Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), Extractivism, and Territorial Conflicts in Córdoba, Argentina (2015-2025)

Abstract

This article aims to discuss state policies in the province of Córdoba (Argentina) during the 2015-2025 period, with a focus on those related to territorial development. Analytically, we draw on a framework combining Political Ecology, Rural Sociology, and Critical Geography. Through bibliographic and documentary research, as well as fieldwork, we analyze extractive processes that center their accumulation dynamics on the transformation of nature into commodities. These processes have given rise to various organizational movements shaping the struggle for territory in Córdoba. The findings reveal that the adoption of the SDGs (Sustainable Development Goals) and the 2030 Agenda as structuring axes of state policies has provided an opportunity for capitalist restructuring and corporate modernization of extractive class factions seeking social licenses. This stems from the adoption and institutionalization of a set of postulates and narratives of Sustainable Development, allowing us to critically examine the contradictions of this concept and its purposes within the context of the severe ecological-environmental crisis prevailing in the province. Finally, we invite a rethinking and reformulation (though not necessarily a dismissal) of the Agrarian Question in the 21st century, based on what we term the Territorial Question.