Economic interests in environmental protest? Interpretative frames and social coalitions in the environmental mobilizations against natural resources’ extractive sectors in Argentina

Abstract

This work explores how the environmental issue related to the expansion of natural resources' extractive sectors in Argentina was socially shaped over the last decades. To achieve the objective, it analyzes the “territorial interpretative frames” of environmentalist action in three sectors and provides an explanation based on the social coalitions of the mobilization. The work shows that shared opposition to extractive activities did not translate into a same framing of the issue, and that the presence or absence of capitalized economic actors in the coalition or in the territory of mobilization has been a key factor in the setting of different frames of meaning.