultivation of soy beans and sugar cane, have to be replaced by alternatives. As in many other similar contexts that I have been observing the production model was questioned.

The following two days of discussions within the UAC was mainly performed in smaller groups of approximately 10 people. The aim of the discussions was to give practical input to how to improve the organization of the encounters, and to give proposals to the environmental problems. However, within the group that I participated in an important matter seemed to be the exchange of ideas and experiences between the different representatives from different organizations from varying provinces. Through the discussions the group decided to draw two trees to illustrate the suggestions and description of the problems. The concepts common resources, diversity, solidarity, organization, territoriality and critical education were used to symbolize the alternative to the current production model; a production model where foreign companies, neo-capitalism and mass media govern, with resulting poverty and environmental destruction.

In the evening of the first day of the encounter a spontaneous candle march was organized to the house of the owner of the local factory LEDESMA, Blakier. LEDESMA was recognized for the repressive labour policies, and the environmentally destructive practices with sugar cane production. I have to admit that I missed the march, which was a great shame of course. When leaving the town after the meeting was over I could hardly not see anything but sugar cane being grown on the fields, and I could not help but ponder on the relevance of rewriting the book by Sidney Mintz Sweetness and Power, from 1985. The book has got a renewed importance, not because of increased use of sugar in our diet, but because of the belief in sugar cane as a more environmentally friendly alternative when transformed into ethanol, than other fuels. In that sense it has a continuous colonial taint since the demand comes from European environmental policies. So the need to question the production model seems adequate.

The map as a political tool

Recently I decided to go to the north of Argentina, to the province of Jujuy, where a meeting will be held this weekend for the Union of Civic Assemblies (UAC). It is the 10th meeting and close to 500 people are expected to show up. The meeting is hold under the theme “Against the looting of our natural goods and contamination, and for food sovereignty and life”. First of all it is important to notice that they are not only “against” issues, but also “for”, suggesting paths for the future. In the invitation it says that: “UAC was born with the purpose to articulate and promote the different struggles which have emerged during the last years within the country and in Latin America to repudiate the systematic development of the exportation of agricultural and mining products, represented by the destructive undertakings of the grand mining business which is done under open skies, and the advancement of the agro-business.” What I find specifically interesting with the meeting, apart from the phenomenon in itself, is that there will be a workshop that focuses on the construction of a map. The map will contain the knowledge that different participants share about their experiences of environmental problems. The result will be an illustration/visualization that will be useful for further reflection not only on geographical issues, but also on connections between social, cultural, and economic matters. Finally, the map is expected to be able to contribute to a collective transformation of the situation.

I find it curious that the meeting will have this specific workshop right now, since I performed an interview last week with a representative and founder of a neighbourhood organization called “Vecinos contra la Contaminación [Neighbours against contamination]”. When we met she handed me a map of all the cases of cancer in her neighbourhood, including people who had died and who were ill in 2005. During the interview I reflected on the usefulness of this illustration and visualization of the effects of an environmental problem, in their case, of electromagnetic contamination. The construction of the map had been done by some of the concerned neighbours who started the organization, and it now serves as an object, or rather a political tool, in their struggle. This is one among several tools in the repertoire that I am getting accounts of through my project. If the representatives had not been challenging the current knowledge society, intellectual property rights and the capitalist system, I would have advised them to Trademark ™ their method. Just out of curiosity I checked the directives for what and who can be patented, and at the United States Patent and Trademark Office it says that any person who “invents or discovers any new and useful process, machine, manufacture, or composition of matter, or any new and useful improvement thereof, may obtain a patent”. Since a collective map of socio-environmental problems can be considered to be useful, it should be possible to patent it, but I am not sure that this is the way “usefulness” is defined by the United States Patent and Trademark Office.

Source: the United States Patent and Trademark Office at http://www.uspto.gov/go/pac/doc/general/#whatpat

Formal environmental politics

The 14th of July “Pino” Solanas, who was elected representative to the Congress for the City of Buenos Aires for the party “Proyecto Sur”, spoke at the TV channel “TN”. The TV channel is part of the Clarin news group. He got the opportunity to raise his central concerns about the recovery of the Argentine natural resources, the role of companies in the veto against the “law of glaciers”, the pollution, and the recovery of the national railway system. In large these questions can be considered as typical environmental issues, and as a movie producer Solanas has discussed these matters before in productions like “Memorias del Saqueo [Memories of the sacking]”. Even if several of the people I have been talking to through my study consider that there is a lack of formal environmental politics in Argentina, I believe it is important to highlight these sprouting initiatives. My aim is not to judge the ideological standpoints involved in the Proyecto Sur, only to recognize their existence.

Similarly I believe it is interesting to notice “la Iniciativa Verde” [The green initiative] who received a bit over 8000 votes in Buenos Aires in the elections in June, which they themselves considered a victory. Now they expect to spread their work to the other provinces of Argentina. Among the issues that la Iniciativa Verde went to the polls with, one find demands for renewable energy sources, sustainable construction policies, recovery and application of the policy “Basura Cero” which I have commented on previously, the sorting of recyclable waste at the source (i.e. at home or at the company site), improved transportation systems that cut noise and air pollution, and finally the promotion of green consumption according to international standards like Forest Stewardship Council (FSC).

Since I am lagging behind with my political science classes, I cannot analyze the relative worth or influence of these two formal political initiatives, only acknowledge their existence.

Sources:
http://www.proyecto-sur.com.ar/
http://www.iniciativaverde.org.ar/elecciones/

Playing with scales

One of the environmental problems which is said to have sparked the general interest in environmental issues in Argentina was the construction of two Finnish-Uruguayan paper mills called Botnia on the Uruguayan river. According to Palermo and Reboratti (2007) who have studied the conflict which developed as a result of the construction of these, this was the first time environmentalism as a social movement made its way into the Argentine public debate and was politicized. Argentina opposed the construction of the paper mills due to the supposed pollution and environmental problems they would bring. Through the conflict, political dimensions like the crisis of representation, distrust, the role of media and the combination of independence and civic apathy were possible to notice (Palermo & Reboratti 2007:11). One of the main political methods to oppose the construction of the paper mills in Argentina has been to put up road blocks, or “corte la ruta”. When the blockaders commemorated the third year of blocking the bridge that connects Uruguay and Argentina, the conflict was further given attention by a Finnish journalist.

