Call for Papers: Contrasting Rationalities in Megaprojects: Socio-territorial and Environmental Insights

Contrasting Rationalities in Megaprojects: Socio-territorial and Environmental Insights

Since the 1970s and continuing to the present day, the construction of large-scale infrastructure projects has reached unprecedented dimensions. This trend is related to global urbanization, the high demand for energy resources and raw materials, as well as the needs of global capital to sustain its levels of production and distribution of goods and services.

Megaprojects, such as hydroelectric dams, hydrocarbon extraction and distribution facilities, wind farms, road and rail transport systems, industrial and logistics parks, among others, have been a topic of debate in recent years due to the dilemmas they pose. On one hand, they are valued as supports for productive, distributive, and consumptive activities; on the other hand, they are questioned because they involve risks and unwanted effects in the spatial contexts where they are implemented.

The biophysical environment directly assimilates the effects of infrastructure construction as it loses or changes its original properties. Soil, subsoil, air, water, flora, and fauna are elements recognizable in this process. The alteration or destruction of these factors results in the loss of environmental functions, such as ecosystem services, hydrological circulation, atmospheric regulation, ecological integrity, and connectivity, among others.

Human populations inhabiting the areas where large infrastructure works are carried out, or nearby, are also exposed to complex social and productive dynamics due to the impact on properties, homes, productive goods, public equipment, communities as a whole, areas with social use, or sites with cultural value. Beyond their material impacts, megaprojects frequently generate processes of deterritorialization-reterritorialization that lead to the progressive dissolution of rural life, productive restructurings, alterations in community ways of life, and, in extreme cases, forced displacements and involuntary relocations.

In a context where large infrastructure works continue to be built in Latin America and Mexico, which are simultaneously considered opportunities and events that entail potential risks, whether under progressive or neoliberal governments, **Yeiyá. Revista de Estudios Críticos** opens this call for papers addressing their territorial and environmental effects. This dossier seeks articles that highlight the analysis of the contrasting rationalities of the actors involved in the spatial contexts where large infrastructure works are constructed and become operational. The aim is to evidence the instrumental logic of the promoters and those responsible for the megaprojects, who prioritize political decisions and technical construction processes, and how this generates conflicts of meaning with the communities living in the territories where public and private interventions take place.

### Central Themes*:

- Megaprojects in the expansion and crisis of 21st-century capitalism

- Immediate and long-term impacts of megaprojects

- Risk management and mitigation and compensation measures

- Political opposition, legal defense, and resistance of social actors

- Organized social movements facing megaprojects

- Mechanisms of cooperation, negotiation, and governance around megaprojects

We invite thinkers, activists, academics, and committed citizens to join this collective effort. Through dialogue, collaboration, and collective action, we can creatively and transformatively address the question of "what to do?"

*These themes are indicative, not limiting, and the issue of the journal will also be open to proposals related to the general theme and indicated lines.

**Submissions**: Papers can be submitted through the Yeiyá website: [Yeiyá Submission Page](https://journals.tplondon.com/yeiya)

**Submission Deadline**: November 30, 2024

**Inquiries**:

Dr. José Gasca Zamora 

Email: jgascaz@gmail.com

Dr. Pascual García-Macías 

Email: pasgegar84@gmail.com

Dr. José Salvador Cueto-Calderón 

Email: jscuetocalderon@uas.edu.mx

Dr. Matheus Cardoso Da-Silva 

Email: stardus_mat@yahoo.br