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[EN] For over a decade, Salvadorean grassroots movements and non-governmental organisations (NGOs) pursued legal innovations with the aim of protecting their water sources from potentially polluting industrial activities such as mining. They initially drafted bans on mining that would preclude the extractive-based development path embraced by neighbouring countries. Eventually, they scaled up their approach and devised a draft proposal for a transboundary waters treaty that addressed the challenges that the ecological materiality of international watercourses poses to national de jure sovereignty. In so doing, the transboundary watershed has become a useful heuristic, a spatial trope to which Salvadoreans have turned to substantiate their claims to sovereignty over the Lempa River waters that El Salvador shares with promining Guatemala and Honduras – claims imbued with an ethics of care rooted in wartime politics and Catholic morality, [ES] Durante más de una década, movimientos de base y organizaciones no gubernamentales (ONGs) salvadoreñas promovieron innovaciones legales con el fin de proteger las fuentes de agua de su país de actividades industriales potencialmente contaminantes como la minería. Inicialmente redactaron prohibiciones de la minería con el fin de evitar la senda de desarrollo en base a la extracción adoptada por los países vecinos. Eventualmente, ampliaron su enfoque y diseñaron una propuesta de tratado de aguas transfronterizas que tomase en cuenta los desafíos que la materialidad ecológica de los cursos de agua internacionales supone para la soberanía nacional de jure. De este modo, la cuenca hidrográfica transfronteriza ha devenido una figura heurística útil, un tropo espacial al que la ciudadanía salvadoreña ha recurrido para sustanciar sus reclamos de soberanía sobre las aguas del Río Lempa que El Salvador comparte con las naciones pro-minería de Guatemala y Honduras – reclamos que han sido imbuidos de una ética del cuidado que hunde sus raíces en la política de la guerra y la moralidad católica., [PT] Por mais de uma década, movimentos de base e organizações não governamentais (ONGs) salvadorenhas promoveram inovações jurídicas para proteger as fontes hídricas desse país de atividades industriais com potencial poluente, como é o caso da mineração. Inicialmente, redigiram proibições à atividade mineradora, com o intuito de impedir uma trajetória extrativista, adotada pelos países vizinhos. Posteriormente, ampliaram sua ação, elaborando uma proposta preliminar de um tratado de águas transfronteiriças que abordasse os desafios representados pela materialidade ecológica dos cursos de água internacionais no que tange à soberania de direito em âmbito nacional. Assim, a bacia hidrográfica transfronteiriça tornou-se uma figura heurística útil, um tropo espacial ao qual recorreram os salvadorenhos para fundamentar suas reivindicações de soberania sobre as águas do Rio Lempa, compartilhadas entre El Salvador, de um lado, e Guatemala e Honduras, países pró-mineração, do outro. São reivindicações imbuídas de uma ética do cuidado enraizada na política de guerra e na moralidade católica., Research for this article was funded by an Economic and Social Research Council Future Research Leaders award (ESRC ES/ N017870/1).

Este artículo está sujeto a una licencia CC BY-NC-ND 4.0., In 2017 El Salvador passed the world’s first and only blanket ban on metal mining. This article explores this unique exception to the neoextractive path followed by much of Latin America since the early 2000s—an exception brought about by citizen-led lawmaking processes. Drawing from fieldwork research in El Salvador, I suggest that the ban was enabled not so much by a negative assessment of extraction-led development as by multiple other factors, including short-term electoral expediencies; the shared genealogy and history of grassroots opposed to mining and left-wing governments; the ongoing convergence of nationwide anti-mining movements supported by the Catholic Church; and a lack of vested interests in the mining industry on the part of local elites. Indeed, a few years on from the ban, successive governments have not fulfilled their obligation to eradicate mining, with many activists fearing an eventual repeal. Crucially, citizen-led lawmaking aimed at undoing the neoliberal ethos of the legal architecture that has facilitated mining throughout much of Latin America has failed to address the colonial legacies of this architecture. Overall, the article argues that mining-free futures require comprehensive lawmaking endeavours that include both legislative challenges to neoliberal statecraft and a comprehensive overhaul and decolonization of the legal foundations of mining., This work was supported by an Economic and Social Research Council Future Research Leaders award (grant number ES/N017870/1).

Este artículo está sujeto a una licencia CC BY 4.0., [ES] Spurred by our concern for the university institution and its increasing dependence on unstable employment contracts, we present possible approaches for future analyses of precarity in the academic world. We emphasise the most invisible aspects of precarity that materialise in the neoliberal practices to which we adhere in our daily lives. Such practices render us—and academia—vulnerable, while transforming academic work into an individual and competitive endeavour. Our goal is to seek other imaginaries for both academia and the university institution, reclaiming its public quality as a common project and questioning its nature., [EN] Partiendo de una preocupación por la Universidad, que cada vez más se sostiene sobre contratos precarios, apuntamos posibles aspectos a abordar en futuros análisis de la precariedad en la academia, especialmente de sus dimensiones más invisibles, aquellas que se concretan en prácticas neoliberales a las que nos adherimos en nuestro quehacer cotidiano y que (nos) vulnerabilizan a la par que convierten el trabajo en la academia en una labor individual y de competición. Al hacerlo, pretendemos encontrar otro imaginario de la labor académica, y de la Universidad, que recupere lo público como proyecto común a la vez que se interrogue sobre su naturaleza.