POLITICAL ECOLOGY:

A CHARACTERIZATION OF SOCIO-ENVIRONMENTAL CONFLICTS IN SAN LUÍS POTOSÍ, MEXICO

Abstract

Political ecology is a useful tool in the study of socio-environmental conflicts because it allows us to interrelate social and environmental aspects in the dispute over the common goods of nature. Socio-environmental conflicts have been classified in different ways, by territorial scope or the type of projects from which they derive. In this work I propose a characterization based on three cases in which I identify common elements: in the judicial dispute I distinguish between the technical and infrastructure, the legal and administrative, and the social and cultural spheres. Each one contains notions and arguments through which the progress or detention of an environmental project is disputed and are treated differently by those who promote them. The social and cultural sphere is usually the least attended to and yet it is the one that most clearly determines the cancellation of the work that is the reason for the social conflict.