¿Un país de irresponsables?: Filming Responsibility for Environmental Harm in the Judicialised Matanza‐Riachuelo River Basin

ABSTRACT This article explores how documentary film constructs responsibility for environmental harm in response to the Argentine Supreme Court's 2008 ruling on the polluted Matanza‐Riachuelo river basin. Through an interdisciplinary dialogue between socio‐legal, film and cultural studies, the analysis explores how three documentaries envisage different forms of responsibility through legal, political‐economic and post‐anthropocentric lenses. The article argues that critical documentaries mobilise but also exceed legal logics, thereby interrogating the limits of judicialisation. The archive emerges as the judicial, cinematic, and spatial form through which film registers and contests responsibility across interconnected scales, ranging from the molecular to the institutional and the transnational.

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Publication Details

Journal
Bulletin of Latin American Research
Published
2026-06-29
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1111/blar.70096
Primary Topic
Law in Society and Culture
Type
article
Field-Weighted Citation Impact
0.00

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article

¿Un país de irresponsables?: Filming Responsibility for Environmental Harm in the Judicialised Matanza‐Riachuelo River Basin

Oliver Wilson-Nunn
Bulletin of Latin American Research
Law in Society and Culture
article

¿Un país de irresponsables?: Filming Responsibility for Environmental Harm in the Judicialised Matanza‐Riachuelo River Basin

Oliver Wilson-Nunn
article en

Abstract

ABSTRACT This article explores how documentary film constructs responsibility for environmental harm in response to the Argentine Supreme Court's 2008 ruling on the polluted Matanza‐Riachuelo river basin. Through an interdisciplinary dialogue between socio‐legal, film and cultural studies, the analysis explores how three documentaries envisage different forms of responsibility through legal, political‐economic and post‐anthropocentric lenses. The article argues that critical documentaries mobilise but also exceed legal logics, thereby interrogating the limits of judicialisation. The archive emerges as the judicial, cinematic, and spatial form through which film registers and contests responsibility across interconnected scales, ranging from the molecular to the institutional and the transnational.

Bulletin of Latin American ResearchVol. 45(3)
University of Cambridge (GB)
University of Cambridge, Isaac Newton Trust, Robinson College, University of Cambridge
Openalex Percentile: Top 3%
Law in Society and Culture
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