“Moral Ecologies of Wetland and Forest Ecosystems at the La Plata River, Argentina. Conflict, Social Movements, Nature, and Love. 2008-2018.”

In the context of a socio-environmental conflict, the present ethnography examines the relationship of a social movement with a legally protected space made up of wetlands and native forests on the verge of disappearing. The main objective is to unravel how a moral and emotional bond that arose and consolidated against a waterfront revitalisation project in the southern La Plata River, Districts of Avellaneda and Quilmes. Put forward by Techint, the most powerful steel company in Argentina, this project, called Nueva Costa del Plata (NCP), made clear the asymmetric power relations in the management of ecologically important spaces, and hence how hegemonic territorial control over those spaces is reproduced over time. The reconstruction of the first ten years of conflict (2008-2018) is intended to depict the antagonistic human- nature exchanges proposed for the riverside by the “promoters” of NCP (Techint, municipal and provincial authorities) and the resistance to these by a sector of the local population gathered in local assemblies as “neighbours” (“vecinos” in Spanish). Between claims of “good” and “evil”, “right” and “wrong”, “virtue” and “filth”, new moral ecologies emerged around the riverside ecosystem, one aiming for real-estate development, and the other for nature conservation. The love of nature fits into the latter position and is expressed by neighbourhood organisations through ecological practices, environmental values and an ethical way of behaving towards life. Built up and cared for at different times during the conflict, this love intermingles identitary, spatial, and cultural dimensions that will be looked into in order to understand how the moral ecology of those who resist came to be. The gradual analysis of this relationship contributes to a different approach to socio-environmental conflicts in shedding light on collective behaviour and on the ways in which the role of emotions like love is key to this. I hope that someday it will give hints on how to rebuild a destructive relationship with nature if we are to survive as a species. At the same time, a transdisciplinary integration between political ecology (constructivism, ontological approach), critical geography and anthropology also discusses questions of what constitutes the moral, and what love of nature represents in connection with it. The research work, conducted intermittently between 2011 and 2023, was qualitative and was intended to attend to the multiple factors (and actors) involved for the making of an ethnography of socio-environmental conflicts that includes the complexities of a political fieldwork. The conflict over NCP is not just any conflict, but exposes the suffering of ordinary people in their everyday struggle in today’s cities with respect to nature. Beyond the different forms of appropriation and representation involved in a controversial process of waterfront revitalisation, morality and love have turned out to be key elements of analysis. Contrary to what might be thought, these are not romantic clichés or obvious behaviours, but the last resources of the powerless when engaging in a struggle for their own survival. Key words: Conflict, social movements, riverside ecosystems, moral ecology, love.