Environmental Mobilization in Latin America

Abstract

This chapter reviews and discusses the vast literature on environmental mobilization in Latin America and the Caribbean from the 1980s on. There is a tendency in the literature to use the term environmental “movement” as tantamount to “mobilization” or “organization,” while only a few studies elaborate what an environmental movement is and what the conditions for its existence are. Given this lack of precision in using the term movement and the fact that several studies do not use it at all, this chapter seeks to answer to what extent the concept of social movement is appropriate to understand environmental mobilization in Latin America and the Caribbean. Its starting point is the conceptual distinction between environmental mobilization and environmental movement. The chapter defines environmental mobilization as the collective action aiming to influence (in either contentious or institutionalized ways) the decisions regarding the political and economic regulation of the interactions between human beings and their environment. Based upon this definition, it first examines the general characteristics of environmental mobilization in the region and then discusses the analytical scope of the concept of social movement as used in the literature. Based on this review, the chapter contends that the concept of environmental mobilization is better equipped than the notion of social movement to grasp the singularities of Latin American and Caribbean environmentalism.