The Silences of Dispossession: Agrarian Change and Indigenous Politics in Argentina

An exploration of omissions, or silences, in previous investigations of agrarian transformations by foregrounding indigenous experiences of capitalist development. Providing a rich and detailed ethnographic study, Mercedes Biocca shows how capitalist processes are perceived, experienced, and either confronted or accepted depending on the different ways in which dispossession, resistance, and negotiation have become embedded in the collective local memory.

Challenging accounts that efface the agency of subalterns in shaping rural dynamics, and ignore the diversity of perspectives within indigenous groups, Biocca untangles the connections between global, national, and local spatial scales in her analysis of accumulation by dispossession.

ISBN-13: 9780745343068

Media Type: Paperback

Publisher: Pluto Press (UK)

Publication Date: 05-20-2023

Pages: 176

Mercedes Biocca is a Professor and an Associate Researcher at the Institute of Higher Social Studies (IDAES) in Buenos Aires, Argentina. Her research focuses on rural issues associated with the spread of agribusiness, the different forms of rural existence imposed by the state and the challenges that face indigenous communities in the north of Argentina in the post-neoliberal period.