Something That Can be Taken Away: Land, Person, and Dispossession in Santiago del Estero, Argentina

Abstract

This article draws on research by the author in the Argentine province of Santiago del Estero with members of MOCASE-Vía Campesina. It addresses the ways in which the countryside dwellers who join the movement build meanings around the notion of “land.” During fieldwork, two principal ways of understanding land surfaced. In the first, land is conceived of as an asset that can be possessed; in the other, it is symbolized by the figure of the mother, an entity providing support and nourishment that must be defended. Though there are differences between the two meanings, both reify land. This article lays out how the dispossession these individuals suffer in relation to the place they inhabit influences this way of comprehending land, opening up the possibility that people and environment can be experienced as two separate entities.