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The SAGUAPAC cooperative in the city of Santa Cruz de la Sierra (Eastern Bolivia) is regularly presented as an example of cooperative successes regarding water supply and sanitation. Its efficiency, both economic and technical, is widely considered as the main reason for its reproduction. However, without denying its importance, we show, through a discourse analysis from and about SAGUAPAC in local media, that moral and non-instrumental factors are crucial in the reproduction of the cooperative. These factors create attachment and affection toward the cooperative, through a storytelling technique using a four-dimensional rhetoric (mythification, identification, emotionalisation and personification). This storytelling technique, internalized in the local media discourse and materializing the so-called new spirit of capitalism, exploits the affects and instrumentalises local myths and legends, as well as the ‘camba’ ethnic identity. In that, it tends to retain SAGUAPAC members and to canvass new ones, by providing them with recognition in their quality of local community members. However, the mobilisation of social norms and power hierarchies might end up reinforcing the social exclusion of Andean non-camba immigrants, inspite of an a priori inclusive and democratic organisation of the cooperative.

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This paper analyses the use of metaphor in discourses around the “superweed” Palmer amaranth. Most weed scientists associated with the US public agricultural extension system dismiss the term superweed. However, together with the media, they indirectly encourage aggressive control practices by actively diffusing the framing of herbicide resistant Palmer amaranth as an existential threat that should be eradicated at any cost. We use argumentative discourse analysis to better understand this process. We analyze a corpus consisting of reports, policy briefs, and press releases produced by state extension services, as well as articles from professional and popular magazines and newspapers quoting extension specialists and/or public sector weed scientists or agronomists. We show how the superweed discourse is powered by negative metaphors, and legitimizes aggressive steps to eradicate the weed. This discourse reinforces the farmers’ techno-optimism master frame, contributes to deskilling of farmers and sidelines ethical concerns.