Abstract

Environmental problems imply a dispute not only about what to do to solve them, but also about how these problems are defined or understood. These disputes involve different knowledge and approaches, and at the same time they are crossed by different interests, such as those mobilized by the private or business sectors. The main objective of this paper is to analyze the link between business strategies and knowledge asymmetries and omissions in a particular case: the socio-environmental problems related to bioethanol production in the city of Córdoba, Argentina. For this purpose, an analysis of different written documents (judicial, academic, journalistic) and interviews with different social actors involved in the conflict were carried out. From the analysis, a hierarchization of the knowledge involved was observed, in which different levels of exclusion of knowledge led to certain approaches of Chemical Engineering being central to the judicial decisions taken. Likewise, different corporate strategies were recognized around the production and discussion of evidence in this conflict, highlighting the appeal to the multi-causality related to any polluting event. Finally, the phenomena of knowledge hierarchization and business strategies have worked together to dilute the company's responsibility for the reported damages and to allow the implementation of state measures that made possible the permanence of the factory in coexistence with residential dwellings.