There is a lot to be said about the role of the paper mill conflict, which got international dimensions when Argentina brought Uruguay to the court in Hague, and I have already commented on the influence it had for the general environmental movement in Argentina. But what I want to reflect on here is a specific matter that Reboratti brings attention to. This has to do with the role of “playing with scales”, which is a common issue in environmental movements. This usually brings in discussions about the relationship between the local and the global, the distant and proximate and what concerns me and what affects “others”. Typically environmental problems which are considered to be near are expected to be more relevant for people, for example expressed through the concept Not In My Back Yard (NIMBY). However, in one of the conference papers that I presented recently I suggest that it has to do with making environmental problems “relevant”, and that it is less about whether an environmental problem, or risk, is physically near. By focusing on this making, instead of assuming that proximate problems always alerts people, it is possible to reveal the actors, arguments, methods and interests that are involved in environmental conflicts, and why some problems are simply not discussed at all. What Reboratti brings the attention to is how media used a specific angle of the place where the paper mills were going to be built, and a close up shot that made the place look a lot more proximate than they actually where. So, taking the remark about how environmental problems are made relevant, this is one strategy that is possible to use in “environmental communication” that different actors, like media, can apply.

Since I was lucky enough to receive a scholarship from Helge Ax:son Johnson’s foundation last week, these issues will be part of my project with a youth organization which works with photography. Hopefully our collaboration will lead up to a photo exhibition about local and global, proximate and distant, and relevant and irrelevant environmental problems, and how we can attempt to represent these in visual images.

References:
Palermo, Vicente & Carlos Reboratti (eds.) (2007) Del otro lado del río: ambientalismo y pol´tica entre uruguayos y argentinos. Edhasa: Barcelona.

More Cultural Politics

The other day I went to see a documentary called “The 100 days that didn’t shake the world [Los 100 días que no conmovieron al mundo]”. The documentary is about the trials of war criminals in Rwanda, among whom the musician Simon Bikindi. He was accused and sentenced to 15 years in prison for writing lyrics that mobilized the Hutu population against the Tutsis in the 100-day genocide in 1994. This is one among several possible examples of how music is used to mobilize the public, obviously not only for good causes. This leads to my current reflection on the continuous issue of what means and methods that are used in political mobilization, in my case for the environment.

Among all the invitations that I received by e-mail for the 5th of June and the International Environmental Day, I noticed with curiosity how creative the organizers had been. For example, during the week that lead up to the 5th of June there was a documentary film festival with special focus on environmental issues, and with invited speakers from environmental organizations. There was also a rock festival in Avellaneda, organized by Agrupación Tox Sud, where they invited people to listen to the music, paint murals, stencils, and print t-shirts. Their motivation was to “organize a cultural activity which rejects the constant contamination and destruction of our environment especially by the petroleum production. We further criticize the precarious conditions in which we find our schools and houses. While some company owners (thanks to the complicity during decades by the municipality, the provincial government and the national government) fill their pockets with thousands of millions, the neighbourhood lets us live in the worst conditions.”

However, it is not only here in Argentina that different means and methods are used to mobilize the public. During the last months I have read about a Swedish exhibition about climate change at the Museum of History, competitions in eastern Europe for TV productions that capture environmental issues, and call for research projects with NGOs that use video or photography. These examples point to the wide array of political means that are used for mobilizing the public.

Opportunities for cross-national comparisons and creation of dis/trust

During the last two weeks I have been presenting my ongoing work at two different conferences. The first was the Nordic Environmental Social Science conference (NESS) which took place in London, and the second was a Cultural Studies conference called ACSIS which took place in Norrköping. My presentations came to focus on the individualization that I described at Earth Day in Buenos Aires, but moreover it came to concern trust, and the possibilities – and of course challenges – concerning comparisons of two different countries when it comes to environmental trust and distrust. What sparked my interest was among other things that two Swedish municipalities recently have been competing about the opportunity to get to store nuclear waste. Opportunity is a word that doesn’t match at all with environmental justice arguments and ideas about Not In My Back Yard (NIMBY). One of the interviewees in a national newspaper that covered the story about the municipality which finally got the contract, stated something very interesting. He was about 25 years old and said “I am not the least concerned about this since I do not believe that the authorities would let us live above something which is dangerous”. This struck me as completely different from the arguments I have come across in Argentina. Obviously it is not possible to build any academic argument out of this one statement, but it indicates something about discussions about risk awareness and trust in authorities. Most likely there are other more critical voices in Östhammar, which the municipality is called. However, at the NESS conference I got the opportunity to discuss this with a sociologist, Mark Elam, who has studied the processes around nuclear power in these municipalities for quite some time. When I asked him about the trust, his explanation was that it is the result of continuous work by the authorities and companies that are involved in the nuclear power production to get the local population to participate in these processes and feel a sense of ownership. I cannot give any elaborated description here, but my follow up question was whether Elam believes that it is fruitful to use the Actor Network Theory (ANT) that they use in their analysis, for applied (political) work. This was not something which he seemed to find attractive, even if I still believe that this would be fertile.

Then let me tie this back to my initial question about whether it is possible to discuss these processes of participation, dis/trust and political efficacy from a cross-national point of comparison. While some studies have shown that people tend to disregard environmental risks that are located close to where they live (while others have shown how local concerns are disregarded!), I would like to investigate whether the general trust in authorities have any influence on how environmental risks are perceived. My general impression is that Swedes feel less threatened by environmental risks since they have greater trust in authorities than the Argentinean community which I am currently studying. However, here I need to be cautious about the choice of words which indicate what analytical and epistemological perspective I have. I am not aiming to perform any quantitative comparison, so, will it not be possible to make comparisons between Sweden and Argentina? In Argentina I am studying a “segment” of society which actively works to instigate environmental awareness among the rest of the population, while the case study in Sweden was made up of people who were not recruited because they were part of environmental organizations. Moreover, the organization of water distribution, waste management and industrial production differ between the countries, which makes comparisons difficult as well. So, in conclusion I can state that the results from the two case studies I have performed, and am performing, show differences when it comes to trust, but this can most likely not just be connected to the national political context.

