Announcements

Open call for the Dossier:

Reform and counter-reform in Latin American agriculture: revolutionary and modernizing projects, debates and conflicts (20th and 21st centuries).

Coords. Pablo Iparraguirre (UNC) - Gabriel Carini (UNC/UNRC/CONICET)

Land concentration since the colonial occupation constitutes one of the matrixes that characterizes the agrarian structure of most Latin American countries. The asymmetries and inequalities historically generated by this situation made it a political problem.
In different periods of "development" and productive modernization in the region, the expansion of large landowners and agrarian capitalism led to the displacement of numerous peasants and native communities and their incorporation into the rural or urban labor market under very unfavorable conditions. These processes motivated resistance struggles and the organization of peasant movements that, with greater or lesser capacity for social and political alliances, exerted pressure to modify agrarian and power structures in Latin America.
On the other hand, initiatives have also arisen to transform the States themselves in order to modernize the rural sector or neutralize potential conflicts. The need of different governments to change the inherited agrarian structures introduced the notion of "agrarian reform" into the political and social debate mainly in the second half of the 20th century. In many of these cases, external pressure due to international geopolitical issues was also an important factor.
Thus, the reforms in land ownership and possession took on different meanings, objectives and intensities, depending on the political orientations and social interests of the actors who promoted them, ranging from the most radical proposals for land redistribution to others of lesser intensity that involved indirect mechanisms - such as taxes - to favor the fragmentation of large estates that remained unproductive. Some succeeded in lasting longer, while others were prematurely interrupted.
Beyond the heterogeneity of these Latin American experiences, it is possible to recognize in these diverse initiatives common concerns aimed at improving the conditions of reproduction of the social actors at the base of the agrarian structure, favoring the containment of conflict. On the other hand, these processes - viewed globally - did not succeed in modifying the agrarian structure of Latin American countries and contributed to cementing a negative discourse on the demands of actors for an equitable distribution of land.


Against this background, this dossier aims to bring together papers that, from different analytical perspectives, provide an overview of the conflicts and debates generated by the various initiatives aimed at transforming the agrarian structure of Latin American countries. In this sense, by way of example, papers are expected to address:
Demands, processes of struggle and conflict over land distribution by various agrarian actors.
Processes of agrarian modernization and mechanisms of expansion and appropriation of productive land.
Projects and debates on agrarian reforms in different political arenas.
Agrarian reform and counter-reform policies.
Forms of political mediation of corporate actors in the face of projects or materialization of reform processes.
Assessments on the results of agrarian reform processes.

The Dossier will be published in Issue 19 of the RIHALC Journal (corresponding to the period December 2023 - May 2024).

Deadline for submission of articles: May 31, 2023.
Send to the following email address: rrihalc@ffyh.unc.edu.ar

Evaluation process: June to October 2023.

Rules and formats for evaluation submissions:
https://revistas.unc.edu.ar/index.php/RIHALC/about/submissions#authorGuidelines