Abstract

LAMBERTI, María Julieta. ¿El Avatar mexicano? Una sociología no sociocéntrica de los conflictos derivados de la instalación de empresas mineras en territorios indígenas. Intersticios sociales [online]. 2014, n.8, pp.1-27. ISSN 2007-4964.

This paper presents a theoretical and methodological statement based on a comparison of the movie Avatar by James Cameron and the case of mining companies in Wirikuta. I propose an approach, perspective and sensibility to investigate socio-environmental conflicts. I begin by questioning academic approaches that use the idea of the "noble savage" to guide research on this type of conflict for adopting a modernist point of view and for objectifying or making non-human actants invisible. Then I present concepts (the actor- network theory, subsequent revisions of this and a series of research on mining in indigenous territories in Southeast Asia and Oceania) that have allowed us to think critically about these issues. It has also allowed us to propose a less anthropocentric and sociocentric type of research. This paper concludes that this other way of generating research and knowledge of socio-environmental conflicts, by incorporating non-human and non-social actants into explanations, has ethical and political implications for the protection and conservation of the common good and for the sustainability of the world we live in.

Keywords : Avatar; anthropocentrism; socio-environmental conflict; actor-network theory.

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