Hegemony and Rural Development: A Territorial Analysis of Rural Development Policies in Benito Juárez (Buenos Aires, Argentina)

Abstract

In recent years, studies of rural development have focused on the territorial dimension, with state institutions and mechanisms aimed to obtain and organize consensuses on the different policy levels (regional, national, provincial and local) promoting the idea that the territory shall be the area of interaction between public and private agents, as well as the reference point for the exercise of power. The current article seeks to analyze public policies under the premise that these constitute themselves as processes of hegemony construction. Building on contributions from critical geography and other disciplines in the social sciences, we address the emergence of family agriculture (FA) policies as a novel element of rural development in Argentina -and the region. Our insights are drawn from a case study conducted in the Benito Juárez partido (Buenos Aires province). The investigation is based on fieldwork and interviews with key informants. It will be concluded that the economic and/or political inclusion mechanisms put in place set out to produce new subjects consonant with the necessities of hegemonic actors.