“Malargüe (Argentina): extractivism and dispute for common goods”

Abstract

This article organizes the information collected thus far in field work, interviews, and archival surveys carried out in the departament of Malargüe (Mendoza, Argentina), based n the premise that this area of the province is considered a territory historically marked by resource extraction. In this case, the time period covers from the beginning of the 20th century up through 2021. The approach is etched into political ecology, taking extractivism and territory as structuring topics. Methodologically, the work chronologically orders the development of mining and hydrocarbon activities, together with the enactment of provincial legislation limiting their expansion, as well as seeking to protect the rural sector (criancero) against the expansion of foreign capital. For an analysis of the information, three variables were used: territory, discourses, and resistance. The partial results lead to show how the State and private sectors try to build a positive consensus or social license in the population based on mining and hydrocarbon activities. The official narative values these two territorialities, however, in the last decades of the 21 century, territorialities such as the criancera and the speleolgical have gained visibily, wich raise other possibilities not associated with resource extraction.