Community identity, governance, and resilience under agri-environmental shifts in two communities of southwestern Uruguay

ABSTRACT

Since the beginning of the 21^st century, rural communities in southwestern Uruguay have responded differently to agri-environmental challenges created by increases in the production of genetically modified crops. Resilience literature highlights the importance of community identity on local responses, but little has been explored about how economic and political aspects that characterize community identity influence community governance to address local environmental challenges. Based on historical texts, interviews with key informants, participant observation and analysis of reports from public meetings in two communities of southwestern Uruguay, this article explores how community identities were related to whether and/or how communities responded. Results from this comparative study highlight how economic and political aspects influencing community identity could either constraint or facilitate community governance and resilience.

KEYWORDS:

• Community identity
• governance
• resilience
• soybeans

Acknowledgments

This study was part of my PhD dissertation research finished in December 2014 at Iowa State University (ISU). I would like to thank my PhD committee members for their guidance, the Graduate Program in Sustainable Agriculture at ISU which provided the Butler Travel Award 2011, and all the participants from Dolores and Nueva Helvecia. I also want to thank my wife and colleague Silvina Lopez Barrera for her support and help.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Ethical approval

All procedures performed in this study involving human participants were approved by the Institutional Review Board (IRB) at ISU.

Informed consent

Informed consent was obtained from all individual participants included in the study.

Notes

1. Uruguay is administratively divided into 19 departments with locally-elected governments (comparable to states in the US).

2. Departmental governments.

3. One questionnaire for Intendencia staff and another (similar) questionnaire for other actors from the market, state, and civil society involved in the communities.

4. Selected quotes from interviews shown in this article were translated from Spanish to English.

5. No-till is an agricultural technique that implies seeds are planted directly into the soil (without tillage) and natural cover is left on the soil. Weeds are controlled by chemicals, rather than by tillage.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Butler Travel Award of the Interdisciplinary Graduate Program in Sustainable Agriculture at Iowa State University.