Mobilizing Scientific Uncertainty: Epistemic Contests, Mining Impacts, and Water Resources in Northern Chile

• In Event: 41055 - Sociology of Law Open Topics II

Abstract

Socioenvironmental conflicts around mining “critical minerals” involve not only political and moral claims but also knowledge claims. As such conflicts increasingly end up in court, the political and moral arguments regarding the environmental and social impacts of mining operations made by activists are now often accompanied by epistemic contests about the causes and magnitude of these impacts, the temporality of damages, and predictions about the long-term implications for communities and ecosystems that coexist with large-scale extractive industries. This paper examines how lawyers, scientists, activists, government officials, and mining companies involved in legal proceedings in the Chilean environmental courts clash over scientific uncertainty concerning the socioenvironmental impacts of extractive economies on water resources. Through an analysis of cases situated in Chile’s Atacama Desert, I argue that all parties involved in socioenvironmental conflicts tend to emphasize different forms of scientific uncertainty in their interactions with state institutions, attempting to transform it into a source of power. I identify three recurring interpretive frames related to scientific uncertainty: causality (whether and on what grounds a particular mining practice caused a specific socioenvironmental outcome), magnitude (whether the impact is significant enough to warrant a regulatory response), and prediction (what types of potential effects may still emerge in the future, raising questions regarding the temporality and permanence of environmental harm). The paper combines content analysis of legal documents and video-recorded hearings at the environmental courts with semi-structured interviews with experts, government officials, and community leaders.

Author

• Maria Akchurin, Loyola University-Chicago