Reflections of a thousand Paranás : exploring Exploring multiple enactments of an Argentinian wetland

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Reflections of a

thousand Paranás

Exploring multiple enactments of an Argentinian wetland

Anahita Innavong

12-08-2019

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Reflections of a thousand Paranás

Exploring multiple enactments of an Argentinian wetland

Name student: Anahita Innavong Student number: 10875655

Contact: anahita.innavong@gmail.com

Department: Graduate School of Social Sciences

Degree: MSc Environmental Geography (2018-19)

Submission date: 12th_{of August 2019}

Word Count:

Supervisor: mr. M.A. (Andres) Verzijl MSc Second reader: dr. ir. Y.P.B. (Yves) van Leynseele

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Abstract

In this thesis, I explore what a Rámsar designation might mean through a case study of the Rámsar site Delta del Paraná, in Argentina. Instead of looking at perspectives or discourses on conservation and environmental justice, I take an ontological approach to contemplate how a Rámsar site is done. Taking a multiple reality stance and linking up with Actor-Network-Theory’s praxiography, I explore three realities of the site: its amphibious, terrestrial and paper reality. Although these enactments all coincide in physical space, the practises, stories and objects through which they are enacted differ, creating a multiple yet singular Paraná.

In the terrestrial reality of the wetland, water is enacted as a disaster: flooding means the death of cattle, high transportation costs, sleepless nights. The islands are enacted as a special extension of the mainland: a place to conduct terrestrial practices with the benefits of richer food for the cattle brought by the river’s nutrients and specific vegetation. Although their contingency is not denied, the island is more visible than the river. In the amphibious reality, the Paraná is enacted as el

Río, a space that provides infinite amounts of fish, that travels miles away through practices of sales

and transportation. Here, water and land are in continuous interaction. Finally, the paper reality is enacted through repetitive practices of research, document-making, reunions, discussions and publications. This reality tries to incorporate both the terrestrial and the amphibious realities into a bordered area, in which rules and agreements apply for “reasonable use of the Delta”. Paper practices enact the wetland as a space of important ecological value, of which the resources (or eco-system services) should be protected for the benefits of humans.

The interference and intermingling of the three realities through the creation of amongst others alliances and norms show their messy contingency: they both clash with each other and support the other. Linking up with ANT and its multiple, emerging world allows me to step away from hierarchical evaluations of values and beliefs, and to explore different, but equal, matters of concern instead. It allows me to show that neither the paper, nor the amphibious or terrestrial realities of the wetland are more real or more right than the other – they all enact a multiple, yet singular wetland.

Keywords: Rámsar, conservation, water, wetland management, multiplicity, Actor-Network,

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¿Cuál es, en resumen, la altura de nuestro tiempo?

No es plenitud de los tiempos, y, sin embargo, se siente sobre todos los tiempos sidos y por encima de todas las conocidas plenitudes. No es fácil de formular la impresión que de sí misma tiene nuestra época: cree ser más de las demás, y a la par se siente como un comienzo, sin estar segura de no ser una agonía. Tal ves ésta: más que los demás tiempos e inferior a sí misma. Fortísima y a la vez insegura de su destino. Orgullosa de sus fuerzas y a

la vez temiéndolas.

(José Ortega y Gasset, La rebelión de las masas, p. 38)

What, then, in a word is the "height of our times"?

It is not the fullness of time, and yet it feels itself superior to all times past, and beyond all known fullness. It is not easy to formulate the impression that our epoch has of itself; it believes itself more than all the rest, and at

the same time feels that it is a beginning. What expression shall we find for it? Perhaps this one: superior to other times, inferior to itself. Strong, indeed, and at the same time uncertain of its destiny; proud of its strength

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List of figures, tables, images and textboxes

Figure 1. Location of the SRDP within the Plata Basin in hydrological terms

Figure 2: Map created by Wetlands International, showing the SRDP as a single bordered area Figure 3. The SRDP in the context of the territory of PIECAS-DP

Figure 4. Representation of the “management structure” for the SRDP, made by the CIM Table 1: Division of the SRDP in administrative documents

Table 2: Overview of future actions as given in the management protocol Table 3. Operationalization of major concepts

Table 4: List of interviewees

Table 5. Example of analysis of non-transcribed interviews. Table 6. Secondary data shared with me by V. Vidal

Image 1 : Islerx dwelling on an island near Puerto Gaboto

Image 2: Cattle enjoying the refreshment by the water in summer; puestero guiding his cows to dry ground during a flood

Image 3. Two “puestos”, where puesterxs reside; In times of flood.

Image 4. A fisher on his way to take in his line; Illustration of fishing with an “espinel” Image 5: A fisherman tying his trasmallo (net); Fisherman tending his trasmallo; Illustration of the trasmallo fishing method

Image 6: Fishermen cleaning their catch; Acopiadora weighing the fish for sales Image 7: Reunion of the CIM in Rosario; Reunion in Paraná, 2019

Image 8: Monchito’s house; Confiscation of furniture in process

Textbox 1: Non-exclusionary language use of a “gendered language” Textbox 2: Other purposes of the wetland

List of abbreviations

CIM Comité Intersectorial de Manejo (Intersectoral Management Committee)

HPP Hidrovía Paraguay-Paraná

MAyDS Ministry of Environment and Sustainable Development

PDS Plan Delta Sustentable

PNPDER National Park Pre-Delta, province of Entre Rios PNSIF National Park Islas de Santa Fe, Province of Santa Fe SAyDS Secretary of Environment and Sustainable Development SRDP Sitio Ramsar Delta del Paraná

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I don’t know anything about you...

I don't know anything about the gods or the god you were born from

neither of the yearnings you would repeat

before, even from the Añax and the Tupac until the same lily of harmony

snowing on you, autumnally, the farewell to the sand ... I know nothing.. .

not even from the point where, on the other side, you would fall from the vertigo of the stone

under the rays ... I know nothing...

Or I know, barely, that the Guaraní assimilated you

to the sea of its wonder ...

and that this puma of your skin that gives you back intermittently, the day

you take it in a rodeo, don't you? of your destiny . .

1 Introduction

Yo no sé nada de ti...

Yo no sé nada de los dioses o del dios de que naciste ni de los anhelos que repitieras

antes, aún de los Añax y los Tupac hasta la misma azucena de la armonía

nevándote, otoñalmente, la despedida a la arenilla... No sé nada.. .

ni siquiera del punto en que, por otro lado, caerías del vértigo de la piedra bajo los rayos... No sé nada...

O sé, apenas, que el guaraní te asimiló

al mar de su maravilla...

y que ese puma de tu piel que te devuelve, intermitentemente, el día

lo tomas en un rodeo, no?, de tu destino. . .

