Mercedes Ejarque (CASAS’ member) has published with Liliana Barbosa this paper in Spanish in the journal Identidades.
Abstract: This paper reconstructs the origins of organic production in the Comarca Andina del Paralelo 42º (Chubut – Río Negro) up to its institutionalisation, identifying the motivations and tensions involved in this process. Environmental history and political ecology provide the framework for identifying the capacity of social actors to impose their definition of the problem and to intervene in the design of policies. Methodologically, we worked with documentary sources and semi-structured interviews with producers and technicians between 2016 and 2022. The analysis revealed the existence of different organic experiences since the late 1980s, which could be grouped into two strands: ‘niche market’ and ‘self-sufficiency’. These strands coexisted until the early 2000s, when the first strand became dominant and managed to institutionalise itself both in associative groups linked to the state and in formal educational institutions. Despite this hegemony of the market vision, other ways of understanding production and the environment in the region remained present. The analysis of the institutionalisation of local organic production provides elements for current reflection on the possible challenges and potential of a similar process in relation to agroecology.
Read her paper in Spanish here: https://iidentidadess.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/1-identidades-29-15-2025.pdf
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CASAS
The Collective of Agrarian Scholar-Activists from the Global South (CASAS) is a community of Scholar-Activists working in critical agrarian studies.