Territorial restructuring and resistance in Argentina

Abstract

This article argues that the logic of territory is particularly important for understanding the processes of capital accumulation and resistance in Latin America. The analysis focuses on Argentina, but draws on examples from throughout Latin America for a regional perspective and from the provinces of Jujuy, Cordoba and Santiago del Estero for subnational views. Section one describes the territorial restructuring of meaning, physical ‘places’ and politico-legal ‘spaces', as it plays out at multiple scales to facilitate the investment in and sale and export of natural resource commodities. I argue that land grabs contribute to this process but are not solely responsible for it. Section two explores the territorial logic of resistance. In what might be understood as territorial restructuring from below, rural communities are finding their own ways of restructuring places, legal spaces and the meaning of resistance from a peasant struggle for land reform to a peasant–indigenous alliance in defense of territory. This emerging alliance is not only important for understanding the nature of reactions to land grabbing and land conflict today. Recognizing and navigating the differences between peasant and indigenous histories of collective action are also crucial for sustaining such alliances at the regional, national and subnational level.

Keywords:

• territorial restructuring
• land grabs
• indigenous and peasant alliance
• agrarian resistance
• Argentina

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank the anonymous reviewers whose comments greatly improved this paper. Any remaining errors are my own. I would also like to thank Marcelo Saguier for his guidance from the very beginning, as well as Tanya Kerssen for her insightful feedback throughout my research and writing process. I am ever grateful to Jun Borras and Eric Holt-Giménez for their support. And most importantly, I am thankful to my colleagues and comrades in Argentina who have taken the time to help me learn, and whose work and struggle continue to inspire me.

Notes

¹See GRAIN's 2008 report, ‘Seized: The 2008 land grab for food and financial security’ and their ongoing news and analysis at www.farmlandgrab.org. Also: Third World Quarterly, 34(9), Global Land Grabs (November 2013; eds: Marc Edelman, Carlos Oya & Saturnino M. Borras Jr.); Journal of Peasant Studies, 40(3) – Forum on Land Grabbing part 2 on methodologies, 2013; Journal of Peasant Studies, 40(5) – Debate on methodologies between Scoones et. al. and Rulli et al, 2013; Journal of Peasant Studies, special issue: Green Grabbing (April 2012; eds: James Fairhead, Melissa Leach & Ian Scoones); Development & Change special issue: Land Grabbing and the State (March 2013; eds: J. Borras, R. Hall, I. Scoones, B. White & W. Wolford); Globalizations journal: Land Grabs and Global Governance, (March 2013; eds: M. Margulis N. McKeon, S. Borras); Water Alternatives journal: Water-Grabbing, (2012; eds: L. Mehta, Jan Gert,v G., J. Franco); Canadian Journal of Development Studies: Land Grabs in Latin America and the Caribbean (December 2012; eds: J. Borras, C. Kay, S. Gomez and J. Wilkinson); two international conferences on land-grabbing (2011, 2012). For working paper series, see: www.iss.nl/ldpi

²Indeed, this collection is an exciting contribution to the gap.

³These are admittedly simplified uses of these concepts, used here in this way for analytical clarity and to highlight the dynamics between class and identity politics. For a deeper discussion of the definition of a peasant and its complexities see Edelman (2013), for elaboration on indigenous ethnicity as related to class see Van Den Berghe (1979) and for the intersection of the two in Argentina see Wald (2014).

⁴Deals that ‘were initiated after 2006, have not been cancelled, are led by foreign investors, are for the production of food crops, and involve large areas of land’ See: GRAIN (2012a)

⁵Translated by the author, as are all direct quotes of Spanish-language text cited in this paper.

⁶According to the 2010 census, 7.8 percent of the population of Jujuy identifies as indigenous (Lipcovich 2012).

⁷In 2005–2006, it covered 3970 ha, and in 2009–2010 it reached 16,285 ha (Proyecto Relevamiento del Noroeste de Argentina - Instituto Nacional de Tecnología Agropecuaria (ProReNOA - INTA) Salta, 2010, cited in Ministerio de Producción de Jujuy, 2011, 144).

⁸Javier Chocobar, Ely Sandra Juarez, Roberto Lopez, Mario Lopez, Mártires Lopez, Cristian Ferreyra, Miguel Galván, Celestina Jara, Lila Coyipé, Imer Flores and Juan Diaz Asijak.

Additional information

Zoe Brent is a PhD student at the Institute of Social Studies (ISS) in The Hague, Netherlands, and a fellow at Food First, Institute of Food & Development Policy in Oakland, California. Her research focuses on struggles over land in the Americas and the ways that class and identity shape access to land in the global north. Email: [email protected]