“From each according to his[her] ability…”

This week I cannot help but think about the Marxist slogan “From each according to his[her] ability, to each according to his[her] need”. The slogan popped up as a response to my work comparing two different Argentinean environmental groups and their demands and suggestions for how to care for the environment, where one focus on individual responsibility through choice of transportation, recycling and use of electricity, and the other demands that the government enforces environmental regulations. The slogan came to my mind this morning after I read an abstract about equity in the allocation of responsibility to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, or how the right to emit greenhouse gases should be allocated (Baer 2009). In the article Baer argues that the responsibility should be based on ability, or capability, to deal with the emissions, which pays attention to intra-national distributional equity. When applying this to the two Argentinean cases I compare, it means that it is not adequate to suggest that someone who doesn’t even have a car, chose public transportation instead of private means. This example about the relevance of suggestions for how to care for the environment may seem very obvious, or even ridiculous, but it is however a concrete example that was given at the Earth day in 2009 from several of the participating organizations. It probably indicates to whom the event was directed to, the middle and upper classes rather than the poorer segments, but it gives attention to how to distribute responsibility in a fair way.
In conclusion it is obvious that distribution of responsibilities and rights, and ideas about fairness, can be based on different ideologies, for example as indicated through the two sets of human rights categories (Political and civil vs Social, economic and cultural rights). To move from a national level, to the distribution of income within countries, seems like a fruitful approach when discussing responsibilities and rights since it pays attention to difference.

References:
Baer, Paul With Sivan Kartha, Tom Athanasiou, and Eric Kemp-Benedict (Forthcoming) “Greenhouse Development Rights: A Proposal for a Fair Global Climate Treaty”, Ethics, Place and Environment.

Keep the faith

When I meet with people of diverse backgrounds and explain the rationale for my study, the majority agrees that it seems difficult to compare the situation in Sweden and Argentina since the countries are so different socially, economically and politically. How can one possibly compare the environmental activism when one group is struggling to get potable water and toilets, and the other is thinking about the survival of the polar bears? Last week I listened in to a workshop which some of the sociologists that I now consider as colleagues held. They met with different environmental neighbour groups and organizations from the poorer suburbs of Buenos Aires, and when the participants described what they are working for, the primary subject was just this – potable water that doesn’t contain heavy metals, and toilets. Some would argue that this is the responsibility of the state to support the citizens with, but due to the neoliberal policies that have implied that the water system was sold to a private a French and a Spanish company named Aguas Argentinas in 1993, the focus turns to whether the users are good consumers. And here I learned something new. It is less costly to supply people with water, than to supply the waste water system, which has given the result that less people have access to functioning toilets. However, functioning toilets are just as important for public health as potable water – or they are at least closely related.

Well, let’s get back to issue that I raised implicitly above, that people who do not have access to daily necessities, like potable water and toilets, are not interested in “wider”, common issues like the survival of animals, the conservation of biodiversity and future generations. From this perspective environmental care become a luxury good: the increased demand for environmental quality is caused by increases in income along with an assumed policy response (Pellegrini & Gerlagh 2006). Several studies have showed a connection between democracy and the level of environmental commitments (Payne, 1995; Neumayer, 2002). Environmental policies are affected by the quality of governance structures, and Pellegrini and Gerlagh conclude that “There is thus a need for high-quality institutions that put the polity’s interest in focus, and that prevent self-interested policymakers from maximizing their own benefits. … the argument [about commitment] applies both to making of environmental regulation and the enforcement of written policy” (Pellegrini & Gerlagh 2006:143; my emphasis).This is interesting, but for my study the research performed by Sandvik is more relevant since it says something about the experiences among the citizens. Through a statistical study he has showed that the population in countries with low GDP does not consider environmental problems like climate change as their responsibility (Sandvik 2008). What adds to this picture is the relationship between who is causing environmental problems, and who has to endure them. And here we are left with a complex of actors including national and multi-national companies whose production influence the environment, local, regional and national governments whose decisions and policies influence what other actors do, citizens who experience environmental problems on a daily basis and those who do not, and among them the ones who attempts to influence the situation and those who do not - to mention some. So when I get the question – what is it that you do – my answer is simply I try to understand how specific actors reason about the responsibility for the environment, and what strategies they use to have a political impact in this complex game. A part of this includes understanding how people keep the faith in the possibility to exercise a political influence when they simultaneously experience the lack of accountability from other actors – but who knows – this might be exactly what drives them!

References:
Hacher, Sebastian (2004) “Argentina Water Privatization Scheme Runs Dry”, CorpWatch. Access: http://www.corpwatch.org/article.php?id=10088

Pellegrini, Lorenzo & Reyer Gerlagh (2006) “Corruption and Environmental Policies: What Are the Implications for the Enlarged EU?” European Environment Vol. 16, 139–154

Neumayer, Eric (2002) “Do Democracies Exhibit Stronger International Environmental Commitment? A Cross-Country Analysis”, Journal of Peace Research. Vol. 39, no. 2,, pp. 139–164.

Payne, R.A. (1995) “Freedom and the environment”, Journal of Democracy 6(3): 41–55.

Sandvik, Hanno (2008) “Public Concern over Global Warming Correlates Negatively with
National Wealth”, Climatic Change, Vol 90(3), pp. 333-341.

