Models of Development and Marginality in Drylands of Argentina’s Central West: A Case Study in Mendoza Province

ABRAHAM ELENA M.; LAURA TORRES

Bohn

Conferencia; Conference on Tropical and Subtropical Agricultural and Natural Resource Management (TROPENTAG) 2011 International Research on Food Security, Natural Resource Management and Rural Development; 2011

DITSL GmbH, Witzenhausen, Germany; German Institute for Agriculture in the Tropics and Subtropics

Argentina’s Central-West encompasses a vast dryland territory – a rain shadow desert lies West of the Andes Range – organised on the basis of a contradiction: the confrontation between oasis and rainfed area, that is, desert lands with no irrigation. In a territory under conditions of total aridity with different desertification levels, the province of Mendoza is a paradigmatic case. The development model of Mendoza fostered by dominant groups at the end of the XIX century was based on the supremacy of two strategic resources: water and soil. The regional development was strongly orientated on the enhancement of irrigated lands in order to consolidate the wine exporting model. Nowadays, Mendoza’s non-irrigated lands and their population are marginalised not merely by the effects of a restrictive environment but also by the combined action of a limited, fragile physical support and the weightier social, political and economic forces that have banished them to the system’s margins. The analysis of the region’s history informs that non-irrigated lands provided both strategic natural resources for the development of irrigated areas and as possibilities to start production activities. Simultaneously, non-irrigated lands were restricted in their rights to access strategic resources for their social reproduction (water, land and identity). This contribution delves further into the analysis of the dynamics of territory construction whereby some territories hold a central position while others are relegated to marginal positions. Further, a regional case study shows the efforts of a group of social actors – local communities, scientific sector, national, provincial and local governments – to encourage a rural development strategy for non-irrigated drylands to allow full inclusion of these territories as well as their actors as rights-bearing subjects. In the light of the results obtained, also the concepts of marginality, inclusion and periphery are discussed as applied to the case study.