ILPC 2026

The present investigation is part of my Phd Thesis and presents the preliminary results regarding the role of the State in the precarization of the grape agro-export sector. Based on the study of two cases (small-N comparison), it is sought to compare: (1) the similarities and differences in the precarization processes in Chile (Elqui Valley/Limarí) and Brazil (San Francisco Valley) and (2) the mechanisms promoted by the State that favored the precarization of the sector and its counter-movements. To carry out the above, a combination of methods was used. Whereas sociohistorical comparison was used to analyze - at the macro level - what has been the role of the State in the precarization of the sector (Skocpol and Somers, 1980, Mahoney, 2004, Mahoney and Rueschemeyer (eds.), 2003) a multi-sited ethnography (Peck and Theodor 2015, Mah 2014) was deployed to identify the practices of resistance in the territories.

One of the central concepts used in my research, has been Landnahme (capitalist colonization) (Dörre 2009), which allows to relate the expansion of capitalism with the precarization process, considering not only the economic factors involved but also the role of the state (political dimension). My preliminary interpretation of findings suggests that in both territories (Chile and Brazil), , the State fostered a process of Landnahme from the 1970s on that involved both the colonization of natural resources -land and water- and labour force –feminization and proletarization. This brought with it the precarization of the working and living conditions of rural wage earners, which was not only the result of the recommodification of labor, but also of a broader process involving unequal access to land, water, and labor and social rights.

Despite the similarity of macrosocial processes (water/land/labor commodification) in both territories, the responses to precarization have differed considerably. So in the Elqui/Limarí Valley (Chile) is possible to observe a weak union movement, without negotiation power, being NGOs the actors who opposed these commodification processes. On the contrary, in the San Francisco Valley (Brazil) it has been a strong and organized trade union movement the one reversing the precarization of the formally hired workers. Finally, from this interplay between commodification/decommodification (Polanyi 1944), I suggest there were three periods of precarization between 1970 and 2017, each one characterized by precarization mechanisms and particular practices of resistance.