Fragment of “Al Paraná” by J.L. Ortiz, 19711_.

This is the start of the poem “Al Paraná”, written by Juan Laurentino Ortiz (1896-1978), a famous Argentinian poet also known as “Juanele”. The ode continues for 163 verses, showing a profound appreciation and marvel from the poet for the multiplicity of the river he has “watched and watched for nineteen Septembers", and of which he "still does not know anything". The almost palpable wonder, care and respect with which the poet describes the river enacts a romantic and timeless Paraná: a river that has been part of many different worlds – always there but never the same. Juanele was not the only Argentinian that cherished the Paraná as a source of inspiration; many other artists and admirers of the river have found their ways to make a tribute to the Paraná and continue praising the river and its beauty until now2_{. When visiting the shore of Rosario however, one gets to}

know very different realities of the river, like one of cereal factory plants on the city’s outskirts and impressive cargo ships that slowly cross the river, or mega-techno parties on la isla3_{on the weekends.}

The question then arises: how can such different enactments of the Paraná co-exist and intermingle? In this thesis, I attempt to analyse ways in which a part of the Paraná Delta is experienced and performed, through the interpretation of what I have seen and read, and what different actors have shared with me. Following the idea coined by several scholars4_{that there is not óne universal}

reality, but reality is rather multiple, I take an ontological approach to explore in which manner different realities of the Paraná are enacted. The realities presented are the ones I deemed most relevant to answer my questions. I do not pretend to give a general overview of the wetland area

1_{Retrieved from:}_{http://www.paginadepoesia.com.ar/clas_ar_ortiz1.html#6}_{. Date: 20-06-2019. Translation on}

the right by author – my Spanish nor my English are good enough to translate the nuances of such a poem, unfortunately.

2_{The Paraná has been represented in literature, paintings, folklore music, circus, in artistic protests by "regular}

citizens" and much more. For a painter, see https://www.lacapital.com.ar/la-ciudad/diputados-distinguio-al-pintor-del-parana-n1507830.html. For citizens that express their care for the river :

https://www.facebook.com/ElParanaNOsetoca/.

3_{Most citizens of Rosario use this term to speak of the wetlands in front of the city.} 4_{See chapter 2.}

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concerned, nor do I consider any reality presented as more valuable than the other, and invite the reader to take a similar perspective when reading this thesis.

1.1 The Rámsar convention as a point of departure

I was inspired by the Paraná in particular, because of stories I had heard about the islands in front of Rosario from the city’s inhabitants. They described the islands as places to come to rest and reconnect with nature, but also where encounters with (informal) residents could lead to interesting exchanges or conflicts. A mysterious space, that was increasingly getting privatized by real estate companies or bar owners. When going to the island by boat service, one can, for example, choose an island by saying the name of the bar that owns the beach and the entrance. Seeing these fenced island plots and man-made beaches, accompanied by reggae music coming from the bar’s box on the background made me wonder what these changes meant for the lives of the residents of the islands. Even on the shores in front of Rosario, one can namely still see (informal) settlements of residents, secluded from the commercialized parts of the islands. In a meeting Taller Ecologista, members of the NGO brought my attention to a part of the Paraná further North from Rosario that had been designated as a Rámsar site in 2016, the Sitio Rámsar Delta del Paraná (henceforth SRDP). They told me the process of creation of a management protocol for the SRDP was still going on and offered me the possibility to join them during a reunion organized for this. Since newspaper articles and different sites described the process as “participatory”, this sounded like an interesting opportunity to explore the manner in which residents experienced changes made to their living space, and how different actors and stakeholders negotiated the new reality of the SRDP introduced in the area.

Consequently, the on-paper SRDP became the point of departure for my research. Before continuing, I will thus briefly introduce the Rámsar convention to clarify what a Rámsar title means on paper. Throughout the past decades, in light of climate change, wetlands have received increasing international attention as the “providers of invaluable ecosystem services” (ESS) (Mitsch et al., 2013). One tool used to enact wetlands as valuable ecosystems instead of forgotten wasteland is the international Rámsar treaty, ratified in 1971 and entered into force four years later, in 1975. The treaty aims for “the conservation and wise use of all wetlands5_{through local and national actions and}

international cooperation, as a contribution towards achieving sustainable development throughout the world” (Ramsar a, 2019). Assigning a wetland as a Ramsar site compels the contracting party to "designate suitable wetlands for the list of Wetlands of International Importance (the "Ramsar List") and ensure their effective management; cooperate internationally on transboundary wetlands, shared wetland systems and shared species" (Ramsar a, 2019). Since the implementation of the Ramsár treaty, more than 2200 wetlands in participating countries have been given the title Rámsar (Ramsár b, 2019). Twenty-three of these sites are located in Argentina, that signed the Ramsar convention in 1992.

As expressed by Argentina’s head of the Secretary of Environment and Sustainable Development (SAyDS) on World Wetlands Day, the 2nd_{of February 2019: wetlands allow Argentinians}

to “have a better future”. He presents the conservation of wetlands as a way to respect human rights, “recover the identity of our original peoples. . . .; put in value their practices, identities and culture”6

(GOB Argentina, 2019). Additionally, the SAyDS’ director of aquatic resources and wetlands expressed a wish to collaborate more closely with provincial administrations in the management of protected areas, as well as to evaluate the effectiveness of designated sites (GOB Argentina, 2019). A press release made on that same day by different socio-environmentalist NGOs of Santa Fe and Buenos Aires province shows that the latter indeed is necessary. In the publication, the group of NGOs

5_{It uses a broad definition of wetlands, namely : “all lakes and rivers, underground aquifers, swamps and}

marshes, wet grasslands, peatlands, oases, estuaries, deltas and tidal flats, mangroves and other coastal areas, coral reefs, and all human-made sites such as fish ponds, rice paddies, reservoirs and salt pans” (Ramsar a, 2019).

