Politics, rights, and environmental justice. The Riachuelo conflict

Abstract

t first, unseen social-environmental problems have in most cases a long process of gestation and development. They are tied to “development,” to the establishment of an industrial plant, then another and another, which are built supported by the narrative of progress, of the escape from poverty by the creation of jobs. The first manifestations of such problems are hardly “perceptible,” someone gets sick, then another; someone dies, then another -- lives that are mourned in their homes, lives that are not mourned (to paraphrase Butler) in Davos. Practically nobody cares about the life of the river; it is considered a means by which to carry away the filth.