Recampesinización y recreación política del campesinado en un escenario de despliegue de los agronegocios. El caso de las reservas campesinas en el Chaco

Abstract

In this paper we address the transformations in the last decades in the productive and economic structure of the province of Chaco, historically characterized by the monoculture of cotton. Such transformations are evident in the advance of the agricultural frontiers, based on oleaginous production, creating a territorial reorganization that has the effect of incorporation into differentiated territories and conflict between the economic groups of agribusiness and campesinos (farmers). In this context there are campesino organizations, such as the Union of Small Producers of Chaco (Unpeproch), that, using land occupations and the formation of Rural Reserves, recover and build new territorialities. In this paper we will consider land occupations and Rural Reserves as part of a political project and economic strategies that can be glimpsed as political alternatives to the exclusive and dominant model of agribusiness today. We thus try to account for how even under the most adverse conditions and in contexts of extreme inequality, campesinos have defined strategies and carried out actions oriented to their reestablishment as political and economic subjects.