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AbstractFor 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 nationalde juresovereignty. 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 pro-mining Guatemala and Honduras – claims imbued with an ethics of care rooted in wartime politics and Catholic morality.

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 pro-mining Guatemala and Honduras – claims imbued with an ethics of care rooted in wartime politics and Catholic morality.

Este artículo argumenta que, en El Salvador de la posguerra, amplios sectores de la población han incorporado distintas formas de violencia en sus imaginarios de la democracia, así como en su subjetividad y prácticas políticas. A partir de la investigación etnográfica realizada en el contexto de las elecciones presidenciales de 2009 y 2014 en el departamento de La Paz, el artículo demuestra que las disputas electorales de la posguerra entre los principales partidos políticos de El Salvador constituyen en cierto modo una reedición de conflictos aún no resueltos que tienen su origen en la guerra de la década de los ochenta. Con la victoria del FMLN en 2009 y el acceso de este partido al gobierno, el enfrentamiento entre los partidos continuó, pero concentrándose en el orden simbólico y discursivo y requiriendo una actualización acorde a las nuevas circunstancias.
ECA Estudios Centroamericanos, Vol. 73, No. 752, 2018: 45-63.

Este artículo argumenta que, en El Salvador de la posguerra, amplios sectores de la población han incorporado distintas formas de violencia en sus imaginarios de la democracia, así como en su subjetividad y practices políticas. A partir de la investigación etnográfica realizada en el contexto de las elecciones presidenciales de 2009 y 2014 en el departamento de La Paz, el artículo demuestra que las disputas electorales de la posguerra entre los principales partidos políticos de El Salvador constituyen en cierto modo una reedición de conflictos aún no resueltos que tienen su origen en la guerra de la década de los ochenta. Con la victoria del FMLN en 2009 y el acceso de este partido al gobierno, el enfrentamiento entre los partidos continuó, pero concentrándose en el orden simbólico y discursivo y requiriendo una actualización acorde a las nuevas circunstancias.

This article explores how the affective dynamics involved in elections and routine politics might inform us about the conditions of possibility of specific political imaginaries. It builds upon research conducted during and after El Salvador's 2009 presidential election. Passions ran high among Salvadorans on both the left and the right that electoral season, as allusions to wartime elicited unsettled divisions and offenses. For many left-wing and disaffected Salvadorans, the victory of the Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front—a former guerrilla organization—opened up a political horizon that had been closed during the post-war era. Salvadorans' post-election engagement with state officials and FMLN leaders through clientelist practices evidenced their desire for qualitative state transformation and the extent to which they conceive of themselves as citizens through the state.

Drawing on fieldwork in a Salvadoran municipio during and after the 2009 presidential elections, this article explores how the affective dynamics involved in elections and routine politics might inform us about the conditions of possibility for specific political imaginaries. Passions ran high among ordinary Salvadorans on both the left and right, as allusions to wartime unsettled political divisions and offences. For many disaffected Salvadorans, the victory of the Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front—a former guerrilla organization—opened up a political horizon previously foreclosed during the post-war era. I show how ordinary Salvadorans' post-election engagement with state officials and FMLN party leaders through clientelist practices evidenced their desire for qualitative state transformation, as well as the extent to which they conceive of themselves as citizens through the state.

The Legal Cultures of the Subsoil: The Judicialization of Environmental Politics in Central America is an ESRC-funded anthropological project that explores legal and quasi-legal actions in the context of natural resource governance. Controversies over the fate of non-renewable natural resources have increasingly taken the shape of the jural. This project pursues research on the legal repertoires at work in disputes over subsoil resources (specifically minerals), seeking to achieve an understanding of the different moralities that pervade these repertoires. The project focuses on four Central American countries (El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras and Nicaragua) that have been understudied when it comes to non-renewable resources and that share ecological conditions as well as a similar political history, including relatively recent processes of democratization. It also includes research at global sites (Washington, DC, Geneva and London) where key actors involved in legal actions relating to environmental politics are based.

