NC West Virginia News

A West Virginia University faculty member has been chosen by the U.S. Fulbright Scholar Program to conduct research in Argentina on the political attitudes and environmental consequences of its mining industry.

Mason Moseley, an associate professor of political science, will travel to Argentina in March 2025. He will collaborate with scholars at the Instituto Argentino de Nivología, Glaciología y Ciencias Ambientales (IANIGLA) in Mendoza and teach in the Department of Sociology at Universidad Nacional de Cuyo.

Moseley’s research examines political behavior, attitudes, and participation. The idea for his study began during a 2019 visit to Mendoza, where he witnessed protests against the deregulation of the mining industry. Proposed legislation had permitted mining companies to use banned substances like cyanide, sulfuric acid, and heavy toxic materials.

In addition to gold, copper, and silver mining, lithium mining is prevalent in Argentina and requires significant water resources in one of the world’s driest 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 faced substantial economic turmoil over the past decade and has some of the highest inflation rates globally. Moseley noted that the current administration views mining as a potential solution but has been openly antagonistic toward environmental groups. Argentine scholars are skeptical about mining's benefits due to environmental degradation concerns and because many projects are conducted by foreign companies.

Despite differing political views 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 plans to explore these questions through experiments and surveys.

“There’s not much environmentally focused public opinion research where you ask people what they think about these issues,” he stated. “So I’m going to try to fill that gap for this project.”

Upon completing his research in Argentina, Moseley aims to add a comparative component involving West Virginia.

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