Knowledge and conflict. Digging up the colonial legacies of the extractivist political ecologies

Abstract

It is clear that the environmental conflict ghost haunts Latin America. This essay deals with conflicts as epistemological problems, putting forward theoretical reflections with empirical references from the expansion of agribusinesses and mega mining in Argentina. We look into the dominant and alternative devices which are (re)produced in conflict as moments, within larger tensions, in which the relationship between society and nature is suspended, questioned and/or rearranged. Therefore, first we introduce the historical-geographical framework which makes it possible for the current extractivist conflicts to arise. Then, based on the analysis of two empirical cases, we analyze the creation/transformation of certain knowledge in the development of this conflict. And, finally, we argue in favor of the possibility to consolidate a different spatial epistemology, one which springs from current conflicts but also transcends them.