Introduction: Ulrich Brand, Research Group Latin America, University of Vienna
Keynote lecture: Grettel Navas, Facultad de Gobierno, Universidad de Chile
Comments: Valerie Lenikus, Research Group Latin America, University of Vienna; Herbert Wasserbauer, DKA Austria
Facilitation: Karin Küblböck, ÖFSE

This ÖFSE Development Lecture examines environmental conflicts related to agrarian and mining extractivism in Latin America, with a particular focus on Central America and Chile. It asks: Why do environmental conflicts emerge and why do they sometimes not? What do these conflicts reveal about social and environmental inequalities across the region? And how are local communities organizing to resist them?

The talk highlights how environmental change is shaped by unequal power relations and rooted in the colonial and historical legacies of resource extraction. Environmental conflicts are understood as collective mobilizations against the social and ecological harms caused by extractive or development projects. They are struggles over who controls natural resources, who benefits from them, and how they are valued. Rather than viewing these conflicts as isolated problems to be managed or contained, the lecture presents them as arenas of social transformation that illuminate the deep structural inequalities from which they arise.

> Programme (pdf)

Registration:  ingrid.fankhauser@univie.ac.at  by  November 10, 2025.

By participating in this event, you agree to the publication of photos and film footage taken during the event by the organizers.

Organizers: ÖFSE and Research Group Latin America, University of Vienna