Some notes about spatial categories and traditional uses of space in Laguna Blanca region, Catamarca (Argentina)

Abstract

The main goal of this work is to analyze the spatial categories and traditional uses of space, ethnographically recorded in Laguna Blanca region (Belén department, Catamarca province), an analysis made taking into account the Marxist social theory and epistemology, observing a double process: on the one hand, the process of decomposition of the latifundium and, on the other, the process of re-ethnicization and indigenous community organization. This implies thinking in terms of the contradictions between what could be defined as two spatial logics or rationalities: first, the old communal uses and customs now claimed in a communal spatial logic, and second, an individual spatial logic, drawn on the relations of domination and the old segmentations inside the great property of the large state, in which the spatial categories of the leasing system are still preserved. Then, the spatial categories reflect contradictions of space that return us not only to two property rights but, at a deeper level, to two opposing legal systems, common and private law, which are reflected precisely in the conflict between indigenous community members and landowners.