Autor/es
Descripción
ver mas
Colaborador
Aparicio, Susana
Crovetto, María Marcela
Materias
Spatial Coverage
Idioma
spa
Extent
172 p.
Derechos
info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess
Atribución-NoComercial-SinDerivadas 2.0 Genérica (CC BY-NC-ND 2.0)
Formato
application/pdf
Identificador
Cobertura
1001203
Chubut (province)
Abstract
The main objective of this research is to analyse the ways in which the environmental problems are related with the production and labour practices in the wool sheep cattle raising in Chubut‟s drylands. Specially, it looks forward to comprehend the different interpretations about the ecological and environmental changes and their definition as environmental problems and to define the production and labour strategies present in the wool sheep productive activity. These allow identifying the relations that the social agents establish between their definitions of the environmental problems and the productive and labour practices in this economic activity.
It is done an instrumental case study that contributes to generate an empirical base to the development of new concepts and theories. It is worked form a qualitative methodological approach, using mainly semi structured interviews to cattle breeders, labourers, intermediaries, technicians and governmental employees. The interviews seek capturing the social agents‟ different visions and practices. The interview technique is complemented with observations in the production or labour with the wool spaces, in order to reconstruct the symbolic scenario and contextualise the discourses, and the analysis of secondary sources (public statistics, governmental documents, newspapers and magazines from the region). The latter are principally relevant to elaborate the history of the nature- society in the drylands in the Central Plateau and the Inferior Valley of the Chubut River region. The area was selected due to the relevance in the economy and the history of the wool production; the presence and intensity of the ecological phenomenons and the environmental changes; and the socioeconomic and biophysical homogeneity that distinguish this area from other regions in the province (like the south and west)
The Latin American Political Ecology (EPL) turns out to be the most propitious approach for this research, due to its capacity to contribute in problems and themes that haven‟t been solved in the preceding studies that have taken place in other arid regions of Argentina or the world. From this perspective, it is established the necessity to incorporate the plurality of voices of the social agents, that not always have the same interpretations about the environmental matters and about the production practices; the tension between scientific and traditional knowledge; and the politics and history roles in the definition and solutions proposed for the environmental problems..
In the first place, it is gathered the essential perspectives from which the social sciences have analyzed the nature- society relations since the modernity. This exploration sum up with the increasing social and political interest in the ecological problems motivates the adoption of the EPL as theoretical base to study this case. This approach is complemented with some categories and concepts that come from the State‟s sociological theories and with some researches that were done by social scientists in different arid regions of Argentina and the world.
Then, it is re-built the history of the sheep livestock activity in Chubut, but from an environmental perspective, that has been modifying the activity‟s characteristics, the social agents and the nature‟s ways of appropriation, distribution and consumption. The last period suggest the idea of a “crossroad” situation to the social agents related to the wool activity that comes from the market. This “crossroad” turns out to be more complex due to the presence of the ecological changes, which definitions as environmental problems, their characteristics, causes and consequences are different among all the social agents and the responses that provide the science and the politic about them.
At last, it is identified the idea of a productive crisis, in which diverse difficulties (economic, structural, labor, among others) affect the wool activity. In this crisis some interviewees include the environmental problems. The heterogeneity of problems and the diversity of interpretations about the environmental problems alter the production and labour practices in the wool activity, although not in the same way, but generating the coexistence of extensive productive and labour forms with low investment of capital and high dependence of the natural resources, and new practices that represent signs of intensification in the use of capital and resources.
It is done an instrumental case study that contributes to generate an empirical base to the development of new concepts and theories. It is worked form a qualitative methodological approach, using mainly semi structured interviews to cattle breeders, labourers, intermediaries, technicians and governmental employees. The interviews seek capturing the social agents‟ different visions and practices. The interview technique is complemented with observations in the production or labour with the wool spaces, in order to reconstruct the symbolic scenario and contextualise the discourses, and the analysis of secondary sources (public statistics, governmental documents, newspapers and magazines from the region). The latter are principally relevant to elaborate the history of the nature- society in the drylands in the Central Plateau and the Inferior Valley of the Chubut River region. The area was selected due to the relevance in the economy and the history of the wool production; the presence and intensity of the ecological phenomenons and the environmental changes; and the socioeconomic and biophysical homogeneity that distinguish this area from other regions in the province (like the south and west)
The Latin American Political Ecology (EPL) turns out to be the most propitious approach for this research, due to its capacity to contribute in problems and themes that haven‟t been solved in the preceding studies that have taken place in other arid regions of Argentina or the world. From this perspective, it is established the necessity to incorporate the plurality of voices of the social agents, that not always have the same interpretations about the environmental matters and about the production practices; the tension between scientific and traditional knowledge; and the politics and history roles in the definition and solutions proposed for the environmental problems..
In the first place, it is gathered the essential perspectives from which the social sciences have analyzed the nature- society relations since the modernity. This exploration sum up with the increasing social and political interest in the ecological problems motivates the adoption of the EPL as theoretical base to study this case. This approach is complemented with some categories and concepts that come from the State‟s sociological theories and with some researches that were done by social scientists in different arid regions of Argentina and the world.
Then, it is re-built the history of the sheep livestock activity in Chubut, but from an environmental perspective, that has been modifying the activity‟s characteristics, the social agents and the nature‟s ways of appropriation, distribution and consumption. The last period suggest the idea of a “crossroad” situation to the social agents related to the wool activity that comes from the market. This “crossroad” turns out to be more complex due to the presence of the ecological changes, which definitions as environmental problems, their characteristics, causes and consequences are different among all the social agents and the responses that provide the science and the politic about them.
At last, it is identified the idea of a productive crisis, in which diverse difficulties (economic, structural, labor, among others) affect the wool activity. In this crisis some interviewees include the environmental problems. The heterogeneity of problems and the diversity of interpretations about the environmental problems alter the production and labour practices in the wool activity, although not in the same way, but generating the coexistence of extensive productive and labour forms with low investment of capital and high dependence of the natural resources, and new practices that represent signs of intensification in the use of capital and resources.
Título obtenido
Magister de la Universidad de Buenos Aires en Investigación en Ciencias Sociales
Institución otorgante
Universidad de Buenos Aires. Facultad de Ciencias Sociales