Cumbres de algodón

Una lectura latinoamericana sobre los consensos institucionales en la segunda cumbre mundial de las Naciones Unidas sobre el desarrollo sostenible

Abstract

This work develops a regional reading on the Second World Summit document on Sustainable Development of the United Nations (Río+20), its forms of staging and the acknowledgement effects that such discourse had on the Latin-American leaders that took part in the event. The cross-disciplinary approach of genetic criticism and discourse analysis helps to analyze the writing process of the summit document called “The future we want'' and it highlights the role that the phrases such as “sustainable development” and “green economy” had in the shaping of such anodyne agreement that we refer to as the “cotton consensus”. Such consensus was characterized by the deployment of a series of tautologies, circumlocutions and redundancies made visible by the genetic contrast, but mainly by the use of fixed and prolonged nominal formulas with a high degree of ambiguity. These features make possible a “cotton language” known for its vagueness, imprecision and hygiene approach regarding global political issues, which contrasts with the controversial forms assumed by the Latin American voices present at the event.