Chilean Agrarian Reform: Palimpsest of Another Rurality? Reflections and Proposals

Abstract

This paper deals with and questions the process of the Chilean agricultural reform from the commonly used hypothesis about this reform being precisely the consequence of a variety of emergencies for modernization and capitalist development, which is observed in most part of Latin American countries. From this approach, we observe that the central focus of this reform was the need to rush the productive modernization of the agriculture sector, as well as facing the challenges of reconfiguration of the power relations within the rural social spaces. Taking into consideration those elements, this paper suggests that the process observed shows an interesting logic of “palimpsest”, where the limits of history change are rather vague, as far as they do not end in defining realities that still exist in tension; from a productive, social and cultural perspective.