The Matanza Riachuelo is a heavily contaminated 64 km long river that runs along the southern peripheries of the city of Buenos Aires. There are three sources of contamination: sewage, industrial waste, and garbage. It is estimated that health and living conditions are highly risky for at least 1.7 million people living in the river basin.
Why Citizen Social Science for Environmental Justice in Buenos Aires?
Policy actions in the basin must include the understanding of the affected population about the nature and meaning of such socio-environmental risks, to ensure robust social participation needed to guarantee environmental justice.
We understand Environmental Justice as fair and meaningful participation of all people directly affected by environmental pollution. This includes participation in decision-making processes, in the definition of what the problem, as well as the social-environmental risks, are, and in the design of actions to mitigate these risks. Therefore, gathering information about how different groups of citizens in the Matanza-Riachuelo basin think about and identify these risks is very much needed.
How will it happen?
The project will have a direct impact on raising the visibility of the problems of living and working in Matanza-Riachuelo basin. We will use different tools to achieve this goal, e.g. collective mapping methodologies to identify key categories of social/environmental harm within a population, workshops to co-design the research, and a public-access database that will be generated using an open source platform.
Actions happening since 2020
First meeting of the coordination team
We had the initial meeting in FARN premises to start the coordination of activities between the teams of both institutions…
Semi-structured Interviews
21 April – 2 December, 2020. FARN and UNSAM identified stakeholders from the academia, public policy, non-governmental and local communities…
First Microworkshop
Through a videocall local community actors were engaged in a discussion of their problems, the actors with whom they create…
Second Microworkshop
Through a videocall local communities’ actors were engaged in a discussion of their problems, the actors with whom they create alliances and…
Co-design Workshop
A workshop was conducted with stakeholders from the academia, public policy, non-governmental and local communities organisations. 35 people participated. The…
Third Microworkshop
A face-to-face meeting with neighbours and local organisations’ members, to map and discuss the problems they face in relocation processes,…
Internal Co-design Workshop
FARN, UNSAM and M7red joined this virtual internal workshop to set specific objectives for the Citizen Science Platform and to…
Interviews & Informal conversations
January to December FARN and UNSAM have started interviewing researchers working on platform themes to collect impressions regarding the methodological…
3 Online Platform’s Co-design workshops on resettlements and redevelopment process
April 30th , August 11th & September 1st , 2021 – FARN and UNSAM organized 3 online workshops with people living…
2 Online Recognition Workshops with community libraries
May 19th & June 23rd UNSAM organized the first recognition workshop with community libraries from the basin and a second…
3 Online Platform’s Co-design workshops conservation of natural areas
June 3rd, August 5th & November 29th – FARN and UNSAM organized 3 online workshops with members of other CSO’s,…
Informal conversations
June 18th to November 27th – UNSAM had informal conversations with territorial actors and networks to have inputs to develop…
5 Online Platform’s Co-design workshops on water quality
September 3rd & 17, October 1st and 15th & October 29th , 2021 – UNSAM co-organized 5 online platform’s co-design workshops…
2 Onsite Platform’s Co-design workshops on water quality
November 13th and 27th – UNSAM organized these onsite workshops together with the same popular library that has been involved…
Onsite Platform’s Co-design workshops on the conservation of natural areas
FARN and UNSAM organized this workshop together with a member of a civil society organization that fights for the conservation…
Onsite Platform’s Co-design workshops on resettlement and redevelopment processes
FARN and UNSAM organized this workshop together with another CSO in one of the neighborhoods affected by the redevelopment process….
Online planification meeting
FARN and UNSAM took part in an online workshop using collaborative tools to make a balance of the year and…
Testimonial videos
The production of three five-minute videos and two shorter ones with testimonials by co-researchers finished. These videos share co-researchers experiences…
Deskwork
Febraury-March, 2022 UNSAM and FARN researchers systematised participants’ discussions to finalise contents for the beta version of QPR platform, including…
Methodology’s interviews
May 9th – August 2nd Interviews with public policy actors for q-method analysis. Q-method is a research technique that allows for the…
CoAct Environmental Justice is mentioned in a scientific TV show
June 3rd, August 9th, August 31st, September 9th, September 19th CoAct Environmental Justice is mentioned (since min. 27:30) in the public…
5 implementation workshops
August 13th, September 15th, September 25th, September 27th, September 30th, October 22nd – 2022 Implementation workshops of the platform QPR…
6 dissemination workshops or activities
August 13thSeptember 15thSeptember 25thSeptember 27thSeptember 30thOctober 22nd 2022 Dissemination workshops and activities with organizations in the basin which had not participated…
Hackathon for using QPR data and platform for environmental education
September 20th – 2022 A policy workshop with 21 policy makers was organised at premises of the Science and Technology Ministry….
CoAct for Environmental Justice results and reflections were presented in four sessions the European Citizen Science Conference in Berlin
October 6th and 7th 2022 Different aspects of CoAct R&I #3 Environmental Justice R&I were presented in four sessions of the…
UNSAM, Official Launch event: Presentation of the National Citizen Science Programme
October 31st, 2022 In an event in the Ministry of Science and Technology and with the participation of the Minister…
Workshop with “Escuelas Verdes”
November 25th, 2022 UNSAM team organised a workshop with 21 public policy officials working in a Programme of Environmental Education…