Dia de la Tierra – a reflection on a public event

Last Saturday, the 25th of April 2009, the second Día de la Tierra was arranged in Buenos Aires. Along with international environmental organizations like Greenpeace and the Red Cross, national and local organizations like FARN and Youth and Water, participated along with the City of Buenos Aires. In the invitation to the Earth Day it said that it was anticipated to be a day which would focus on ecology, culture and quality of life; and that the event would unite music with actors from the private, public and third sector with the objective to “create environmental consciousness”. In the invitation found at the web, it further said that there would be art, sustainable design, NGOs and “all other things that are related to a green life”. For the second time around the festival would “give a simple but practical and positive message concerning how to care for the planet”. Even if the invitation mentioned that there would be an area for companies where they could present their initiatives, projects and sustainable products for the public, they were nowhere to be found in the area as far as I could see, unless one consider two organic food stands. Neither was there a tent with “Sounds from Nature”, as advertised; nor any movie for children called “Save the Planet” that dealt with the global warming. However, let’s not focus on what was not there. Earth day is an international event which was started in 1970 in the U.S. Its general aim is to “promote a sustainable citizenship” through the means of cultural expressions. The event took place in the United Nations Park, where the spectacular metallic Flor rises over the green grass. Renowned musicians “within the field” had been recruited to play, and this is an issue which deserves attention in its own right as a means of “cultural politics”. A quick detour - I believe Andrew Jamison has discussed the role of music in political mobilization, and lately I noticed how the National Museum of History in Stockholm opened an exhibition on climate change. I believe it proves that environmental politics is, and has to be, discussed in several, sometimes unexpected, contexts. This is the reason I have applied for funds for a photo project where the aim would be to visualize environmental problems and solutions.

Last year I visited the first Dia de la Tierra in Buenos Aires, and I was intrigued by the way environmental responsibility was communicated by the present organizations. They suggested individual activities like recycling batteries and conserving water, while one organization emphasized the slogan “think globally – act locally”. Even if the declared international aim of the Earth day 2009 was to place emphasis on climate change, the local adaptation gave emphasis to the Clean up of the Riachuelo, a heavily polluted suburban area and river where the City of Buenos Aires has business to take care of. This relates to the Waste policy “Cero Basura” which I referred to in an earlier comment. The focus on the clean up of Riachuelo was reinforced by the fact that the Greenpeace icebreaker “Arctic Sunrise” had been anchored in Puerto Madero for a bit over a week, with the aim to demand that the government implements its promises to start the clean up. At the stand for Greenpeace they handed out invitations to go visit the icebreaker.

The event seems drew many visitors, and while many probably came because they liked the music, the strategy to let all the organizations use the time in between the performances to say something essential about their goals and work was important. There is not enough space here for going through all the material that the different participating organizations were disseminating at the event. In conclusion however, I consider that a large share of the material and the speeches from the stage, focused on the individualisation of responsibility for the environment by suggesting people to bicycle, use public transportation instead of cars or walk, to recycle and use less plastic bags – in short – to take their responsibility. However, this has to be said with caution since I mentioned that Greenpeace for example demanded the City to implement their waste policy.

What interests me in public events like these, apart from the distribution of environmental responsibility, is the relationship between the global and local. I consider that “glocalization”, which I take to mean that global issues get adapted to local circumstances and feed back to the global system, was present, partly because many focused on the waste issue rather than the climate change as mentioned by the international organizers. Glocalization has a lot to offer environmental studies since it places focus on the relationship between causing and solving environmental problems that may cross national borders, and what motivations that are used to mobilize people to care for the environment. To give a brief example taken from the Argentine context, would the fact that your child, or even neighbour, gets ill from the fumigation with “glifosatos” at the nearby soy bean field motivate you more to care for environmental, than the fact that polar bears may be dying due to climate changes? This example is placed in a crossing point between the axis of the global and local, and nature and humans. The analysis of the relationship between humans and nature is usually discussed by the concepts ecocentric and anthropocentric. Last year I was interested by how seals were used on the brochures of some environmental organizations to mobilize people to act, and this is the reason I came to pay attention to how environmental responsibility is communicated – by rhetorical arguments, through pictures and other art forms. A proof of the focus on social and health related environmental care was the fact that the Red Cross participated at this second Earth Day.

Since this is very much work in progress I want to finish this reflection with some questions that I want to continue with. An issue that has dawned on me in the work this far is the ways international organizations are networking between countries and nation states in relation to local-national organisations, and how different environmental organizations can enhance each others work by a strategic division of labour, or, dismiss the aims, methods and approaches of other organizations. By doing this it may be possible to analyse global networking. And in turn it might be possible to connect the recent demand by Swedish Green Party members dressed up as penguins and polar bears asking for more arctic ice at the presentation of the energy company Vattenfall’s economic report, and the Greenpeace members dressed up as speaking rats in Buenos Aires thanking the mayor for all the waste.

The politicization of the private sphere – or how the “garbage speaks”

Since my project deals with how information about the environment is communicated, and what appropriate activities that are suggested, I have especially noticed a campaign that seems to be spread over Buenos Aires. The whole city is covered in governmental posters that state the people should “play clean – jugá limpia” which is a term used for sports usually, but which here implies that people are requested to leave the garbage for collection on the street between 8 and 9 in the evening. Even if my current project doesn’t deal with the private sphere, I couldn’t help but notice an article the other day that proved to have many relations with my PhD project. The 3rd of April I read in Clarin that the local government has started to go through the household garbage that has been left on the street at hours when they are not expected to. The article tells of a man who found a bright red note on his door stating that they had found bills or envelops with his address on in the garbage bags and thereby been able to figure out that he was the guilty one for leaving garbage at inappropriate hours. This is a very similar story to what has been the case in Sweden, even if there the issue has concerned people who have thrown household garbage in the woods in order not to have to pay for its collection.

According to the article there are 45 inspectors with the task to supervise how people care for their garbage on the streets. The inspectors work for the Urban Hygiene Unit at the City. According to Clarin this specific policy for garbage was accepted in December 2007, and during 2008 the unit received more than 50.000 complaints out of which 87% concerned leaving garbage out of hours. Regular citizens pay a fine for between 50-500 pesos, while companies have to pay between 200-5.000 pesos. The majority of the complaints deal with companies since they are “easier to find”. According to the estimates about 10% of the porteños throw their garbage on the street out of hours.

What is not dealt with is how to reduce the constantly increasing amounts of waste. As long as you throw it away at the right hour, you are doing your civic duty. I cannot help but interpret this whole deal as anything else but a politicization of the private sphere.

