From environmental conflicts to socio-environmental ethics: an approach from the traditional communities’ perspective

Abstract

This paper discusses some interrelationships between environmental ethics and critical reflection on development patterns. It focuses on the analysis of conflicts between value systems that underlie environmental conflicts and the processes of territorialization that affect traditional communities. The socio-environmental ethics referred is understood, in this context, as the field of interfaces between environmental ethics and social studies of environmental inequities. In the article, it is tried to evidence the relations between socio environmental ethics and the perspective of traditional people that face this type of conflicts. This connection is examined through the analysis of two interviews with spokespeople of traditional peoples. The article highlights the emancipatory meaning of the territorial struggles of these peoples in defense of their place. It is considered as an affirmative contestation of the instrumental reduction of nature imposed by the production chains integrated to the global capitalist logic and the urban-industrial-territoriality.