"Las disputas territoriales de una sociedad hídrica. Conflictos en torno al agua en Mendoza, Argentina"

MONTAÑA, ELMA

REVISTA INTERAMERICANA DE ECONOMÍA ECOLÓGICA (REVIBEC)

FLACSO Ecuador

Lugar: Quito; Año: 2008 vol. 9 p. 1 - 17

1390-2776

Abstract If space is in itself an object of struggle because of its being -by nature- finite, resource shortage in drylands makes these territories an undeniable field of disputes. In this work, Mendoza is considered a modern hydraulic society in which the social tissue is strongly associated with a comprehensive and intensive water resource manipulation within an order imposed for controlling a hostile environment. As power distributions are associated to water management, water would have the capacity to express –and also model- hegemonic and subordinate social relations in a hierarchical system. The purpose of this work is to analyze water conflicts by introducing symbolic dimensions not duly recognized or legitimized by the local society. Beyond the conflicts themselves, it will attempt to understand them as part of the historical process whereby Mendoza’s society was shaped, its territory was built and its distinctive space-society and nature-culture relationships were settled. To that end, water conflicts are reviewed in four production processes, meaningful to Mendoza and other drylands of central-western Argentina: (a) traditional viticulture and the new viticulture that is being developed to fill market niches that would make the regional economy fit in the global economy, making intensive use of both water and the irrigated lands of the oases; (b) receptive tourism, an “emerging” economic activity whose offer relies on the region’s natural and cultural resources; (c) subsistence production processes -weakly integrated into the capitalist economy- that develop extensively over poorly or non irrigated lands (goat breeding activities, handicraft production) and (d) human settlements production processes, urban an rural, in terms of both their growth and internal regeneration. Analyzing these processes and conflicts for Mendoza’s case has shown not only how dependent dryland societies are on water resources, but –most significantly- the importance that the ways of controlling and manipulating water have in shaping it social tissue and in consolidating their powers. In other words, Mendoza has been understood as a modern hydraulic society. It is from this outlook that water resource management has proved to be structural not only in the modelling of this dryland society, but also in the shaping of its urban spaces, its oases, as well as in the invisibilizing of the non irrigated spaces. Moreover, water management emerged as a key link between that society and these spaces, and this is why here we read territorial struggles. Resumen El trabajo se refiere a las disputas por el agua en tierras secas presentando el caso de Mendoza, en el centro-oeste de Argentina. En particular, se analiza la manera en la que estos conflictos atraviesan cuatro procesos productivos clave: la producción de hábitat urbano y rural, la vitivinicultura, el turismo receptivo y procesos productivos de sub­sistencia en áreas no irrigadas. El análisis toma en cuenta tanto dimensiones materiales como simbólicas. Más allá de los conflictos en sí, se el trabajo intenta comprenderlos como parte del proceso histórico de conformación de los entramados de la sociedad mendocina y de la configuración de sus espacios mostrando así las relaciones espacio-sociedad y naturaleza-cultura de una sociedad hidráulica.