Tensions around Land Tenure in Argentina’s Agrarian Periphery: Scales and Multiple Temporalities of Capitalism in Santiago del Estero, Argentina

This article contributes to discussions on capitalist transformation and impact on peripheral agriculture by focusing on the province of Santiago del Estero in northern Argentina. The concept of land grabbing is useful for qualitative analysis of the recent dynamics in the land market in this peripheral territory, where the concentration of land for agrarian use is historical but has accelerated in recent decades with the expansion of soybean cultivation. Tensions between capitalist and noncapitalist actors have been taking place within the current crisis of the world capitalist system and its expansion to marginal lands, often occupied by peasant producers with precarious tenure and different logics to that of market capitalism. The province’s history is characterized by processes of different temporalities and scales of limited capitalist transformation, agrarian land concentration, and exploitation of local populations. This article seeks to understand the overlaps and tensions in these processes. Resumen Este articulo contribuye a los debates sobre la transformacion capitalista y el impacto en la agricultura periferica, centrandose en la provincia de Santiago del Estero (norte de Argentina). El concepto de acaparamiento de tierras para uso agropecuario es util para un analisis cualitativo de la dinamica reciente del mercado de tierras en este territorio, aun cuando la concentracion de aquellas tierras es anterior y se acelero en las ultimas decadas con el cultivo de soja. Las tensiones entre distintos actores se realizan en el contexto de la crisis del sistema capitalista mundial y su expansion en tierras ocupadas por campesinos con tenencia precaria y con logicas economicas distintas a las del capitalismo. La historia agraria de la provincia es caracterizada por procesos de distintas temporalidades y escalas. Este articulo busca entender los solapamientos y las tensiones entre estos procesos.