Rhetorical strategies and speaking rats

Like many others I believe that the mass media has a major influence on what the public perceive as important issues, like how they conceive of environmental problems for example. Greenpeace is given space in the Argentine newspapers with their spectacular events. The other day I saw a video with one of their campaigns on the newspaper Clarin’s website. The actors were dressed up as rats with furry suits and big teeth, as cockroaches and as flies. They were thanking Macri, the mayor of Buenos Aires, for all the extra garbage. The amount of garbage has been rising constantly, and this is a big issue for a city which has accepted a law called “Basura Cero”, zero garbage, with the number 1854. The garbage is a big issue in environmental terms here in Buenos Aires since it affects the public health and sanitation. Greenpeace claims that the government has failed to accomplish with the goals in the law, with an increase in tons of waste by 14.5% in 2008 compared to 2007, with a total of 1,884,460 tons.

The garbage is sent to the suburbs of Buenos Aires, the “courbano”, and with the new contracts that the private companies have made Greenpeace fears that the ambition to reduce the amount of garbage will not be fulfilled. What Greenpeace then suggests is to form educational campaigns to get people to sort their waste at the source, that is, at home. The garbage which is sent to land filling sites contains toxic substances which will harm water and land of the communities that live close to the land filling sites.

I must say that I am impressed by the PR that Greenpeace works with. Even if some campaigns, like the U.S. Greenpeace commercial where they uses digitally altered footage of the deceased President J.F. Kennedy stating that we need an “energy (r)evolution” to deal with the dangers of global warming, have been severely criticized. However, even if it is possible to agree that environmental organizations perhaps have to adhere to the “truth” and that there is a risk that they gain more criticism than support by employing such a strategy, it is also important to discuss the means and the ends with campaigns like these. Therefore I want to return to Pezzullo who talks about “critical interruptions” (2001) as a “rhetorical strategy” (Depoe & Delicath 2004:7) in environmental justice movements, where the issue of how to raise awareness and political will for the environment is central.

In another article, which is part of an important book that deals with cultural activism called Communication and Public Participation in Environmental Decision Making (2004) Pezzullo brings in the method to organize “negative sightseeing”. As the title indicates the book concerns different forms of public participation, and communication theories are used to discuss the issues. Traditionally public participation operates on a technocratic model of rationality, occurs too late in the decision-making process, or lacks forums for informed dialogue (Depoe & Delicath 2004:2-3). To improve public participation, the authors argue and I completely agree, we have to pay adequate attention to issues of communication. Environmental communication is an emerging research tradition, which explores “strategic symbolic action” (2004:4). “Participants in environmental decision making utilize strategic communication in efforts to set agendas, define problems, and advocate solutions, as well as to cultivate trust.” (ibid:4). Further, as the authors state that Fischer and Forester managed to point out, public participation in environmental decision making is a “constant discursive struggle over the criteria of social classification, the boundaries of problem categories, the intersubjective interpretation of common experiences, the conceptual framing of problems, and the shared meanings which motivate them to act” (1993:1-2 cited in Depoe & Delicath 2004:4-5).

“In addition to writings, speeches, paintings, photographs, and protests, tours have provided a compelling medium of persuasion for environmentalists” Pezzullo writes (2004:235). In her article “Toxic Tours: Communicating the ‘Presence’ of Chemical Contamination” (2004) Pezzullo discusses the use of guided journeys to learn about specific places and their environmental state. What she calls “toxic tours” has the capacity to be a mode of communication, and can be a form of environmental advocacy through the possibility to make the toxicity “present”. It is also (most probably) an experience of something different from ones everyday life, which can serve as a transformative experience. This implies a quest to stimulate a sense of agency among the tour goers that may result in action. Presence in this case “describes when an argument becomes relevant or meaningful to its audience” (Pezzullo 2004:245). It is further through the “ways in which tourists are guided through these spaces physically and orally that make toxic tours matter” (ibid:247).

In his article “Art and Advocacy: citizen participation through cultural activism” in the mentioned anthology John Delicath (2004) explores the role that cultural activism and photography play in environmental justice struggles. He argues that theorists that deal with participation have to consider the issues of what motivates, inspires, prepares, and empowers the public to participate in environmental decision making. He looks specifically at the role cultural activism plays.

So, from these analytical contributions it is possible to examine the workings of Greenpeace in Argentina. Even if it would be rewarding to compare the activities and campaigns that the international NGO carries out, that is beyond the scope of this present study, and it is only possible to attempt to connect their campaigns to the current political context. In a country where the trust in politicians is very low it is interesting to notice how they blame a specific actor – the mayor Macri.

References:
Depoe, Stephen & John W. Delicath (eds.) (2004) Communication and Public Participation in Environmental Decision Making. State University of New York Press.

Delicath, John (2004) “Art and Advocacy: citizen participation through cultural activism” in Communication and Public Participation in Environmental Decision Making. State University of New York Press.

Pezzullo, Phaedra (2001) “Performing Critical Interruptions: Stories, Rhetorical Intervention, and the Environmental Justice Movement”, Western Journal of Communication 65(1), pp 1-25.

Pezzullo, Phaedra (2004) “Toxic Tours: Communicating the ‘Presence’ of Chemical Contamination”, in Communication and Public Participation in Environmental Decision Making. State University of New York Press.

What are you fighting for?

“There’s only so much protest can accomplish. At a certain point you have to talk about what you’re fighting for” (Naomi Klein in the movie “The Take”)

This is how Naomi Klein argues in the movie The Take, which is about the events that took place in Argentina in relation to the economic and political crisis in December 2001. Leaving these central events aside for later, geographer Carlos Reboratti whom I spoke to recently, argued in a similar manner about the environmental movements in Argentina. If they only say “no” to everything: no to the minas, no to the paper mills, no to genetically modified products, no to soybean production, people will find that the environmental movements are just negative and not suggesting any solutions.

This was further an essential issue yesterday at a meeting for environmental organizations who are planning an event for the Environmental Day on the 5th of June here in Argentina. After having discussed all the problem that exist, and the role of the State in environmental politics, the group of ten activists from different environmental organizations agreed that they had to come up with suggestions, and not just question practices. The matter which was raised then concerned whether to talk about an alternative model to the neoliberal capitalist model, or whether it was more open ended to talk about “alternative suggestions” since there is not just one model, but several different ways to reorganize productive system to become more sustainable.