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demands attention for the unauthorised activities of a Belgian-owned drainage company operating in the corridor between two national parks, situated in the heart of the SRDP, one of the most recently designated Rámsar sites in Argentina7_{. Led by advocacy NGO CAUCE}8_{, the environmentalist groups}

stated that the country has obligations towards the national and international community to guarantee the protection of these wetlands of international importance (EstacionPlus, 2019). They requested the national secretary and the office of National Parks Argentina to restrain from granting an environmental permit to the company and expressed their surprise at the lack of intervention by both national and international entities (EstacionPlus, 2019). At the end of March 2019, through another judicial action, the NGO’s eventually achieved to impose a temporary hold on the activities of the company until it would present a proper evaluation of the possible environmental damage generated by its extractions9_{(CAUCE, 2019).}

1.2 The area within the borders of the Sitio Rámsar Delta Paraná

According to the definition of the SRDP in the Rámsar listing, the borders of the site fall within the provinces of Santa Fe and Entre Ríos. Within these borders lay two national parks, the more controversial Parque Nacional Islas de Santa Fe (PNISF) created in 201010_{and Parque Nacional}

Pre-Delta Entre Rios (PNPDER) founded in 1991 (ParquesNacionales, 2019; Ramsar, 2016). Defined in hydrological terms, the SRDP can be illustrated as part of the Plata Basin, as shown in Figure 1. Figure 1. Location of the SRDP within the Plata Basin in hydrological terms

Source: author, adapted from (Giacosa, 2019; Rios Vivos, 2019)

According to hydrologists, the Plata Basin is the second biggest basin in South-America, a hydrological system with a catchment area of approximately 3.100.000 square metres within five countries in the

7_{The NGO’s had already called upon the government of Entre Ríos Province in August of 2018 (Paralelo32, 2018).} 8_{Full name: Cultura Ambiental Causa Ecologista.}

9_{The company had received a permit from the municipality of Diamante that allowed its activities “if they}

would respect the environmental laws of the Province” – in other words, without demanding any prior evaluation and anticipation on possible harm (Interview NGO CAUCE).

10_{More controversial because of friction between the management of National Parks and informal residents of}

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region: Argentina, Brazil, Bolivia, Paraguay and Uruguay (Giacosa, 2019). Expositions created by civil society organisations like El Paraná No Se Toca (EPSNT), and documents created by local NGOs like Taller Ecologista or CAUCE describe how a significant part of the basin has been modified by infrastructural works, for (socio-)economic purposes like the generation of energy, expansion of real estate property, or possibilities for transport (RiosVivos, 2019). They note that on a local level, the Paraná is considered an important resource for small-scale and industrial fishers. Furthermore, its system of wetlands contains many different strips of land, often referred to as “la isla”, used for cattle ranching ever since the arrival of the Spanish to Argentina. The frequent flooding that characterises these islands makes cattle herding a challenging but rewarding task, as the vegetation it delivers is much appreciated by cattle and contributes to high-quality meat (Vizia et al., 2010). Locals NGOs report that the modifications made to the Paraná, like the Rosario-Victoria link, a two-lane highway built throughout the wetlands11_{, cause increasing pressure on its resources by facilitating export}

abroad. They state that the possibility of export stimulates further exploitation and contamination of the wetlands (Vizia et al., 2010).

Nevertheless, the area covered by the SRDP remains free of large scale commercial agricultural exploitation (i.e. soy and corn plantations), amongst others owing to the active protest led by local NGOs and academia for the preservation of the wetlands12_{. Following the guidelines of the Rámsar}

Convention, the SRDP aims to further stimulate the conservation of the ecosystem for future generations by promoting the sustainable use of resources (Giacosa, 2019). In pursuit of the concretisation of this goal, members of the Ministry and Secretary of Environment and Sustainable Development of the provinces of Santa Fe and Entre Ríos created an “Intersectoral Management Committee13_{[CIM]” for the site in 2017. This committee exists of representatives of the Department}

of Environment and Sustainable Development of the central government and both provinces, the office of National Parks (APN), academics and (international) NGOs, members of the INTA14_{, civil}

society organisations, officials of local government and island residents of both provinces (La Capital, 2018; Wetlands International, 201815_{). Its first project was to create a management protocol for the}

area through a cycle of participatory reunions. During my fieldwork, the last meeting for the approval and finalisation of the management protocol took place, and a new cycle of reunions started for the implementation of the plan.

1.3 Problem statement and knowledge gap

According to newspaper articles and posts on specific websites21_{, the management plan had}

been developed in cooperation with many different actors involved in the physical area of the SRDP. Once in Argentina, however, I encountered another form of participation than the one I had imagined from afar. In the reunion I attended, there were no inhabitants of the wetlands, nor representatives of municipalities. A discussion that arose in the gathering of 19-03-19 concerning the participation of residents in prior reunions, showed some friction between the management reality and the interests

11_{The highway opened in 2003 and has a total length of 59km, consisting of 13 bridges and 13 embankments. It}

was built to enhance transport between the provinces of Entre Ríos and Santa Fe, simultaneously stimulating international transport from Brazil to Chile, through Argentina (Dresken et al., 2000).

12_{The protest of NGOs and academia against Law Nº 10.092 implemented in 2012 led to a recall of this law by}

the government of Entre Ríos. The law would have allowed large scale agriculture on the islands of the Paraná (LaNacíon, 2012).

13_{Comité Intersectoral de Manejo (Giacosa, 2019).} 14_{Instituto Nacional de Tecnología Agropecuaria}

15_{In practice not all actors participate in all reunions. More on this in chapter 4, 5 and 6.}

21_{The facebook-page of the Sitio Rámsar Delta del Paraná, the website of Wetlands International :}

https://lac.wetlands.org/noticia/nuevo-mapa-del-sitio-ramsar-delta-del-parana/ https://www.facebook.com/RamsarDeltaDelParana/

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and practices of residents of the Rámsar site. Researchers that had been cooperating with some

isleñx23_{families on different projects prior to the Rámsar designation initiated the discussion, by}

demanding attention for the planned eviction of three isleñxs residing within the national park of Santa Fe by the Office of National Parks24_{. The researchers asked for the integration of residents into the}

area, instead of their expulsion. Additionally, they expressed their opinion on the lack of participation from the residents: "where are the locals in these reunions, aren't they important actors too?" The reaction from a government official of Santa Fe was that too much time had already been lost in discussing this topic in other reunions. He called the case too specific and said the reunion was not the right space to discuss this issue.

In my impression, most of the topics were performed as a routine: participants that represented specific topics informed other of the current situation, without stimulating a discussion. Some representatives of universities and local NGO's did not say a word during the whole reunion, seemed distracted by their phones and left early. In the second part of the meeting, only the two first rows actively practised a discussion: on the background participants retreated to speak one on one or to make a phone call. These observations made me wonder why participants attend these reunions. What motivates them to take part in the creation of the SRDP? Furthermore: how was the management committee planning to include other key actors, like commercial extraction companies or residents, in the “promotion of a sustainable development” of the area? These reflections, in combination with observations of practices carried out in the Paraná, made me change my research focus. Where my initial plan was to investigate the participative process in the creation of the management protocol, the gathering and observations showed partial participation that gave rise to yet other questions. What exactly was the SRDP anyway? All participants in the gathering seemed to acknowledge its existence, but how about the actors that were not present? In which ways did their wetland-realities coincide with the SRDP, apart from overlapping spatially?

