ENVIRONMENT AS DISCOURSE - SEARCHING FOR SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT IN COSTA-RICA

This study analyses the social and political discourses related to env ironment and sustainable development in Costa Rica. The central intere st is on those development institutions and ideologies that promote so cial interventions in the name of sustainable development, and on thos e social processes and economic relations on which the discursive form ation of environment and sustainability is articulated. Four different kinds of ideologies of environmental sustainability are analysed: Env ironmentalism for Nature, Environmentalism for Profit, Environmentalis m for the People, and Alternative Environmentalism. The study highligh ts the complexity of political discourses that construct the relations hip between nature and society, and the multiplicity of the means by w hich the control over natural resources, within the internally differe ntiated development apparatus, is defined.