Among all the problems that the network wants to focus on - and they are the mining business which causes pollution; the present agricultural production containing agrochemicals, mono cultivation and genetically modified products; and public health since many households lack water and sewage systems which lately has caused a dengue epidemic in the country – the network focused on international conventions that Argentina has signed, but not yet incorporated in national law, or failure to observe the law. The Stockholm Convention was mentioned.

At the next meeting the network will discuss what possible activities that can be carried out at the event in June, and I can’t wait to learn about their ideas! An interesting point of departure for analysing this is that since I was the first to arrive at the meeting yesterday I had time for a little chat with one of the organizers, and his response to my description of my study was that “we are working with many international organisations, and very often they suggest activities that are far from adapted to the Argentine situation”. Now I have to learn more about what these organisations find as adapted activities.

The world according to Monsanto

Yesterday I attended a presentation by the French journalist Marie-Monique Robin at the National Library in Buenos Aires. She talked about her investigations about the multinational corporation Monsanto, which has resulted in a book and a documentary called “The world according to Monsanto”. Monsanto is the world’s leading producer of the herbicide RoundUp, as well as genetically engineered seeds, like the RoundUp Ready soybean. The genetically engineered soybean was developed during the 1980s with the aim to survive the treatment by RoundUp. The genetically modified soybean was introduced in Argentina at the mid-90s, and has ensured a large share of the production ever since, which has given Monsanto an influential position. Argentina has proved to be the best student Monsanto could ever wish for, according to Robin. The genetically modified soybean production is the main responsible factor for the drastic increase of pesticide use in Argentina. This in turn has not only resulted in increasing numbers of people who get cancer and other health problems, but also in loss of biodiversity. Even if the genetically modified seeds and the RoundUp are very controversial, they are not controversial enough, according to some of the participants at the presentation yesterday. Apart from giving me an update on the practices by the multinational corporation, the event was interesting for my study due to the issues and arguments that were raised by the audience both during and after the presentation by Robin, which were closely connected to environmental justice.

Robin is just one among many who criticize the political lobbying practices Monsanto and the marketing of genetically modified seeds. She gave several examples of how Monsanto operates, and the strategies they use to conquer the market. One of the strategies which she revealed is of how the corporation has paid scientists to produce false or misleading studies that deny any connection between their products and the health of people who have been exposed to them. A central illustration is the case of “Agent Orange” which was developed and produced by Monsanto, and used in Vietnam by the Americans to kill the vegetation in their warfare program. The herbicide was sprayed over huge areas, and resulted in hundreds of thousands of deaths, and many children were born with birth defects. The American soldiers who were exposed to the dioxins and the herbicide were also affected, but due to a study performed by scientists paid by Monsanto, who concluded that there was no connection between the health problems they developed and the exposure to Agent Orange, they had to wait for compensation. New studies at the beginning of the 90’s finally revealed that there was a connection, and some of the American veterans have been able to lift some compensation. None of the Vietnamese population has received any form of compensation. This is leading material for environmental justice studies, since the story does not end with the ban of Agent Orange. RoundUp has been a source of ongoing controversy since it has been argued that it leads to cancer, and the story with corrupt scientists who have been paid by Monsanto goes on, according to Robin.

The practice of patenting the genetically engineered seeds like Monsanto does was described by Robin as “privatization of life”. There have been several laws suits against farmers in Canada and the U.S. that have concerned patent infringement. Some farmers have unknowingly grown patented seeds on their land which has been brought by winds from neighbouring crops. These farmers have been sued for depriving Monsanto of the full enjoyment of the patent.

There were close to 200 people who listened to Robin’s presentation. At the stage with her were three women from Cordoba who were members of a movement called “Concerned Mothers”. They gave some vivid, however very tragic, examples of what is currently happening in their vicinity, and I could not help but make connections to previous environmental justice movements that so often seem to be lead by concerned mothers. They accounted for all the cases of children who have different forms of cancer and other health problems which they connected to the use of pesticides on the surrounding farms, and how their insights lead them to “go out on the streets”. One of the women called Sofia described how her five year old son had developed a skin reaction that the doctor that treated him assumed was caused by a chemical burn. Her son had not played with any chemicals; he had only climbed a tree in their garden. When investigating the issue she found out that a farmer had been spraying the fields earlier that same day, and that her son had got a reaction from the pesticide. Often the farmers use small aircrafts to spread the chemicals over the fields, and it goes without saying that it ends up in places outside of the fields as well. And this is happening here and now in Argentina. When analysing what these concerned mothers said, it was interesting to notice that stated that they had to learn about chemicals and to talk about issues that they previously had no ideas about. “We were forced to learn to talk about agrochemicals” one of the women said. Another of the three women said that they do not want any more studies, they want political action. When answering a question from the audience about what role the media in Cordoba has played, the women said that they have received attention, but still there is not anyone who is taking action. So, while one of the organizers cautioned us to remember what the Mothers of Plaza de Mayo accomplished, saying that it would be possible for the Concerned mothers of Cordoba to reach their goals as well, the majority of the comments from the audience were more pessimistic. Several of the people who managed to get the microphone to express their opinion in the assembly hall directed the attention to corruption as an obstacle to accomplish any changes in the unhealthy agricultural practices.

One of the comments at the event last night was given by an elderly female nutritionist who raised the issue of how the genetically modified soybean has been promoted as a way to reduce hunger, and as the “poor man’s meat”. Thereby she gave attention to a central issue in environmental justice studies, namely the relationship between economic status and exposure to environmental risk. The woman received ovations among the audience. The meeting was finished when the situation turned somewhat rebellious after some comments from the audience. Among others one from a farmer who stated that just as there are good and bad scientists and good and bad politicians, there are good and bad farmers, and not all are evil. He continued that Monsanto could not be blamed for the disappearance of the market, and the reduced prices for cotton and sunflower seeds among other crops. The audience did not agree, and several shouted at the farmer that he should shut up. Just as it was interesting to notice what comments that received ovations, it was intriguing to notice which received resistance since it says something about the attitude among the group of people. Judging from the analysis of what comments that were objected and what were honoured, I conclude that the majority of the audience were very critical of the genetically modified crops and use of pesticides. Unfortunately I have too little information about what people were there, and I can only connect what I heard to something an agronomist I talked to last week said. She mentioned that during all her education at the university, no one ever questioned the use of genetically modified crops or the extensive use of pesticides. That is why it is rewarding to know that before coming to the National Library, the Concerned Mothers hade been talking with students at the Agronomy Department.

