Socio-environmental conflicts in the Bajo Cauca Antioqueño (Colombia): meanings and public policies

The Bajo Cauca region (Antioquia, Colombia) has recently been the focus of mineral exploitation, gold mainly, as a sample of the most visible variant of contemporary extractivism. Such actions have led to confrontations between armed groups and between armed groups and the Government, which seems to be absent in front of a society with large inequality gaps. The identification of socio-environmental conflicts in the Bajo Cauca region and the resulting obstacles to local development, facilitates the categorization of present and future effects (threats and opportunities) on territorial resources for the development of the region. This text approaches the socio-environmental conflicts in the Bajo Cauca region of Antioquia from the complexity of their structural character. The persistence of common patterns allows us to aggregate them by categories and subcategories that constitute the conflict and the weaknesses of present/absent public policies. This multi-scalar and multi-factorial analysis facilitates the identification of propositional patterns (but not their actual embodiment) and the positive treatment of the conflicts in this area.