Abstract

MONTANA, Elma et al. Los espacios invisibles: Subordinación, marginalidad y exclusión de los territorios no irrigados en las tierras secas de Mendoza, Argentina. Región y sociedad [online]. 2005, vol.17, n.32, pp.03-32. ISSN 2448-4849.

Within the framework of the "new peripheries" related to the economic restructuring, this paper analyzes the process of territorial configuration in Mendoza, Argentina, which represents other processes that take place in many dry lands of Latin America. The existing territorial fragmentation is presented as the result of one common logic: resources, population and power are concentrated within a reduced portion of territory -the irrigated oasis- but at the expense of using up minority resources and exploiting social groups in the desert spaces. According to local belief, these ones are not suitable, they have not taken part in the construction of the local identity, and they have turned into "invisible spaces", included in the model as subordinated, vulnerable and progressively close to exclusion.

Keywords : territory; dry lands; power; identity; resources; Mendoza; Argentina; exclusion.