Anti-fracking mobilisation
and the “ordinance movement”
in Argentina
Notes on the legal repertoire of contention
in the Vaca Muerta formation
Tobias Etienne-Greenwood
Luis Gabriel Escobar Blanco
ABSTRACT
This paper presents a sociological and legal analysis of a mode of action – municipal regulations promulgation – within a legal repertoire of action employed by opponents to Vaca Muerta’s unconventional hydrocarbon formation exploitation using the technology known as hydraulic fracturing (fracking). The inductive approach favoured here (textual analysis and comparison of the ordinances, information collection through semi-structured interviews) seeks to demonstrate that the choice of such a mode of action responds, on the one hand, to structural constraints of a political-legal nature and, on the other, reflects an attempt to foster a biocentric turn that is rooted in reflexive activist practices.