External publications

In the name of justice: the case of riverine dwellers and the restoration of the Matanza Riachuelo River, Argentina

Ruete, Regina / Jean Carlo Rodríguez-de-Francisco
External Publications (2025)

in: Journal of Latin American Geography 24 (2), 102-129

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1353/lag.2025.a971717
Open access

The Matanza Riachuelo River in Buenos Aires—long considered one of the world’s most polluted waterways—became the focus of a landmark 2006 Supreme Court ruling mandating its restoration in the name of environmental justice. !is article examines how that mandate unfolded through the lens of political ecology and environmental justice. Drawing on ethnographic research, we show how judicial orders and technocratic planning translated global imaginaries of “green corridors” into local interventions, as state actors interpreted and operationalized notions of risk and justice in ways that often displaced riverine dwellers. These interventions deepened inequality by neglecting residents’ territorial ties, everyday practices, and right to remain. We highlight how technocratic planning sidelined vulnerable populations and how communities resisted through claims to rootedness and in situ re-urbanization. Building on Latin American scholarship, the article demonstrates that restoration framed solely as ecological repair risks reproducing social inequities. We argue that river restoration must embrace governance frameworks that center a'ected populations, integrate ecological goals with social equity, and advance justice as recognition, participation, and distribution.

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