To investigate these questions, this thesis considers management and islenx realities, looking at three ways in which the area covered by the SRDP is “done” – referred to as amphibious, paper, and terrestrial enactments. Observing how these enactments at times intermingle and at others interfere with each other, lays bare alliances and occasional power struggles between them. Both in the amphibious and terrestrial enactments, I predominantly focus on the practices carried out by inhabitants of (the surroundings of) the wetland. On the other hand, to analyse the paper reality of the wetland I look at the practices of politicians, academia, NGOs and other actors practised outside of the physical area of the SRDP. The recentness of the designation of the SRDP and the interest shown by different actors to actively contribute to the conservation of the area, make this a compelling case to investigate what it means for an area to receive a Rámsar title. The increasing attention given to wetlands and other ecosystems in the context of climate change (Costanza et al., 2014), is often embodied in a classic nature-culture binary in which humans and nature are seen as separate entities that can exist without relation to the other (Houck, 1998). The production of binaries like nature/culture, land/water, native/exotic, enact a static, hierarchical and controllable world that neglects the complexity and multiplicity of objects (Lahiri-Dutt, 2014; Jensen, 2017; Krause, 2018). By linking up with ANT this research takes an ontological approach in the debate around “socio-environmental issues”. Leaning on the ample body of literature written on ontological work (Mol, 2002; Law, 2004), it stands by the idea that a move away from universal truths allows to make visible

23_{Isleñx or islerx, both terms refer to the people who live on, or close to the wetlands or depend on them in}

their daily lives (for example, fishermen). More on this in paragraph 4.1

24_{At that moment, three (informal) residents of Isla Rico & Isla Mabel, situated within the national park, were}

threatened of eviction. Beginning of June 2019 one of these, a 72 years old fisherman, was evicted: his house was emptied and dismantled by rangers of the APN (ElCiudadano, 2019). More on this topic in chapter 6.

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the complexity and fluidity that characterizes the multiple world we live in. As Law (2015) says, although in “the North” visualizing multiplicity “tends to look like an elaborate and self-regarding game for intellectuals who are not interested in getting their hands dirty”, working with ontology can help encounter “ways of proceeding that acknowledge and respect difference as something that cannot be included”(ibid:128). Especially in a discipline like human geography, that claims its strength in its “integrative approach which addresses global connections, historical trends, and systemic political-economic and socio-cultural relations by drawing on the intellectual tradition in both the natural and social sciences”(Marston et al, 2011:2), it is important to bring back doubt and complexity. All of the prior considerations lead me to the following research question:

How does the “Sitio Rámsar Delta del Paraná” interfere and intermingle with existing wetland realities in the area?

1.4 Outline of the thesis

Chapter 2 starts by introducing the components of “Actor-Network Theory” used in this investigation to analyse the emerging realities of the Rámsar Site Delta del Paraná. It continues with an exploration of different ways in which wetlands are enacted taking Morita’s amphibious and terrestrial infrastructures as a point of departure and ends with introducing the concepts of alliances and translation alignment. Chapter 3 then lays out the methods and most important sources used for the investigation. Chapter 4, and 5 explore three performances of the chosen area by examining terrestrial, amphibious and paper or institutional enactments of the wetland. Where chapter 4 focuses on residents’ interaction with the wetland, chapter 5 explores some institutional practices through which the wetland is “done”. Finally, the interactions between the different realities are analysed in chapter 6. Chapter 7 holds the conclusion and discussion of the results, followed by the references used and two appendices.

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2 Theoretical Framework

Actor-Network Theory (ANT) has become a widely used term in academia in the past decades, with more and more researchers “making use of ANT” or “applying ANT” in their investigations (Müller, 2015). However, as Annemarie Mol (2010) remarks, Michel Callon, the first to use the concept “acteur-réseau” in the late ‘80s, never meant for it to become a theory. Better said: the concept was never meant to represent a static, coherent framework of which “the methods” would continuously be “refined” to “tame the world theoretically” (Mol, 2010:261). In line with ANT’s questioning and playful nature, Mol proposes the following: ANT could be a theory, but only if a theory “helps to tell cases, draw contrasts, articulate silent layers, turn questions upside down, focus on the unexpected, add to one’s sensitivities, propose new terms, and shift stories from one context to another”(ibid: 262). In this line of thought, defining ANT in a theoretical framework feels like a real paradox – as a repertoire that demands attention for ontology rather than epistemology, ANT needs to be done, and not

explained. However, as the innumerable amount of theses written have led to a notion of what an

acceptable thesis should contain, the readers of this object will expect a certain structure to it that I should respect. The question “what to do?” in this case leads me to make an attempt at introducing the value of linking up with ANT for the story I want to present in this document. To do this, I start with introducing some basic terms used by different pioneers of ANT, like Michel Callon, John Law and Bruno Latour, and most importantly for my project, Annemarie Mol.

2.1 Some sensitizing terms: actors, networks and enactment

By questioning and redefining what a theory is, and what it can be made to be, Mol touches upon a core practice of ANT - namely the constant reconfiguration of concepts, sites, events, or again realities. In ANT, the world is not óne, fixed, external entity, but rather constantly (re)created by the interplay between actors and actants (Callon, 2001). Instead of tracing causes or creating an explanatory framework of different studies, ANT observes effects. It triggers the researcher to be reflexive of his/her perceptions and perceptiveness, and trains his/her sensitivity (Mol, 2010). The question then is: how is ANT “done”? Which terms help “amateurs of reality” to “attune themselves to the world, to learn to be affected by it”(ibid: 261)? As I am far from being an expert in ANT – leaving aside the question of what makes one an expert anyway – I will only introduce the most crucial terms used in its configurations: actors, networks and enactment.

In simple terms, the actor is a human or non-human entity that “acts”. Apart from the characteristic of acting, an actor is not defined, and thus could be any entity that has a part in the observed process, as Callon (1999) demonstrates:

In a network of pure scientific mobilization, the actor resembles that dreadful white male enamoured of power and aligning the world around himself. […] The good news is that in a network of gifts, s/he gets tangled in links and relations that s/he does not want and from which he cannot disentangle him or herself. Suddenly he is generous and altruistic. […] This amounts to saying that there are no model actors. (Callon, 1999:193-4)

Former quote demonstrates how the “identity” of an actor is multiple and depends on the human and non-human network it is enrolled in. The actor can be understood as an empty container of which the content and actions are defined by the network it moves in (Michael, 2016). Acting then can be seen as the interaction an actor has with other actors in its surroundings: “Such acting may be strategic or subservient, and there are other possibilities as well. Stories about other cases experiment with other verbs: loving, tinkering, doctoring, caring. Actors may even, to some extent, let go” (Mol, 2010: 256). Mol’s quote shows that acting, just as the actor, is undefined and depends on the practice that is being observed. Acting always happens in relation to other actors and is a mutual process: all actors involved enact, enable and adapt their associates and vice versa. In this process, networks are created. These are

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composed of actors, that all act in relation to each other and with that both define the network they are enrolled in and their role in this network.

