'This is not political, it's technical': Science, environment, and unions in defense of the public 1

• In Event: Extractivism, Conservation, Science and Justice: Workshopping Emerging Approaches in Decolonial Science

Abstract

The complicit relations between governments and transnational conglomerates are usually analyzed from the collective actions allied with NGOs to denounce the fraudulent use of science in favor of the installation of extractive projects. Controversies between the technical and the political, or the private and the public, in environmental impact assessments are traditional in STS studies. However, the controversies located in the same public institutions and, in particular, those originating from the unions of the environmental administrations are lesser known. In Chile, a use of the technical has been recognized as a strategy of depoliticization allied with neoliberal technologies and dictatorial sciences. In this paper, we propose to follow the use of the "technical" and the "political" as strategies to defend the public. We will focus on the trajectory of an alternative commission known as the Citizens-unions-parliamentary Commission between 2015 and 2017. This Commission proposed reforms to the Environmental Impact Assessment System in an unprecedented way in the country. Public unions, NGOs, and academics worked on the margins of the presidential reports and presented an alternative report where not only the need for science in favor of the protection of socio-ecological habitats was raised from a public, more participatory and decentralized approach, but also the need to protect the physical integrity of public officials. We also discuss the way hostile and violent modalities are found in the practices and bodies of officials, environmentalists, and scientists when technically justifying the inappropriateness of specific intervention projects.

Authors

• Gloria Baigorrotegui, Instituto de Estudios Avanzados - Usach

• Maria Paz Aedo, Universidad de Santiago de Chile