Contribution short abstract

Social-ecological coalitions between human groups and other-than-humans emerge in conflicts from their reinforcing effects on the conflict and their spatiotemporal encounter. If the human groups and other-than-humans alter their effects and leave or enter the encounter, the coalitions change.

Contribution long abstract

Marginalized human groups, such as gendered, racialized and poor people, and other-than-humans, such as wild animals and weeds, are exploited and/or harmed. In our understanding, these human and other-than-human conflict parties can reinforce each other to challenge dominant coalitions favouring exploitation in social-ecological conflicts. In a social-ecological conflict, two or more social-ecological coalitions struggle over societal relations to nature (exploitation of vs. co-existence with nature). From the reinforcing effects of marginalized human groups and other-than-humans on the conflicts, social-ecological coalitions emerge. We introduce the term effects instead of actions to also cover other-than-humans. Furthermore, for a social-ecological coalition – and a conflict between them – it is necessary that human and other-than-human parties encounter in a certain space and time. If human and other-than-human conflict parties leave or enter the spatiotemporal encounter and if they alter their effects on the conflict, the social-ecological coalitions change. In the case of a local conflict over agro-industrial soy cultivation in Argentina, other-than-humans reinforce human conflict parties in different aspects. The contamination of nature and especially amphibians and fish with pesticides mobilized the local population to pressure for a pesticide-free buffer zone. The sudden dieback of plants indicated pesticide spraying in the established pesticide-free buffer zone and enabled visual inspections by the neighbourhood initiative. Herbicide-resistant weeds, which compete with soy plants on the fields, did not play a role in difference to other cases, because their numbers were limited. We extend the discussion of the role of alliances in environmental conflicts by integrating other-than-humans.