The friction of thinking globally and acting locally

This week I have been accompanied by a book by Anna Tsing called Friction: An Ethnography of Global Connections (2005). Here Tsing unravels a net of relations, including rhetoric, allegories, knowledge, actors and as the title states – their global connections. In chapter 6 she describes how environmental movements attempt to mobilize the general public for a cause and the devices they use in their work. It is the occupation of friction, or “the awkward, unequal, unstable, and creative qualities of interconnection across difference” that influences these encounters that her analysis focuses on (2005:4). Friction is needed to create something new, and she derives the concept from an illustration of a wheel which simply just would not cause any motion without the encounter with a surface. Friction can offer creative possibilities for social mobilization, but this requires attention to the “awkwardness of translation” (2005:211).

Translation is a central concept through her analysis. Another characteristic approach is that she performs a symmetrical analysis and focus on heterogeneous perspectives of environmental care and use, and the “remaking [of] ideas, practices, and local, regional, and global histories. Only in this analytically symmetrical treatment can the difference between landscape destruction and the struggle for life shine through.” (2005:212). Just like Tsing, I believe that it is important to attempt to take the field further and not just add another story of disastrous projects of transnational corporations and corrupt politicians. It becomes important to focus on competing environmental perspectives, and to learn about how knowledge moves.

An interesting example which she gives is the description of the “success” of Chico Mendes, the Brazilian rubber tapper union leader. She recounts how an Indonesian activist tells a story to some local villagers that starts out with Mendes and continues with the Chipko movement. “A distinctive feature of the travels of the Chico Mendes story was its travel through the north. It is the story northern environmentalists made of Mendes that became significant elsewhere” (2005:234). With the Chipko movement Tsing illustrates how a social movement can undergo multiple cultural translations (2005:235). These international stories become “social interventions”, as she calls them, which can be compared with “critical interruptions” as Pezzullo (2001) proposes.

Through her field work, Tsing spent a lot of time with different activists. She notices how activists spend much time travelling and in workshops trading stories of success and failure. Activists further borrow allegories, which Tsing calls “charismatic packages” (2005:227). These can be made up of images, songs, morals, organizational plans or stories, and they all speak to the possibilities to making a cause heard. “Traveling packages are translated to become interventions in new scenes where they gather local meanings and find their place as distinctive political interventions.” (2005: 238) Thereby the possibilities to make a cause heard, is dependent on the political and cultural context, or location. The concept translation both speaks to the transformation of a charismatic package to a new context, as well as to the literal interpretation from Indonesian to English for example. By domesticating the foreign a form of translation takes place. Another strategy is to portray environmental damage as being both local and global in order to enrol more actors (2005:217). Her book has a lot to offer to my study since she focuses on travelling forms of activism and knowledge. Nowhere has the use of advances in scientific knowledge as a force for global progress been more evident than in the field of environmental conservation (Tsing 2005:12).

Her analysis has much to offer studies of environmental movements, and especially for those who want to understand what means and methods that are used, and the intersections between the global and the local. She has an intersectionist perspective, and states that “Social justice goals must be negotiated not only across class, race, gender, nationality, culture, and religion, but also between the global south and the global north” (Tsing 2005:13) In Indonesia a public reading of a poem by Taufiq Ismail in 1971 is said to have inaugurated the national environmental movement (Tsing 2005:28). The poem raised the issue of Japanese traders who plundered the wood of the forest. For a time, environmentalism was the only pluralist social justice movement in Indonesia. It became a context to imagine what was politically possible (2005:231). “For most of the this time, the movement imagined itself as coordinating already existing but scattered and disorganized rural complaints. Activists’ jobs, as they imagined it, involved translating subaltern demands into the languages of the powerful, including English.” (Tsing 2005: 17-18)

Tsing deals a lot with universalism in her book, and she claims that these universals manage to mobilize people. “The knowledge that makes a difference in changing the world is knowledge that travels and mobilizes, shifting and creating new forces and agents of history in its path.” (Tsing 2005:8) But it is also important to notice that universals are constantly reformulated through dialogue. “To turn to universals is to identify knowledge that moves – mobile and mobilizing – across localities and cultures” (Tsing 2005:7). Here I cannot help but thinking about the slogan at the Earth Day last year – “Pensando globalmente – actuando localmente”.

National environmental discourses and Villa Inflamable

In order to get a deeper understanding of the environmental research in Argentina, and thereby be able to locate the place of my study, I have read some literature on national environmental studies. I am interested in what an Argentinean environmental discourse in the research might look like. To make a simple example, will the case of Silent Spring by Rachel Carson (1962) show up as frequently as it does as a motivation for environmental studies in Sweden? Many researchers credit Carson for directing attention to the environment since she convincingly connected the everyday use of chemicals with environmental degradation in her book. Or is there some other case or book that does? My expectation is that the conflict surrounding the Botnia paper mill will be among the more frequently sited issues for raising environmental awareness in Argentina, but of course that is too early to say. The geographer Carlos Reboratti, whom I spoke to during the past week, directed my attention to the book Memoria Verde, or Green Memories, which the translation to English would have it, by Antonio Brailovsky and Dina Fougelman. Reboratti mentioned that it could possibly be the Argentinean equivalent to Silent Spring. I will have to get back on that later, since there were no copies left at the bookstores. The question about the influence of academics in the national discourse arises, as well as the interplay between public discourse and academic discourse. I get to think about how Anthony Giddens (1989) argues about the relationship through the hermeneutic circle between social sciences and society. Since many environmental problems are closely connected to scientific interpretations of nature, I believe this is central. But the issue also concerns the question of engagement in the research, which is mostly run under the heading of action research, or even participatory action research.

