CALL FOR PAPERS – ReDiS/UEG THEMATIC DOSSIER: “Nature and Environmental Law in the Face of Neoliberalism in Latin America” (2027.1)

Over the last decades, the deepening of neoliberalism in Latin America has intensified processes of appropriation, privatization, and commodification of nature, as well as the expansion of (neo)extractive frontiers. These processes are connected to global dynamics through which the region’s territories are incorporated into new circuits of financial valorization, increasingly subordinating nature and territories to market logic.

The contemporary expansion of extractive frontiers is also undergoing major transformations. Although the exploitation of hydrocarbons, minerals, timber, and agro-industrial products remains central, these activities are increasingly accompanied by others directly related to decarbonization strategies and the energy transition. Rather than necessarily replacing the extractive model, these transformations have expanded and diversified the ways in which territories, natural assets, and labor are incorporated into global circuits of accumulation.

It is also important to recognize that processes of dispossession of commons and knowledge have been fostered, in different contexts, by the so-called progressive governments that have shaped political processes in the region since the turn of the century. Although these political projects incorporated demands for social redistribution and the expansion of rights, they also maintained conditions favorable to the reproduction and expansion of capitalist relations, in a context marked by the so-called Commodities Consensus, by development models based on the intensive exploitation of commons, and by the expansion of (neo)extractive processes associated with contemporary dynamics of financial accumulation.

At the same time, the rise of the so-called “new right” has brought back to the center of political debate a set of policies grounded in the principles and narratives of economic liberalism, now articulated with new discourses, political strategies, and forms of hegemonic construction.

Although these political experiences are heterogeneous, it is possible to identify, to different degrees, challenges to forms of State intervention developed over recent decades and a strengthening of the market as an organizing principle of socioeconomic relations. In environmental matters, these transformations may be expressed through the questioning of environmental protection policies, the flexibilization of regulatory frameworks, the reduction of State institutional capacities, and, in some cases, the denial or questioning of the scientific consensus on climate change.

This scenario raises important questions for the Social, Legal, and Environmental Sciences: What challenges do these new configurations pose to researchers? How can our research contribute to understanding contemporary transformations in the relationships between nature, the State, markets, and territories? What theoretical and methodological frameworks can be used to interpret new dynamics of appropriation and commodification of nature? How can research contribute not only to understanding these processes but also to making territorial conflicts visible and identifying alternative pathways for development?

In light of these concerns, ReDiS welcomes submissions based on different theoretical and methodological approaches that contribute to a critical understanding of recent transformations in the relationships between nature, the State, markets, communities, and territories in Latin America.

Contributions addressing processes situated in different countries and at different scales of analysis are welcome, as are comparative studies and works contributing to theoretical and conceptual debates related to the proposed themes.

Thematic Axes I. Green capitalism, energy transition, and new extractive frontiers

This axis seeks studies and analyses addressing the expansion of new extractive frontiers in Latin America and the various forms of green grabbing associated with contemporary processes of capitalist restructuring.

Topics may include the expansion of large-scale solar and wind farms, power transmission lines, green hydrogen projects, carbon markets and offset mechanisms, conservation initiatives, reforestation and carbon capture projects, as well as increasing pressure on so-called critical or strategic minerals and rare earth elements.

Energy transition and decarbonization processes have generated new demand for lithium, copper, nickel, cobalt, graphite, and other minerals, while also encouraging the construction of energy and logistics infrastructure requiring extensive land areas, water, energy, and new territorial connections.

Research is particularly encouraged on the public, private, and financial actors driving these processes; the territories and natural assets subjected to new forms of valorization; the resulting socio-environmental conflicts; and alternatives capable of preventing global decarbonization from reproducing or deepening new sacrifice zones in Latin America.

Studies critically examining carbon markets, offset mechanisms, conservation programs, reforestation, and carbon capture projects that assign new economic values to forests, soils, and rural territories are also welcome, particularly when such initiatives restrict community uses or transfer management and control rights to companies, financial intermediaries, or external organizations.

II. The State, public policies, and the reconfiguration of environmental regulation in the context of the “new right”

This axis welcomes theoretical debates and empirical analyses from different Latin American territories examining recent transformations in the relationships between the State, public policies, and environmental regulation in the context of the expansion of political projects associated with the so-called “new right.”

Of particular interest are studies examining how such projects redefine State capacities and functions and how these transformations are reflected in institutions, public policies, and environmental regulatory frameworks, including situations in which they may facilitate the expansion of (neo)extractive processes.