The multitude of possible configurations of actors and actions thus depends on the network actors are involved in, and that they simultaneously shape through their enrolment (Callon, 1999; Michael, 2016). These configurations could also be called “performances”, or “enactments”. Throughout ANT-literature, both are used interchangeably. Mol (..) however explains her preference for “enactment” over “performance”, as the latter “may be taken to suggest that there is a backstage, where the real reality is hiding. Or that something difficult is going on, that a successful accomplishment of a task is involved” (ibid: 32). She presents “enactment”, on the other hand, as a word that “doesn’t suggest too much”, but exactly enough: (a) it suggests that activities take place, without defining the actors; and (b) it suggests that things are enacted in the act – “only then and there” (ibid:32). It is by enactment that the actor’s identity is defined, through the contingency between actors and the network they’re enrolled in. An example from Mol’s (2002) book “The body multiple”, in which she explores different ways of doing atherosclerosis can help to illustrate this:

If atherosclerosis is enacted as a genetically based deviance, you are simply burdened with it if you have the wrong genes. However, in so far as the development of the disease is enacted as a lifestyle matter, someone with atherosclerosis may be accused of having led a bad, unhealthy life. In this context, then, the patient is marked as irresponsible. (ibid: 180)

This example shows how the enactment of one actor influences the enactment of the other. The site in which both are enacted also changes their identities: before getting to the hospital, atherosclerosis can be enacted as a pain in the legs, and the patient as someone who should take more rest. Furthermore, an object is always both an actor and a network at the same time: the computer used by an assistant to annotate an appointment for the patient, for example, is both an actor in the network of the hospital, and a network existing of a multitude of threads, connections, codes, electricity and so forth. In other words, whether something acts as an actor or network depends on the chosen focus. An endless variety of configurations and enactments thus exists interdependent from one another. Next paragraph explains this with the concept of multiplicity.

2.2 Multiplicity, co-existing realities and the politics of what

By approaching objects through ontology rather than epistemology, one steps away from apriori presumptions of universal objects existing in a singular reality. Objects become multiple, and with that realities too. However, this does not imply the pluralism nor fragmentation of an object26_.

Again, Mol’s book can be taken as an example. She shows how atherosclerosis, as a “disease” is enacted in multiple ways by different hospital practices, but is gathered under a single name. It is thus both singular and many. The same approach can be applied to the world, by speaking of a “multiple world of different enactments” instead of speaking of a “single container world” (Law, 2015: 127). This move from single to multiple is a political one, as it dismisses the idea of an “overarching logic” that can “mediate” between different perspectives. The world then exists as multiple co-existent worlds, enacted through “different and power-saturated practices” (ibid: 128). Of these practices, none is more or less “real” than the other, which shifts the question of alignment from the idea of the inclusion of a “less-valid” logic into an overarching logic, to an understanding of different but contingent, co-existent realities. As enacted objects relate to each other in complex ways, co-existence can take different shapes: “side by side, mutual inclusion, inclusion in tension, interference”(Mol, 2002: 150) being just a few on the endless list.

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The acknowledgement that multiple, co-existent realities exist, does not imply that these are free of norms and evaluations. Rather, norms and values can be seen as one of the enactments that relates to an object (ibid). An example should clarify this. Imagine a park ranger has to check the “sustainable use” of a “natural resource”, and he catches another actor “polluting” the resource. The ranger and the polluter can alter each other’s enactments and the signification of sustainable use. For example, the polluter can offer the ranger a sum of money, to turn a blind eye on his practices. Accepting this offer enacts the ranger as corrupt, the polluter as lucky, or powerful, and the norms of sustainability as a lie. If the ranger rejects this, the polluter becomes a briber, the ranger a virtuous man and the norms a valid framework.

Nevertheless, one important point is missing here: the relatedness of the ranger, the document and the polluter to a broader network, that enacts “good” and “bad” by practising “norms” and “values”. It is the embeddedness of these actors in “different ontologies and different ways of grading the good”, that allows their multiple enactments (Mol, 2002:181). What can be extracted from this, is the political character of grading or enacting “the good”: a process in which every actor is enrolled, and “there is no we to stand outside or above them, able to master them or choose between them: we are implied. Action, like everything else, is enacted, too” (ibid:181). The multiplicity of “the good” however, is often disguised by one-world enactments, in which a singular external truth and way of knowing is constantly enacted to dominate over others (Müller, 2015).

This idea of a multiple, performative world that contains multiple, contingent ways of knowing also goes under the name “ontological politics” or a “politics-of-what”. Ontological politics re-open the question “what to do”, by demonstrating that the answer to this is “not given in the order of things, but needs to be established. Doing good does not follow on finding out about it, but is a matter of, indeed, doing. Of trying, tinkering, struggling, failing, and trying again” (Mol, 2002: 175). In other words, acknowledging that “the good” is enacted and can never be known as one, steady and definable entity, allows the visibility of multiple ways of doing good, rather than silencing multiplicities that don’t align with the dominant realm. Instead of presuming ontology by subjecting it to rational theories and models of goodness, it includes ontology and practice into politics. However, ontological politics are not only about the doing of good and bad, but rather about what is being done and how? Through a materialization of politics, they replace “values and beliefs” by “things and issues of concern” (Müller, 2015: 31). “Issues” or “matters of concern” are political, and defined by their interrelation with other issues and entities. In the case of this thesis, for example, one could say the wetland became a matter

of concern for dominant entities when it showed potential for significant economic gain. However, the

new practices through which part of the wetlands are enacted now as a result of the new actors and practices that reached the wetlands, interfere with practices that existed there before. The tensions between these co-existing realities lead to a politicization of the wetland. Can these clashing practices continue in co-existence? Which practices are more powerful and why?

Former paragraphs have shown how ANT’s focus on materiality makes it particularly suitable to explore nature-society questions, as it draws back our attention to the often forgotten agency of “material things”, like bodies, animals, infrastructure, documents, ecosystems et cetera (Müller, 2015). Next section gives an example of how linking up with ANT helps to analyse different enactments of wetlands.

