"We are more than the water that connects us": youth activism in socio-environmental conflicts in Mendoza, Argentina (2018-2021).

Abstract

In recent years, Latin America has been strongly marked by important cycles of social mobilisation in which young people and women have been the protagonists. In this article we propose an analysis of the experience of Les pibes autoconvocades de San Carlos (Mendoza, Argentina): a socio-environmental assembly of young people that was born around 2018. We seek to question the historical-social determinations that organise their experience as a collective, what identifications mark their generational conformation, how this shapes their political practice and the definition of their demands.

From a methodological point of view, we used a qualitative approach and worked with different data production techniques: content analysis of Les Pibes' social networks, analysis of the group's public documents, and interviews with young members of Les Pibes.

With this article, we aim to highlight that the constitution of Les Pibes as a political subject is deeply linked to their own experience of struggle, mainly to the important cycles of social mobilisation that they have gone through recently, linked to socio-environmental resistance and the struggle for women's rights and sexual dissidence in the women's, feminist and dissident movements.