La multiescalaridad es una característica central de la gobernanza neoliberal de los modelos extractivistas que se construyen entretejiendo múltiples niveles y jurisdicciones del derecho público y privado. En este artículo exponemos las complejas relaciones entre el panorama multiescalar de pluralismo legal global que estructura los conflictos socioambientales sobre la minería, los procesos de juridificación y las variadas formas de violencia que motivan las búsquedas de justicia. Señalamos, de manera breve, las dimensiones legales de la minería industrial y exploramos conceptualmente las especificidades de la juridificación multiescalar en relación con esta actividad. A partir de un análisis etnográfico y documental con distintas organizaciones de defensa legal y de base, examinamos tres casos de conflictos socioambientales en Honduras, Guatemala y México. Ello nos permite mostrar cómo la multiescalaridad fragmentada implica que los derechos reconocidos en una jurisdicción se puedan tornar invisibles en otra y acompañarse de un uso represivo del derecho o lawfare. Concluimos que aun en campos de poder marcados por desigualdades abismales y ecologías de violencias múltiples, las luchas juridificadas abren nuevas posibilidades para la movilización social y política. Asimismo, argumentamos que tales luchas facilitan las conexiones entre jurisdicciones, sujetos y lugares, y generan nuevas gramáticas políticas.

Multiscalarity is a central feature of the neoliberal governance of extractivist models that are constructed by interweaving multiple levels and jurisdictions of public and private law. In this article, we expose the complex relationships between the multiscale landscape of global legal pluralism that structures socioenvironmental conflicts over mining, the processes of juridification and the varied forms of violence that motivate quests for justice. We briefly outline the legal dimensions of industrial mining and conceptually explore the specificities of multiscale juridification in relation to this activity. Based on ethnography and document analysis among different legal defense and grassroots organizations, we examine three cases of socioenvironmental conflicts in Honduras, Guatemala and Mexico. This allows us to show how fragmented multiscalarity means that rights recognized in one jurisdiction can become invisible in another and be accompanied by a repressive use of law or lawfare. We conclude that even in fields of power marked by abysmal inequalities and ecologies of multiple forms of violence, juridified struggles open up new possibilities for social and political mobilization. We also argue that such struggles facilitate connections between jurisdictions, subjects and places, and generate new political grammars. ; La multiescalaridad es una característica central de la gobernanza neoliberal de los modelos extractivistas que se construyen entretejiendo múltiples niveles y jurisdicciones del derecho público y privado. En este artículo exponemos las complejas relaciones entre el panorama multiescalar de pluralismo legal global que estructura los conflictos socioambientales sobre la minería, los procesos de juridificación y las variadas formas de violencia que motivan las búsquedas de justicia. Señalamos, de manera breve, las dimensiones legales de la minería industrial y exploramos conceptualmente las especificidades de la juridificación multiescalar en relación con esta actividad. A partir de un análisis etnográfico y documental con distintas organizaciones de defensa legal y de base, examinamos tres casos de conflictos socioambientales en Honduras, Guatemala y México. Ello nos permite mostrar cómo la multiescalaridad fragmentada implica que los derechos reconocidos en una jurisdicción se puedan tornar invisibles en otra y acompañarse de un uso represivo del derecho o lawfare. Concluimos que aun en campos de poder marcados por desigualdades abismales y ecologías de violencias múltiples, las luchas juridificadas abren nuevas posibilidades para la movilización social y política. Asimismo, argumentamos que tales luchas facilitan las conexiones entre jurisdicciones, sujetos y lugares, y generan nuevas gramáticas políticas. ; A multiescalaridade é uma característica central da governança neoliberal dos modelos extrativistas que são construídos a partir do entrelaçamento de múltiplos níveis e jurisdições de direito público e privado. Neste artigo, expomos as complexas relações entre o panorama multiescala do pluralismo jurídico global que estrutura os conflitos socioambientais sobre a mineração, os processos de juridificação e as diversas formas de violência que motivam a busca por justiça. Apontamos brevemente as dimensões legais da mineração industrial e exploramos conceitualmente as especificidades da juridificação multiescala em relação a essa atividade. Com base em uma análise etnográfica e documental com diferentes organizações jurídicas e de base, examinamos três casos de conflitos socioambientais em Honduras, Guatemala e México. Isso nos permite mostrar como a multiescalaridade fragmentada implica que os direitos reconhecidos em uma jurisdição podem se tornar invisíveis em outra e ser acompanhados por um uso repressivo do Direito ou lawfare. Concluímos que mesmo em campos de poder marcados por abissais desigualdades e ecologias de múltiplas violências, as lutas juridificadas abrem novas possibilidades de mobilização social e política. Também argumentamos que tais lutas facilitam conexões entre jurisdições, sujeitos e lugares, e suscitam novas gramáticas políticas.