2.3 Wetlands as amphibious or terrestrial spaces

Wetlands are particular spaces, as they incorporate an infinite interplay between land and water. At times muddy, flooded or dry, they blur the “moralized” or “clean” notions of water and land as separate entities (Lahiri-Dutt, 2014). Throughout history, wetlands have been enacted in different ways of which the following two will be explored here: the amphibious, or aquatic and the terrestrial. In amphibious enactments of the wetland, life is organized fluidly around the water: for

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example, in the practice of living in houses on stilts, or using floods to grow crops in water (Jensen, 2017). Lahiri-Dutt (2014) calls these spaces “hybrid environments”; a concept that acknowledges the “constant negotiations between land and waters”, and brings back messiness, uncertainty and fluidity into water/landscapes. She describes how the water-land dichotomy has been reproduced throughout geographical history, leading to the hegemony of land over water, enacting land as valuable and secure, and water as useless and unstable. According to her, this led to the invisibility of hybrid water/lands, as infrastructural changes like dams transformed the space into solid land (ibid). Morita (2016) calls such interferences with waterscapes “terrestrial infrastructures”. These include all infrastructural changes “based on the creation and protection of dry land” (ibid: 119). In contrast, but not in opposition, to this, he defines “aquatic infrastructures” as “characterized by canal transport and ﬂood adaptive architecture”(ibid: 118). He uses these two enactments of wetlands to unveil the politics behind “infrastructuring” space: making the environment more terrestrial or more aquatic leads to different water/landscapes, that interact differently with floods and heavy rains. In the Chao Praya Delta region, the practice of overlaying terrestrial infrastructures on the ancient, amphibious infrastructures that were adapted to flooding, led to a catastrophe during a period of historic flooding in 2011. In the light of this disaster, the question how to infrastructure the environment became a political one, as the floods enacted the relatively new terrestrial enactment of the delta as “vulnerable” and long-practised amphibious practices regained appreciation as they offered solutions for surplus water (ibid).

In Morita’s story on the Chao Praya’s Monkey Cheek project, one can read the power-dynamics between the terrestrial and amphibious reality between the lines. The new appreciation for amphibious modes of living that continue to be practiced in certain regions of the delta namely means that the people that kept this lifestyle now face the loss of crops in times of flooding, as it is their land that is inundated to prevent the loss of lives of others situated in more terrestrial realities. Although a life for a crop sounds like a great bargain, continuing to enact the delta in these manners could reinforce injustices between actors living in these two sites.

2.4 Topological space and alliances

By demonstrating the significance of history for the current infrastructures and the scale transcending nature of practices (like the design of the terrestrial infrastructures made by Dutch experts), Morita’s description of the Chao Pray Delta demonstrates that practices are situated, not only in space but also in time (Mol, 2002). The idea that sites and practices are not only situated in geographical areas but transcend apriori conceptions of scale is in line with ANT’s concept of topological space. Considering space as topological entails that it is not the distance that can be measured in kilometres or miles that counts, but the closeness between entities in a network (Müller, 2015). An example from Latour (1996) explains it right away: “I can be one metre away from someone in the next telephone booth, and be nevertheless more closely connected to my mother 6,000 miles away” (ibid: 371).

Applying this idea to scales reconfigures the preconceptions of geographical scales like the global and local: these all only exist as enactments created by practices and associations. Suddenly the distance between local and global disappears, and a global convention signed to stimulate agro-ecology is just as local as a farmer planting a flower barrier around his field to attract more bees. The idea of a topological or network-scale is very suitable to define trans-local alliances (Müller, 2015), as the support of international NGOs to local projects. Such movements can cooperate throughout geographical scales, all the while retaining a place-based focus, or on the contrary use the contradictions between localities as a “universal politics” in which multiple enactments of justice come together (Routledge, 2003:337). The convergence space, in which different interests come together, offer the possibility for various social formations to gather under one shared horizon of action. Ideally,

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they display harmony and are not tainted by the domination of one goal or one ideology (Routledge, 2003). It is rare however that the intentions of different groups in the alliance completely overlap (Horowitz, 2011). Due to differences in access to resources and networks, power-relations are often unequal within convergence spaces (Routledge, 2003). These inequities can lead to a dependence of some actors to others involved, giving the dominant actors the possibility to decide to translate the aims of the collective as they prefer. Translating in this context can be understood as a demonstration to the other actors that the goals they are aiming for will be best achieved with the translator’s assistance and/or approval (Michael, 2016). Generally, this will be the translation that is most compatible with powerful institutions. Although perspectives and ideologies might be shared, trans-local alliances are often fragile and offer few possibilities for the translation alignment of ontologies with little power. However, the work of transnational alliances also helps to enact a space that forces powerful actors to align their goals with the translations of the communities they impact (Horowitz, 2011).

As alliances are all tainted by compromise, their durability depends on the extent of compatibility of the translations on which they rely (Horowitz, 2011). Co-labouring and co-learning at different scales, offer possibilities for the creation of a stronger convergence space. Yates et al (2017) illustrate that in Canada several projects between First Nation communities and water operators are moving towards an open dialogue between different ontologies, creating spaces for exchange and co-learning, like training programs and advisory boards run by the local communities (ibid). Another research, carried out by Maclean (2015) shows how the creation of “boundary objects” can facilitate knowledge translation and collaboration across boundaries. Boundaries in this sense are understood as barriers between different actors, like policymakers and local residents, or different knowledge systems. Boundary objects, that emerge from a collaboration between actors from both sides of the boundary through a transparent process, facilitate communication and negotiations between these. They can take the form of documents, artworks or other tools; in all cases, they function as connecting objects (ibid).

2.5 Research questions

Former paragraphs have set the paradigm in which this thesis is situated, of which the most important aspect is the concept of a multiple, constantly re-emerging world. In a thesis that takes an epistemological approach, this would be the time to introduce a conceptual scheme that shows how the different concepts used in the theoretical framework relate to each other. However, although I used such a scheme before leaving for my fieldwork to have a broad idea of what I was going to research, my theoretical framework changed significantly when I came back due to the open approach taken during the research period. From a question that assumed general definitions of concepts like land-rights, power-relations and alliances, I stepped towards the questioning and relational approach offered by ANT. As a consequence, introducing a conceptual scheme that gives a simplified overview of the relation between concepts, seems like the denial of the contingency and complexity of the realities I have investigated. I thus choose to escape from protocol in this case, as I fear that the visualization that comes with a conceptual scheme is too steering for the purpose of this thesis, namely to attune its readers to the multiplicity and complexity of the object observed. Appendix I, however, does hold the operationalization of the concepts I had used before leaving, for the sake of transparency. However, as my understanding of ontology and practices grew during the thesis process, this table is not applicable anymore and I would like to ask the reader to first read the thesis, and only have a look at this table if necessary for protocol, so as not to be influenced by it in further reading. Following the first two chapters, the research questions that shaped this thesis can be introduced. In this research, the spatial location of the SRDP serves as a starting point from where multiple wetland-realities can be explored, taking into account that these transcend the geographical

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site. Although the SRDP helped in framing the research, it is not considered to be more real than the other realities present within the geographical area and the networks it contains. In other words, this thesis seeks to understand the significance of the SRDP in relation to other enactments of the wetland, by exploring the following research question:

How does the “Sitio Rámsar Delta del Paraná” interfere and intermingle with existing wetland realities in the area?

