The Defense of Nature as a Common Good: Conflict Dynamics and Shifts in the Debate. Ecuador 2000-2012

Abstract

The article contributes to the systematization of the debate that spurred the defense ofnature as a common good in the Ecuadorian political and academic spheres from 2000to 2012. From the perspective of historical sociology, this work focuses on two differentfacets: the dynamics of social conflict and the kind of reasoning that is adopted by thepolitical and academic spheres. From the methodological point of view, the article is basedon a search of periodicals and interviews with specialists. Through reconstruction ofthe debate, the work makes visible that the defense of nature as a common good is partof a conflict that is shaped by the intersections and continuities between economy andculture, between ecology and politics, and between the social and the environmental,and has acquired the features of a civilization crisis.