This commentary seeks to engage the issue of 'impact' in social anthropology by scrutinising the topic of open access. Drawing on the discussions that took place at the interna- tional conference 'FAQs about Open Access: The Political Economy of Knowledge in Anthro- pology and Beyond', held in October 2014 in Madrid, we suggest that addressing the topic of open access allows a two-fold goal. On one hand, it elucidates that public debates about open access rely on a rather minimalist notion of openness that does not yield an adequate under- standing of what is at stake in those debates. On the other, we argue that expanding the notion of openness does not only allow us to revisit the debate concerning what we do as academics, how we do it and what its value is, but also to do so going beyond current notions of 'impact' and 'public value' underpinned by the principle of economic efficiency in a context of increas- ingly reduced research funds.

This publication is prior to the conference/workshop FAQs About Open Access – The Political Economy of Publishing in Anthropology and Beyond, held at Medialab-Prado (Madrid) on the 16th and 17th of October 2014. We, as conference conveners and members of the Research Group on Anthropology with a Public Orientation (GIAOP), are interested in the current debates about open access and it is out of that shared interest that this conference emerges. It has been more than a decade since the first declarations for open and free access to publicly-funded scientific knowledge were issued (the Budapest Open Access Initiative in 2002 and the Berlin Declaration on Open Access one year after). Even though the debate has proliferated with strength in the Anglo-American academia in the last few years, we think that the way in which it has done so is extremely narrow, limited to putting forth proposals for how to make academic publications available online —and generally not questioning the business models and the very academic practices that have led to "capture/enclose" knowledge in the first place.

In recent years, political and social theory has been transformed by the heterogeneous approaches to feeling and emotion jointly referred to as 'affect theory'. These range from psychological and social-constructivist approaches to emotion to feminist and post-human perspectives. Covering a wide spectrum of topics and ethnographic contexts—from engineering in the Andes to household rituals in rural China, from South African land restitution to migrant living in Moscow, and from elections in El Salvador to online and offline surveillance among political refugees from Uzbekistan and Eritrea—the chapters in this volume interrogate this 'affective turn' through the lens of fine-grained ethnographies of the state. The volume enhances the anthropological understanding of the various ways through which the state comes to be experienced as a visceral presence in social life

Most non-Central Americans think of the narrow neck between Mexico and Colombia in terms of dramatic past revolutions and lauded peace agreements, or sensational problems of gang violence and natural disasters. In this volume, the contributors examine regional circumstances within frames of democratization and neoliberalism, as they shape lived experiences of transition. The authors—anthropologists and social scientists from the United States, Europe, and Central America—argue that the process of regions and nations "disappearing" (being erased from geopolitical notice) is integral to upholding a new, post-Cold War world order—and that a new framework for examining political processes must be accessible, socially collaborative, and in dialogue with the lived processes of suffering and struggle engaged by people in Central America and the world in the name of democracy