This last week I have read Inflamable – estudio del sufrimiento ambiental by Javier Auyero and Débora Swistun (2008). The book will probably come out in English soon. It is an excellent piece of work in its ethnographically rich description of the life in a “villa” located in the Buenos Aires area, as well as in its theoretical contribution to the understanding of collective action caused by environmental suffering – or rather its absence. Inflamable is the name of the neighbourhood in the district of Avellaneda, and it derived the name after the explosion and fire at the petroleum ship Perrito Moreno in 1984. The central issue that the study deals with is how the residents makes sense of the environmental suffering involved in the everyday life in the neighbourhood with the nauseating stench, the polluted water, toxic land and heaps of waste which are characteristic of the area. In distinction to several other studies within the field of environmental justice, this particular study rather treats the reconstruction of ignorance, and the absence of (successful) collective action.

The ethnography offers a good description of the interplay among various actors in the area – lawyers, doctors at the health centre, representatives for multinational companies like Shell, media reporters, investigators and teachers who all offers their interpretation of the suffering. An actor which could have had a role (or perhaps even should have had a role), is the State. But the state is absent in Inflamable, and the residents do not know to whom to make claims or demands. This concerns citizenship, and the relationship between individual and collective responsibility, and trust among actors, as I see it. I would argue that in order to understand collective action it is vital to get to grips with the relationship between citizens and the state, and how they trust or distrust each other. Many of the environmental justice movements concern marginalized groups of people, and an aspect of marginalization is to have no clear idea of towards whom to make claims and demands for services. Auyero and Swistun argue that there is a lack of intervention by the State in Inflamable, and even a general “public indifference” (2008: 36, 106, 137). It is important to return to the notion of Inflamable as an inhabitable place, but also to acknowledge the fact that the area has experienced immigration both from the Argentine countryside as well as from Bolivia and Peru.

In Argentina the inequalities between social groups have increased, showing deterioration distribution of funds with half of the population living below the poverty line (Auyero & Swistun 2008:47). Inflamable deals specifically with how the citizens of Inflamable make sense of environmental risk and problems and the connected social suffering. Just like Auyero and Swistun argue, it is hard to believe that poor people who have little education should be well informed about the concrete effects of toxic waste for example (Auyero & Swistun 2008:140). A central trait in the book is thus the focus on uncertainty, ambiguity and confusion. In Inflamable there is an “almost complete absence of collective action against the toxic threat” (Auyero & Swistun 2008:22, my interpretation). In the environmental justice movement literature it is possible to detect a period of learning, and what would be called a cognitive liberation or conscientization (ibid:25). Here it is useful to make a brief detour to a critical article by Phaedra Pezzullo (2001) who analyses how the attention given to an environmental movement influences the same group of people. In Warren County, in North Carolina, the community reacted against the construction of a toxic waste landfill. The movement in Warren County has been narrated countless times and has become a symbolic struggle in many ways. Even if there has been an abundance of descriptions of their success the movement itself believes that their struggle is incomplete, and they consequently attempt to continue to interrupt the hegemonic discourse. The case that Pezzullo draws attention to concerns what can be called a “mythification” of the environmental justice struggles and their success, and how the struggles seldom manages to change the structure that causes the problems to start with, like discrimination, racism and social inequalities. Here it is helpful to introduce the concept symmetry, which implies that we need to analyze both the success and the failure of social movements to accomplish their goals, something which Auyero and Swistun do. Just like Pezzullo cautions in relation to how to judge the success of an environmental movement, “[i]t is not enough to gain a place at environmental decision making tables” (ibid:3) Pezzullo uses the concept “critical interruption” to investigate the events in Warren County, and it concerns how citizen groups can “reframe the narratives that sustain oppressive environmental conditions” (Pezzullo 2001:1). The rhetorical device of connecting racism and environment caused a “critical interruption” by its juxtaposition that managed to draw attention to their case. In Inflamable it is not evident whether there have been any critical interruptions at all, and that is one of the arguments of the book.

Taking as a point of departure the interest in responsibility and accountability for environmental problems and their solution, the book raises a lot of important issues. For example, from a moral perspective it is possible to ask who is to blame for the poor health of the people in the neighbourhood of Inflamable? Is it possible that the multinational oil company Shell has any liability? Shell has been active in the area for decades, and previously it used lead in its production. Or are some of the number of other chemical companies and their activities? Or are the people themselves responsible since they have been bringing back toxic recyclable material like car batteries and filled up the land with toxic waste in order to be able to construct their dwellings, as representatives for the companies in the area argues? Whoever is to blame, many of the children and adults show symptoms of severe illness, like headache, rashes, tiredness, and when examined they show comparably high levels of lead in the blood. Simultaneously as many actors tend to blame the victim for causing themselves ill health, they often argue in a contradictory manner that the area is not fit for humans and that people shouldn’t be living here (2008:76).

The authors also give a methodological contribution by reflecting on their 2.5 years long ethnographic field work, including moral dilemmas and how to stand the polluted environment. The area of ambiguity and confusion are central here as well. “Very seldom we get to read ethnographic texts where the people hesitate, commit errors and contradict themselves”, they write (Auyero & Swistun 2008:30 my interpretation). Another of their methodological approaches in the study was to let school children take pictures with disposable cameras of the good and bad about the neighbourhood. This seems like a rewarding method to get an idea of the image that the residents have of their neighbourhood, and a way to grasp their view of risks and problems.

One of their wider objectives with the book concerns action research is a way, since they want to get the reader to start thinking about environmental suffering as an urgent issue for citizenship (Auyero & Swistun 2008:217). The relationship between environmental suffering and health is an rising public theme in current Argentine politics, even if the unequal distribution of risks and suffering among the most vulnerable systematically seems to be treated as something less pressing (Auyero & Swistun 2008:216).

In conclusion, and even if the result is somewhat discouraging from a democratic perspective, Inflamable is an important contribution to anyone interested in environmental risk and suffering, environmental justice and collective action, and perhaps it will be one of the silent springs of Argentina.