To help answer the main research question, I developed three questions. The first two sub-questions are: (1) Who is involved, and what is at stake in the terrestrial, paper and amphibious

enactments of the wetland? and (2) Through what practices, objects, technologies and stories are these realities enacted? These two questions together help to describe the chosen realities, by introducing

who enacts them (which actors and networks are involved), and how they are enacted (which practices, etc.). Chapter 4 and 5 answer these contingent questions, preparing the stage for the last sub-question: (3) How do the different realities of the wetland co-exist and interact? Where the former questions and chapters separated the three realities to describe them, this question looks at how the three realities intermingle and interfere in practice, giving an insight into the messiness and complexity present within the area of research. It explores the interactions that occur when one reality (the SRDP) is used as a mould to impose on others – which practices are used for this, and to what extent do these practices transcend their own reality? Sub-question 3 is answered in chapter 6. By bringing together the findings of all three chapters, chapter 6 also answers the main question.

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3 Methods and data analysis

As briefly mentioned in the introduction, this research adheres to a performative approach in which not one reality exists, but multiple realities are enacted by different actors/actants, networks and their practices. As Law (2015) proposes, one-world metaphysics “reduce difference” and “evacuate reality from non-dominant reals”(ibid: 134). Acknowledging the existence of multiple lifeworlds allows stepping away from hierarchical evaluations of knowledge, practices and purposes. If the world does not consist of óne reality, on which different perspectives and discourses are projected, but many co-existing and interacting realities, none can be treated as less or more, as each is as real as the other.

3.1 Praxiography as a research method

Following this line of thought, praxiography, an ANT-method that studies practices, seemed a suitable methodology for a relational analysis of practices through which the wetland is performed. Praxiography aims to reconstruct the meaning of three core elements of practice and the interplay between them: implicit knowledge, bodily movements and artefacts. It “allows and requires one to take objects and events of all kinds into consideration when trying to understand the world”(Mol, 2002: 158). Based on the idea that “objects enacted depend on practicality” (Mol, 2002:160), it researches what is “immediately accessible” and distils implicit background knowledge out of that, through interpretation. Practices do not stand on their own: they are thoroughly interrelated and nested in each other. As such, rather than being bound to apriori conceptions of scale, like micro and macro, or local and global, they propose an open approach to scale (Bueger, 2014)– a flat ontology of scale. This approach is suitable for investigating the different enactments of the SRDP, as these exist through networks that transcend geographical scale.

3.2 Location of the research

During my fieldwork of approximately 10 weeks, I stayed in the city of Rosario, province of Santa Fe. Although this city is not included within the area of the SRDP, it was an important location to meet “environmentalists” as the city is home to a few active NGOs and CSOs. As the Paraná flows right by Rosario, I had the opportunity to get acquainted with “el Río” and “La Isla” fairly soon, and through different practices (kayaking; crossing with a lancha – the boat service for visitors; passing by the city’s beach and industrial shores, et cetera). Even if the islands in front of Rosario are slightly different from the islands within the SRDP (far more urbanised and transformed for recreational use), staying in Rosario helped me gain insights in the outlook of citizens on “nature”, and the wetlands. Furthermore, many of the people involved with the SRDP often visited the city, and two official meetings I attended were held there. To explore “the SRDP” and for some interviews, I visited cities that surround the designated area (Diamante, Paraná, Puerto Gaboto, Santa Fe, Victoria), and the National Park Pre-Delta.

According to hydrologists, the Argentinian part of the Paraná is defined as a delta divided in three: el Delta Superior, el Delta Medio, and el Bajo Delta (Ríos, 2015). This division is based on the altitude of the river’s water that gradually diminishes as it flows South, resulting in more terrestrial landscapes in the Bajo Delta27_{. Based on this division of the wetlands, the SRDP is located in Delta}

Superior. As reported in the management protocol for the site, the SRDP covers an area of 243.126 hectares, divided between the central government, Entre Ríos province and Santa Fe province. Table

27_{The cities of Rosario and Victoria are on the limit of the Delta Medio and Superior. Generally, they are spoken}

of as situated in Delta Superior, but sometimes as situated in Delta Medio (TE, personal communication, 07/03/19).

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1 gives an overview of how the committee installed to create a management protocol for the Rámsar site divides and make sense of the site on paper.

Table 1: Division of the SRDP in administrative documents

Source: Giacosa (2019) – unpublished.

The SRDP can also be visualized as a single bordered area, as done by the NGO Wetlands International in the figure below. This visualization and division of the site have been contested amongst others by participants of the reunions of the Intersectoral Management Committee (CIM) that stated that borders clash with the Rámsar philosophy, as its main idea is to create connecting corridors of conservation.

Figure 2: Map created by Wetlands International, showing the SRDP as a single bordered area

Source: Wetlands International, 2019, legend translated by author. Central Government PN Pre Delta (ER) 4.096 ha

Total surface 243.126 ha PN Islas de Santa Fe

(SF)

2.458 ha

Santa Fe Province Dpt. of San Jerónimo 112.524 ha

Entre Ríos Province Dpt. of Diamante (Section of “Islas”)

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3.3 Data collection & analysis: Primary data

Following a praxiographical research design, I used the triangulation of different qualitative methods for data collection. Primary data consisted of interviews, conversations, co-researching, “small-talk” and observations. Furthermore, Facebook pages, blogs and online conversations were also used to gain insights into the topic and keep on track with recent developments. Interviewees and conversation partners were encountered through a snowballing technique with the help of actors that granted me access to other actors, data and sites, also called “gatekeepers” (Bryman, 2012:85); during meetings attended and through direct contact via data found online. All data were collected in Spanish. Concerning the analysis of the data a general comment can be made: the development of main- and sub-codes was a fluid, inductive process, as themes came up during the fieldwork through repetition, emphasis and special definitions detected in different data collection methods (Bryman, 2012). In other words, although I used specific analysis tools for some data, most of the codes used had already come up in my fieldwork diary28_.

