“Commissioned science” as a key element of executive and judicial resolutions in a sociotechnical controversy around mining “impacts”

This paper analyzes the government decision-making process and judicial resolutions during the first months of a socio-environmental conflict surrounding a cyanide spill at the Veladero mine in San Juan. The conflict began in September 2015 as a sociotechnical controversy between the “Jáchal No Se Toca” assembly and the provincial government regarding the classification of the event as a public problem.This paper analyzes the social uses of technical reports in the context of executive and judicial decision-making and in the mobilization of problem framings. This requires consideration of the asymmetrical conditions of production and mobilization of these reports. The question we are trying to answer is: What is the relationship between the technical reports, their conditions of mobilization, the measures (executive and judicial) taken, and the problem framings in conflict?The methodology of this work articulates qualitative techniques, mainly the analysis of primary and secondary sources, and conducting interviews.