2021
info:eu-repo/semantics/OpenAccess
Ana G. Besteiro et al., « Environmental tensions, social representations and conservation border. The Usumacinta river in Tabasco (Mexico) », HAL-SHS : géographie, ID : 10670/1.wjp5a4
This paper deals with the socio-environmental factors that influence the environmental tensions of two Mexican protected natural areas in the state of Tabasco, in the Bajo-Usumacinta river basin. In this paper, a qualitative research analyzes social representations through the speeches of the actors involved in these areas. The origin and dynamics of environmental tensions are highlighted by the discordant views of the Mayan indigenous population and the peasant settlers towards the river and the experts’ priority approach towards inhabitants’ practices. This set of cross representations originates accusation-defense processes that, become transformation-resistance mechanisms, settle permanently in the territories of protected nature and continuously feed tensions. This theoretical model of operation derived from grounded theory raises the question of the notion of conservation border that is more assimilable to the discursive limits of eco-power than to the delimitation of the geographical space itself