Submissions may also investigate disputes over the meanings attributed to environmental issues, transformations in forms of State intervention, and the reconfiguration of relationships among regulation, markets, territories, and the appropriation of nature.

III. Development, neo-developmentalism in Latin America, and financialization

This axis addresses theoretical and empirical debates concerning contemporary challenges to socio-environmental development in Latin America.

A broad and non-consensual literature has sought to understand the region’s development models through categories such as developmentalism, neo-developmentalism, extractivism, neo-extractivism, neoliberalism, and financialization.

Particular attention will be given to research examining how Latin American economic and social development is entering a new phase of capitalist development characterized by the deepening of financial accumulation and its territorial implications.

Studies critically examining the relationships among economic development, the expansion of extractive and agro-industrial activities, the financialization of nature, public policies, socio-environmental inequalities, and the reproduction of life are particularly welcome.

IV. Accumulation by dispossession and contemporary enclosures of the commons in Latin America

This axis addresses the ways in which the privatization, commodification, and appropriation of territories, natural assets, and collective knowledge deepen contemporary processes of capitalist accumulation.

It proposes examining contemporary enclosures of the commons as material, legal, technological, and epistemic processes that restrict collective access, use, and control.

Relevant topics include disputes involving land, water, seeds, forests, biodiversity, knowledge, territories, and ways of life, as well as processes involving the appropriation and transformation of collective rights.

Drawing on ecofeminism, political ecology, theories of the commons, and other critical approaches, submissions may also examine how these dynamics affect the conditions for the reproduction of life and intersect with inequalities of gender, labor, class, and territory, as well as resistance, mobilization, and practices aimed at defending and (re)constructing the commons.

The dossier therefore seeks to contribute to understanding new extractivisms and so-called green grabbing, critically examining the contradictions of transitions aimed at reducing emissions that may reproduce historical patterns of unequal appropriation of territories and nature when they are limited to technological substitution without structural changes in patterns of production, consumption, and the distribution of power.

Types of Submissions

The dossier will primarily receive scientific articles related to the proposed themes.

Interviews and book reviews connected to the scope of the dossier may also be considered for publication.

Guest Editors

Gabriel Horacio Galván – Argentina
Faculty member of the Department of Rural Development, Faculty of Agricultural Sciences, National University of Córdoba (Universidad Nacional de Córdoba – UNC), Argentina. His research interests include agrarian issues, rural development policies, the financialization of nature and agriculture, and territorial dynamics.
E-mail: ggalvan@agro.unc.edu.ar
ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8195-644X

Tamara Perelmuter – Argentina
Faculty member of the Faculty of Social Sciences, University of Buenos Aires (Universidad de Buenos Aires – UBA), and researcher at the Center for Research and Technological Development for Family Agriculture (CIPAF/INTA), Argentina. Her research addresses agrarian transformations, intellectual property and seed regulation, collective action in relation to agribusiness, agroecological transitions, and ecofeminist perspectives.
E-mail: tamiperelmuter@gmail.com
ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4331-1872

Aleida Azamar Alonso – Mexico
Full-time Professor-Researcher, Titular C, at the Metropolitan Autonomous University (Universidad Autónoma Metropolitana – UAM), Mexico. Her work focuses particularly on ecological economics, energy, mining, extractivism, and socio-environmental impacts in Latin America.
E-mail: aazamar@correo.xoc.uam.mx
ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1470-0994

Eduardo Gonçalves Rocha – Brazil
Associate Professor at the Faculty of Law, Federal University of Goiás (Universidade Federal de Goiás – UFG), Brazil. His research interests include, among other topics, the right to food and the financialization of agriculture.
E-mail: eduardofdufg@ufg.br
ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6100-7551

The organization of the dossier represents an international academic partnership among Argentina, Mexico, and Brazil, bringing together researchers from different Latin American institutions around contemporary debates on nature, environmental law, territories, development, and neoliberalism.

Timeline

Opening of submissions: September 16, 2026

Submission deadline: November 14, 2026

Expected publication: March 2027

Submissions

Manuscripts must be submitted through the online submission system of the ReDiS – Journal of Social and Environmental Law / Revista de Direito Socioambiental and must fully comply with the journal’s editorial guidelines.

ReDiS – Journal of Social and Environmental Law / Revista de Direito Socioambiental
State University of Goiás – UEG, Brazil
ISSN 2965-3991