Economization of the environment in the territorial ordering of native forests in Argentina: the emergence of a neoliberal ordering State

Abstract

The purpose of this article is to characterize the environmental instrument of territorial ordering of native forests that governs Argentina and the province of Córdoba, especially in what refers to the type of rationality that informs. We believe that in the configuration of the legislative debates and the legislation that regulates this mechanism emerges what we can identify as a neoliberal political rationality. Thus, our Foucauldian-based discourse analysis proposal, it is located between the years 2006 and 2017 and includes the discussions related to the national legislative treatment that goes from 2006 to 2009, and to the Cordoba mapping that consists of two instances: the period 2008-2010 when a law and a territorial ordering map are sanctioned and the unfinished update process that took place between 2016 and 2017. The analysis starts from conceptualizing neoliberalism as an order of normative reason that implies a long-standing process of economizing common goods, as well as of the laws and government policies on the environment. More specifically, in the article we focus on the study of the statements of sustainability and sustainable use and we track its strategic uses and circulation in two conflicting discourses in the parliamentary debate: the productivist and environmental discourse. We also carry out a reading of the normative texts and the resulting territorial ordering scheme, from which we observe the primacy of a notion of sustainability associated with rational planning, efficiency and harmonization between protection and production. One of the most significant contributions of this writing is that it reflects on the role of law and the State in neoliberal governmentality, through the concept of ordering State.