198 Pía Marchegiani and Louisa Parks
the community protocol publicly during the peak of the election campaign was
linked to this possibility, even if remote. In the event, the new government did at
least appear to make concessions after taking office, by opening a dialogue on the
protocol’s recognition. This can be understood as an outcome of a more informal
type of legal pluralism. The changes in circumstances as time wore on suggest
that this concession was not as meaningful as hoped for in that it did not lead to
the promised step to formal legal pluralism in the form of a provincial decree on
the protocol. A stronger commitment was made to lithium as a strategic resource
in line with the policies pursued by the new federal administration, and a lack
of understanding about how to use the community protocol became clear (the
provincial government wanted to make it applicable for all communities in the
province and not only to communities in Salinas Grandes area). These changes
also help to explain why these initial concessions failed to culminate in a decree.
The provincial government was biased in favour of lithium exploitation and
extraction, and this prevented them from seeing the opportunity to pursue that
aim alongside communities in a path of cooperation.
This showed that the local authorities were not ready to engage in multicultural dialogues and advance to make clearer commitments to listen to and
understand demands from communities at the local level. The unwillingness
to keep the conversation going also speaks to the lack of understanding of the
nature and scope of the protocol. Communities in Salinas Grandes and Laguna
de Guayatayoc area did not seek to devise a tool to be applied to each and every
community in the province of Jujuy; rather they were stating conditions for
dialogues with them (33 communities) and thus, proactively paving a way for
a multicultural dialogue with authorities and companies that wanted to engage
with them. In a deeper perspective, the efforts made to “translate” Buen Vivir
to external actors (de Sousa Santos, 2014) seem to have come up against a discursive barrier here. To the extent that dominant discourses based on a nature/
culture divide, where the planet is essentially understood as separate from human
communities, shape governance the world over (Uggla, 2010), communicating
worldviews that do not separate the planet from human communities is challenging (Vermeylen, 2017). In this vein, some have called for a move beyond
multiculturalism towards multinaturalism (Viveiros de Castro, 2004).
This failure to advance the dialogue around the decree on one side, while
moving forward with decisions that would advance explorations for mining in
the area, on the other, then ate away at what little trust had developed until then
between communities and provincial government. The communities had, with
their protocol, taken constructive steps to open a dialogue and build a space for
understanding with provincial authorities and extractive companies who failed
to recognize the opportunity this presented for advancing with projects in mutually beneficial ways. Ultimately, this failure to engage increases the costs for the
provincial government, and potentially for extractive companies should protests
persist. Instead of using this opportunity for dialogue with communities mobilized
around a controversial issue, the government failed to listen, and the communities
the community protocol publicly during the peak of the election campaign was
linked to this possibility, even if remote. In the event, the new government did at
least appear to make concessions after taking office, by opening a dialogue on the
protocol’s recognition. This can be understood as an outcome of a more informal
type of legal pluralism. The changes in circumstances as time wore on suggest
that this concession was not as meaningful as hoped for in that it did not lead to
the promised step to formal legal pluralism in the form of a provincial decree on
the protocol. A stronger commitment was made to lithium as a strategic resource
in line with the policies pursued by the new federal administration, and a lack
of understanding about how to use the community protocol became clear (the
provincial government wanted to make it applicable for all communities in the
province and not only to communities in Salinas Grandes area). These changes
also help to explain why these initial concessions failed to culminate in a decree.
The provincial government was biased in favour of lithium exploitation and
extraction, and this prevented them from seeing the opportunity to pursue that
aim alongside communities in a path of cooperation.
This showed that the local authorities were not ready to engage in multicultural dialogues and advance to make clearer commitments to listen to and
understand demands from communities at the local level. The unwillingness
to keep the conversation going also speaks to the lack of understanding of the
nature and scope of the protocol. Communities in Salinas Grandes and Laguna
de Guayatayoc area did not seek to devise a tool to be applied to each and every
community in the province of Jujuy; rather they were stating conditions for
dialogues with them (33 communities) and thus, proactively paving a way for
a multicultural dialogue with authorities and companies that wanted to engage
with them. In a deeper perspective, the efforts made to “translate” Buen Vivir
to external actors (de Sousa Santos, 2014) seem to have come up against a discursive barrier here. To the extent that dominant discourses based on a nature/
culture divide, where the planet is essentially understood as separate from human
communities, shape governance the world over (Uggla, 2010), communicating
worldviews that do not separate the planet from human communities is challenging (Vermeylen, 2017). In this vein, some have called for a move beyond
multiculturalism towards multinaturalism (Viveiros de Castro, 2004).
This failure to advance the dialogue around the decree on one side, while
moving forward with decisions that would advance explorations for mining in
the area, on the other, then ate away at what little trust had developed until then
between communities and provincial government. The communities had, with
their protocol, taken constructive steps to open a dialogue and build a space for
understanding with provincial authorities and extractive companies who failed
to recognize the opportunity this presented for advancing with projects in mutually beneficial ways. Ultimately, this failure to engage increases the costs for the
provincial government, and potentially for extractive companies should protests
persist. Instead of using this opportunity for dialogue with communities mobilized
around a controversial issue, the government failed to listen, and the communities