Abstract

In Latin America, development projects in rural areas can create controversies that often turn into conflicts due to their ecological, material, economic, social and cultural effects. To reconstruct controversies related to state promotion of sustainable aquaculture, this research describes the interpretive frames at play among regional actors. The results are based on a sociological hermeneutic-discourse analysis of oral responses to open questions of a structured questionnaire applied in face-to-face individual interviews to 27 key informants from the Biobio and Nuble regions in southern central Chile in 2018. In these rural territories of southern central Chile, the controversy over the promotion of aquaculture is related to social rather than environmental effects. The controversy is present in two interpretative frames or modalities that are rooted and legitimized by territorial actors; one emphasizes aquaculture as a promise of greater well-being through new activities; the other defines aquaculture as an economic-political activity that is questionable because it does not generate socioeconomic value in the territory and also affects future lifestyle decisions. A history with extractive activities combined with state ambiguity seems to limit the options imagined, at least in the interpretative frames; in rural territories with a recent extractive past, state promotion of aquaculture will remain controversial if local value is not generated.