3.3.1 Interviews

Fifteen semi-structured in-depth interviews were conducted in Spanish, with a length varying between 60 and 90 minutes (see Appendix II for an overview of the interviews taken). All interviewees were informed on the research topic and the use of the data. As many of the interviewees know each other within the (political) world of “environmental issues”, I guaranteed anonymity: none of their personal (sur)names were used. The topic list29_{was revised after each interview to cope with}

“expectancy effects”: “the tendency for experimenters to obtain results they expect, not simply because they have correctly anticipated nature's response but rather because they have helped to shape that response through their expectations”(Bernard, 2011:177). Although interviews “are not the practices themselves” (Bueger, 2014: 400), they offer the possibility to access implicit background knowledge through the interaction between interviewer and interviewee. As Bueger (2014) states: “Since an interview is usually carried out in a dialogue, the interviewer and the interviewee re-construct meaning together; they co-produce an interpretation of practices” (ibid: 400). The interviews were recorded and notes were taken during the process to facilitate the analysis later on. Due to the limited time frame, not all interviews were transcribed and coded in the same way. The five longest and most data-rich interviews were transcribed entirely and coded using Atlas.ti. The rest of the interviews was transcribed using a different method: I summarized passages (including citations), annotated their exact beginning and ending time, and coded the passage as extensively as possible by hand (example in Appendix II). The Word-documents were between 3 and 6 pages of length. When analysing the data, I typed a code in the Word-search bar, selected a fragment and listened back to it to use it.

3.3.2 Co-researching, conversations and “small talk”

As different academics that are involved with the management protocol of the SRDP currently carry out research in the area, the opportunity to have conversations with several of them was very insightful. The most important encounter was with V. Vidal, an anthropologist that had carried out several months of ethnographic research in Las Cuevas and during the reunions organized for the management protocol. Not only did she give me access to relevant data she had collected, but she also

28_{I did not use my fieldwork diary on a daily basis, but rather as a notebook to write down impressions and}

reflections on visits, interviews and daily life in Rosario. Things like: how did a certain city feel in comparison to another, political comments I had overheard, the link of the upcoming elections with the non-response of functionaries, how different and time-consuming some daily activities are arranged in Argentina (transportation system, paying taxes, etc.).

29_{The topic list was created through a thorough exploration of documents, newspaper articles, and other}

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shared her thoughts and reflections with me, and we kept in contact, exchanging ideas and articles. Furthermore, the informal conversations held with some interviewees like one of the park rangers I spent a whole day with, an NGO member that showed me around, or phone calls with residents that I eventually didn’t have the chance to meet in person, played a significant role in my understanding of the vast array of wetland realities, and the multiple conflicts and alliances between these. I kept track of these insights in my fieldnotes.

3.3.3 (Participant) observation

I carried out unstructured participant observations during two general meetings I attended (one of the CIM, and the other of EPNST), taking notes on the comments, behaviour and interactions that caught my attention. This helped me outline the dynamics of negotiations and practices that do not entail speech (for example, performativity in reunions, body language, speaking time, etc.)(Bueger, 2014). I was granted access to the CIM meeting through a request sent to the organizer, by members of the NGO Taller Ecologista. Furthermore, as mentioned before, I visited several cities in the surroundings of the SRDP, and a national park within the area to conduct observations on the visibility of the Rámsar for uninformed users and visitors of the space. Moving around the provinces of Santa Fe and Entre Ríos gave me insight in far more practices and technologies that define people’s lives: for example, the inaccessibility of some spaces and activities, but also the significance of “nature” and “el Río” to different people. My whole stay in Argentina could be considered as an exercise in participant observation, as through my daily activities and encounters I was acquainted with a general feel of how life goes around for a Rosario citizen – the unspoken structures and limitations people encounter in their daily lives, the frustrations they share in the company of others, the implicit information that lies behind things like the sudden appearance of multiple road-maintenance projects just before the elections, and many more.

3.4 Data collection & analysis: Secondary data

Various types of documents were analysed to gain insights into the different enactments of the area. Interviewees shared unpublished documents and plans with me, the most important one being the management protocol, in the making, for the SRDP. Ecological and hydrological evaluations and the protocols and project-plans based on these served to gain insights in desired practices and “the knowledge that informs them”(Bueger, 2014:401). These “reasonable” practices generally only exist in the reality of the creators of these documents, greatly contrasting with the practices carried elsewhere and by others that enact different realities of the SRDP. Studying these documents helped me define the paper reality of the wetland.

While doing my fieldwork, I realised that other data was needed to gain insights into the terrestrial and amphibious realities of the area. I was lucky to have met V. Vidal by then, who helped me discover several interesting works on the isleñx lifestyle (outside of her own articles and data), the most important one being the elaborate doctors thesis of Juan Casimiro Tomassi (2017): Pescador, cazador y puestero: Trabajo y reproducción social en el Delta entrerriano. An overview of the unpublished data she shared with me is given in Appendix II. Vidal and Tomassi’s work, in combination with documentaries, articles by other researchers and the information shared by outsiders in interviews provided rich secondary data on the direct users of the wetland.

Finally, newspaper articles, photos, maps, websites, blogs and facebook-pages and conversations were also an important source for data. For all of these sources, again, a snowballing method was used. The documents were thoroughly studied, but not coded, and the websites and pages were used as an additional information source and to keep up to date and encounter other important actors or themes in the area.

Reflections of a thousand Paranás : exploring Exploring multiple enactments of an Argentinian wetland

Reflections of a

thousand Paranás

Exploring multiple enactments of an Argentinian wetland

Anahita Innavong

12-08-2019

Reflections of a thousand Paranás

Exploring multiple enactments of an Argentinian wetland

Abstract

Contents

List of figures, tables, images and textboxes

List of abbreviations

1 Introduction

1.1 The Rámsar convention as a point of departure

1.2 The area within the borders of the Sitio Rámsar Delta Paraná

1.3 Problem statement and knowledge gap

1.4 Outline of the thesis

2 Theoretical Framework

2.1 Some sensitizing terms: actors, networks and enactment

2.2 Multiplicity, co-existing realities and the politics of what

2.3 Wetlands as amphibious or terrestrial spaces

2.4 Topological space and alliances

2.5 Research questions

3 Methods and data analysis

3.1 Praxiography as a research method

3.2 Location of the research

3.3 Data collection & analysis: Primary data

3.3.1 Interviews

3.3.2 Co-researching, conversations and “small talk”

3.3.3 (Participant) observation

3.4 Data collection & analysis: Secondary data