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…
Semi-structured Interviews
21 April – 2 December, 2020 – FARN and UNSAM identified stakeholders from the academia,…
First Microworkshop
Through a videocall local communities’ actors were engaged in a discussion of their problems, the…
Second Microworkshop
Through a videocall local communities’ actors were engaged in a discussion of their problems, the…
Co-design Workshop
A workshop was conducted with stakeholders from the academia, public policy, non-governmental and local communities’…
Third Microworkshop
A face-to-face meeting with neighbours and local organisations’ members, to map and discuss the problems…
Internal Co-design Workshop
FARN, UNSAM and M7red joined this virtual internal workshop to set specific objectives for the…
Interviews & Informal conversations
January to December, 2021 – FARN and UNSAM interviewed researchers working on platform themes to…
3 Online Platform’s Co-design workshops on the resettlements and redevelopment process theme
April 30th , August 11th & September 1st, 2021 – FARN and UNSAM organised 3…
2 Online Recognition Workshops with community libraries
May 19th & June 23rd, 2021 – UNSAM organized the first recognition workshop with community…
3 Online Platform’s Co-design workshops conservation of natural areas
June 3rd, August 5th & November 29th, 2021 – FARN and UNSAM organised 3 online…
Informal conversations
June 18th to November 27th, 2021 – UNSAM had informal conversations with territorial actors and…
5 Online Platform’s Co-design workshops on water quality
September 3rd & 17, October 1st and 15th & October 29th , 2021 – UNSAM co-organized…
2 Onsite Platform’s Co-design workshops on water quality
November 13th and 27th, 2021 – UNSAM organised these onsite workshops together with the same…
Onsite Platform’s Co-design workshops on the conservation of natural areas
FARN and UNSAM organised this workshop together with a member of a civil society organization…
Onsite Platform’s Co-design workshops on resettlement and redevelopment processes
FARN and UNSAM organised this workshop together with another CSO in one of the neighborhoods…
Online planification meeting
FARN and UNSAM took part in an online workshop using collaborative tools to make a…
Testimonial videos
The production of three five-minutes video and two shorter ones with testimonials by co-researchers finished….
Deskwork
February – March, 2022 – UNSAM and FARN researchers systematised participants’ discussions to finalise contents…
Q Methodology’s interviews
May 9th – August 2nd, 2022 – 14 interviews with public policy actors for q-method…
5 implementation workshops
June 3rd, August 9th, August 31st, September 9th and September 19th, 2022- Implementation workshops of…
CoAct Environmental Justice is mentioned in a scientific TV show
CoAct Environmental Justice is mentioned (since min. 27:30) in the public TV channel by representatives…
6 dissemination workshops or activities
August 13th, September 15th, September 25th, September 27th, September 30th and October 22nd, 2022- Dissemination…
Hackathon for using QPR data and platform for environmental education
A hackathon with 14 faculty members of an institute for teaching training located in the…
Policy Workshop with the participation of 21 policy makers
A policy workshop with 21 policy makers was organised at premises of the Science and…
CoAct for Environmental Justice results and reflections were presented in four sessions of the European Citizen Science Conference in Berlin
October 6th and 7th, 2022- Different aspects of CoAct R&I #3 Environmental Justice R&I were…
UNSAM, Official Launch event: Presentation of the National Citizen Science Programme
In an event in the Ministry of Science and Technology and with the participation of…
Workshop with “Escuelas Verdes”
UNSAM team organised a workshop with 21 public policy officials working in a Programme of…
