Environmental situation and youth

Social protest in La Pampa in the last decade

Abstract

This paper aims to reflect on youth participation in socio-environmental protests and conflicts, especially in the experiences of the city of Santa Rosa, La Pampa, during the last decade. The areas of interest focus on the role of youth as a prominent actor in this type of struggles and its relation to the critical moments between 2012 and 2022. It is argued that youth in Santa Rosa became a relevant collective actor in the framework of local socio-environmental protests, maintaining a continuous experience throughout the last decade, by incorporating new demands, resignifying organizational forms, repertoires, and in articulation with new national and international agendas. At the beginning of 2012, socio-environmental protests were mobilized by a conflict that occupied the public scene for almost a century, the conflict over the Atuel River. From that year onwards there was a change in the protest dynamics, new slogans, demands, and concerns were incorporated, not only on a local scale, but also on a regional and international scale. At the same time, youth political participation began to be at the forefront of this type of struggle.