ABSTRACT
Since the early 2000s, there has been an expansion of transgenic soybean cultivation in the Conosur, which has involved an exponential increase in the volumes of pesticides used in the region. Social sciences have emphasized the analysis of socio-environmental conflicts to resist the various problems that this productive model entails. Uruguay, although less visible in international debates, was not exempt from this process. This article aims to introduce the Uruguayan case in the regional debate on the problems caused by the spread of pesticides associated with the advance of soybean production and to discuss the possibilities of social participation in environmental health as a form of resistance. The methodology combines an ethnographic study in the agricultural core of the country with documentary analysis. The results are discussed in the light of critical medical anthropology, evidencing that although public complaints are mechanisms that allow public visibility of the problems caused by the use of pesticides, within the framework of hegemonysubalternity relations that structure social relations in an agrarian economy, the scope and limits of social participation in environmental health transcend them.
KEYWORDS
Medical anthropology; Environmental health; Social participation; Pesticides