Political Ecology, Water Valuations and Feasibility of Water Law Deliberation in the Province of Tierra del Fuego, AIAS (1993–2016)

Abstract

The social appropriation of water in Patagonia is not only associated with its historical-spatial configuration and the uses of the territory, but also with the social, environmental and economic interests around water, processes to which conflict is inherent. Analyzed from the Latin American Political Ecology, these conflicts reveal different languages of valuation, understood as knowledge-power strategies in the processes of social appropriation of nature by different actors. In this context, it is presented a case study that shows the conflict between water valuations in terms of obstacles to the feasibility of the legislative deliberation of successive Water Bill projects between 1993 and 2016 in the Province of Tierra del Fuego, Antártida e Islas del Atlántico Sur -AIAS-, South Patagonia, Argentina. The analysis articulates the political-institutional level with the political-cultural and territorial level. In this way, the environmental dimension of the conflict is emphasized and not only its legal aspect. At the same time, political representation is redefined as a space for multiple mediations and negotiations around water as a public and common good, fundamental to counteract the predominance of economic interests in order to achieve the enactment of Law No. 1126 of Integral Management of Water Resources.