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11 Negotiating governable objects

Glaciers in Argentina

Abstract

Climate change has led to a significant decrease of the cryosphere, including a considerable loss of ice sheets and glaciers. In addition to unrelenting climate change, glaciers are affected by large-scale economic activities such as mineral and energy extraction at the so-called ‘frozen frontier’. In light of this development, societies have come to revalue glaciers and their related ecosystems, giving rise to new narratives of glaciers as ‘an endangered species’ and ‘natural resources’. This chapter analyses how glaciers took form as governable objects in Argentina. Starting as a contested environmental impact assessment in relation to a gold mining project the issue later culminated in the world’s first national glacier protection law adopted by Argentina in 2010, after an animated national debate. The chapter employs the concepts of resource construction and scale in order to trace and understand the changing values ascribed to glaciers through the process by which they became institutionalized in Argentinean environmental politics. By focusing on how glaciers were constructed as resources by different actors during this process, the power relations embedded in glaciers are revealed. Furthermore, how glaciers were scaled became a crucial constitutive part of their construction as resources – and by extension – of their transformation into governable objects. Finally, the chapter discusses how glaciers assumed the role as mediators of global climate change and re-actualized questions of scale enabling a new multidimensional framing of glaciers in Argentina: glaciers as critical water resources and objects of national governance.

Abstract

Climate change has led to a significant decrease of the cryosphere, including a considerable loss of ice sheets and glaciers. In addition to unrelenting climate change, glaciers are affected by large-scale economic activities such as mineral and energy extraction at the so-called ‘frozen frontier’. In light of this development, societies have come to revalue glaciers and their related ecosystems, giving rise to new narratives of glaciers as ‘an endangered species’ and ‘natural resources’. This chapter analyses how glaciers took form as governable objects in Argentina. Starting as a contested environmental impact assessment in relation to a gold mining project the issue later culminated in the world’s first national glacier protection law adopted by Argentina in 2010, after an animated national debate. The chapter employs the concepts of resource construction and scale in order to trace and understand the changing values ascribed to glaciers through the process by which they became institutionalized in Argentinean environmental politics. By focusing on how glaciers were constructed as resources by different actors during this process, the power relations embedded in glaciers are revealed. Furthermore, how glaciers were scaled became a crucial constitutive part of their construction as resources – and by extension – of their transformation into governable objects. Finally, the chapter discusses how glaciers assumed the role as mediators of global climate change and re-actualized questions of scale enabling a new multidimensional framing of glaciers in Argentina: glaciers as critical water resources and objects of national governance.

Chapters in this book

  1. Front Matter i
  2. Contents v
  3. List of figures vii
  4. List of tables x
  5. List of contributors xi
  6. Acknowledgements xvi
  7. Ice humanities 1
  8. Part I: Living with ice
  9. 1 Writing on sea ice 37
  10. 2 A moving element 57
  11. 3 Ever higher 72
  12. 4 Glacier protection campaigns 89
  13. 5 Ice futures 110
  14. Part II: Working with ice
  15. 6 White spots on rivers of gold 133
  16. 7 The many ways that water froze 154
  17. 8 Drift, capture, break, and vanish 168
  18. 9 Waiting and witnessing at Larsen C Ice Shelf, Antarctica 188
  19. Part III: Thinking with ice
  20. 10 Imperial slippages 205
  21. 11 Negotiating governable objects 228
  22. 12 Cryonarratives for warming times 250
  23. 13 Frozen archives on the go 266
  24. Index 284
Ice humanities
This chapter is in the book Ice humanities
https://doi.org/10.7765/9781526157782.00021

Chapters in this book

  1. Front Matter i
  2. Contents v
  3. List of figures vii
  4. List of tables x
  5. List of contributors xi
  6. Acknowledgements xvi
  7. Ice humanities 1
  8. Part I: Living with ice
  9. 1 Writing on sea ice 37
  10. 2 A moving element 57
  11. 3 Ever higher 72
  12. 4 Glacier protection campaigns 89
  13. 5 Ice futures 110
  14. Part II: Working with ice
  15. 6 White spots on rivers of gold 133
  16. 7 The many ways that water froze 154
  17. 8 Drift, capture, break, and vanish 168
  18. 9 Waiting and witnessing at Larsen C Ice Shelf, Antarctica 188
  19. Part III: Thinking with ice
  20. 10 Imperial slippages 205
  21. 11 Negotiating governable objects 228
  22. 12 Cryonarratives for warming times 250
  23. 13 Frozen archives on the go 266
  24. Index 284
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