A West Virginia University faculty member in the WVU Eberly College of Arts and Sciences has been selected by the U.S. Fulbright Scholar Program to travel to Argentina to research the political attitudes and environmental consequences of its mining industry.
Mason Moseley, associate professor of political science, will be traveling to Argentina in March 2025 and working with scholars at the Instituto Argentino de Nivología, Glaciología y Ciencias Ambientales in Mendoza and teaching in the Department of Sociology at Universidad Nacional de Cuyo.
Moseley’s research focuses on political behavior, political attitudes and participation. The idea for the study began on a 2019 visit to Mendoza, where he observed Mendocinos protesting the deregulation of the mining industry. The proposed legislation allowed mining companies to use banned substances, including cyanide, sulfuric acid and heavy toxic materials.
In addition to gold, copper and silver mining, lithium mining is prevalent in Argentina, and it requires a lot of water in one of the world’s most arid regions.
“The governor and all the major political parties were on board with deregulating the industry and trying to spur growth through foreign investment,” Moseley said. “And the people of Mendoza said ‘no.’ Their rallying cry was that water is more valuable than gold. A diverse coalition of groups that opposed harmful mining practices stood in defense of the environment. It raised a bunch of questions for me.”
Argentina has experienced significant economic turmoil in the last 10 years and has the highest inflation rates in the world. Moseley said the current administration views mining as a potential salvation and has been openly antagonistic toward environmental groups. Argentinian scholars are skeptical of the benefits of mining, not only because of environmental degradation but also because many projects are carried out by foreign companies.
Despite political differences among voters, “the water is something the people of Mendoza could agree on,” Moseley said. “And I know how difficult it is to get people to participate in social movements. So, my research question is, ‘Why do environmental social movements emerge and achieve some degree of success in certain contexts while others don’t?’”
With his IANIGLA colleagues, Moseley will address these questions by performing experiments and conducting surveys.
“There’s not much environmentally focused, public opinion research where you ask people what they think about these issues,” he said. “So I’m going to try to fill that gap for this project.”
When he completes his research in Argentina, Moseley intends to add a comparative component in West Virginia.
“Because mining is so core to the history of the state, it would be interesting to see how our environmental issues are framed by social movements,” he said. “How do you present information in a way that’s going to persuade people? I’m curious if some of the techniques that Argentinian social movements have used to win people over to their cause would have any resonance here.”
