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Making the Indigenous Desert from the European Oasis: The Ethnopolitics of Water in Mendoza, Argentina

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  30 August 2016

DIEGO ESCOLAR  and
LETICIA SALDI
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Abstract

This article analyses the ethno-politics of water in Argentina at the high point of European immigration, the first three decades of the twentieth century. Focusing on the drying of the Guanacache wetlands, located in the wine-producing region of Cuyo, we show how national and provincial ideologies based on ‘whitening’ and ‘civilisation’ shaped policies that favoured European immigrants at the expense of autochthonous populations in the geographic and social struggle for irrigation water. A large-scale redistribution of water resources drove the indigenisation of indigenous and criollo populations and the desertification of their land.

Spanish abstract

Este artículo analiza la etnopolítica del agua en Argentina en el momento cumbre de la inmigración europea en las primeras tres décadas del siglo XX. Centrándose en el secamiento de los humedales de Guanacache, localizados en la región productora de vino de Cuyo, mostramos cómo las ideologías nacionales y provinciales basadas en el ‘blanqueamiento’ y la ‘civilización’ configuraron las políticas que favorecieron a los inmigrantes europeos a costa de las poblaciones autóctonas en la lucha geográfica y social por el agua de irrigación. Una redistribución de recursos hídricos a gran escala abrió paso a la indigenización y desertificación de las poblaciones indígenas y criollas junto a sus tierras.

Portuguese abstract

Este artigo analisa a etno-política da água na Argentina durante as três primeiras décadas do século XX, auge da imigração europeia. Com foco na secagem do pantanal de Guanacache, localizadas na região vinícola de Cuyo, demonstramos como as ideologias nacional e provincial baseadas no ‘embranquecimento’ e ‘civilização’ deram forma às políticas que favoreciam os imigrantes europeus em detrimento das populações autóctones durante a disputa social e geográfica pela água para irrigação. Uma redistribuição de recursos hídricos de larga escala conduziu à indigenização da população nativa e criolla e à desertificação de suas terras.

Keywords

Huarpeswater politicsindigenous peoplesEuropean immigrationwine productionHuarpespolítica del aguapueblos indígenasinmigración europeaproducción de vinoHuarpespolítica relacionada à águapovos indígenasimigração europeiaprodução de vinho
Type
Research Article
Information
Journal of Latin American Studies , Volume 49 , Issue 2 , May 2017 , pp. 269 - 297
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Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2016 

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References

1 Government of Mendoza, Ministry of Education, Documentary film El desierto mendocino. Oasis y desierto.

2 ‘Visita de pobladores lejanos’, Los Andes, 17 Nov. 1937.

3 Province of Mendoza, executive branch, ‘Visita de pobladores lejanos’, in Tres años de gobierno, el poder ejecutivo de Mendoza, periodo gubernativo 1935–1938. (Feb. 1938), pp. 149–50.

4 Carlos Rusconi, Poblaciones pre y posthispánicas de Mendoza vol. 3 (Arqueología) (Mendoza: Government of Mendoza, 1961).

5 Galileo Vitali, Hidrología mendocina (Mendoza: Departamento General de Irrigación, 2005 [1940]); Rusconi, Carlos, ‘Sobre hidrografía de las lagunas del Rosario’, Revista del Museo de Historia Natural de Mendoza, 3 (1949), pp. 191–200 Google Scholar.

6 Elena Abraham and María del Rosario Prieto, ‘Enfoque diacrónico de los cambios ecológicos y de las adaptaciones humanas en el NE árido mendocino’, Cuadernos CEIFAR, 8, Mendoza, (1981), pp. 110–39.

7 For a study of cycles in precipitations and flow volume of Andean rivers in the region see, for example, del Rosario Prieto, María, Herrera, Roberto and Dussel, Patricia, ‘Historical evidence of streamflow fluctuations in the Mendoza River, Argentina, and their relationship with ENSO’, The Holocene, 9: 4 (1999), pp. 473–81CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

8 The best known case is that of the Atuel River wetlands in the province of La Pampa. This river crosses southern Mendoza and once drained into La Pampa, feeding the Chadi-Levú River and creating extensive wetlands where a criollo and Ranquel indigenous population lived. In the first half of the twentieth century, a series of canals and dams diverted water to Mendoza's vineyards and dried the downstream basin. The province of La Pampa took their case against Mendoza to the Argentine Supreme Court in 1987. The conflict has not been resolved.

9 The main sources we used are: newspaper articles from Los Andes, La Libertad, Últimas Noticias, La Prensa, La Palabra, La Tarde, and El Tulumaya, official documents (Estado de la Provincia de Mendoza, Departamento General de Irrigación Lagunas del Rosario, 28 de diciembre de 1937, realizado por E. Giménez, Memoria año 1937, pp. 177–85 and Estado de la Provincia de Mendoza, Poder Ejecutivo, ‘Visita de pobladores lejanos’, en tres años de gobierno), studies by the anthropologist and naturalist Carlos Rusconi, Poblaciones pre y posthispánicas, and the hydrologist Galileo Vitali, Hidrología mendocina: la crónica de viaje del periodista francés Jules Huret. La Argentina. Del Plata a la Cordillera de los Andes (Buenos Aires and París: Eugene Fasquelle editor/Sociedad de Ediciones Louis-Michaud, 1913) and the book by the socialist leader Benito Marianetti Problemas de Cuyo (Buenos Aires: Lautaro, 1948).

10 Friedrich Ratzel, Géographie politique (Geneva: Éditions régionales européennes, 1988 [1897]).

11 Marvin Harris, Antropología cultural (Madrid: Alianza Editorial, 2011); Materialismo cultural (Madrid: Alianza Editorial, 1985).

12 On this topic see comments by Miguel Bartolomé on a masked socio-biology in Lévi-Strauss, within a more general critique of Philippe Descola. Bartolomé, Miguel, ‘El regreso de la barbarie. Una crítica etnográfica a las ontologías ‘premodernas’, Publicar, 12: 16 (2014), pp. 17–8Google Scholar.

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14 Swingedow, Eric, ‘State, Modernity and the Production of Nature in Spain, 1898–2010’, Environment and History, 20 (2014), pp. 67–92 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Rogers, Thomas D., ‘Paisagem produtiva: a visão de mundo ambiental, racial e classista da elite canavieira nordestina (décadas de 1880–1930)’, Dossiê Histórias do Trabalho: Sujeitos e Perspectivas, Ciências Humanas e Sociais em Revista, 34: 2 (2012), pp. 29–56 Google Scholar; Gastón R. Gordillo, Landscapes of Devils. Tensions of Place and Memory in the Argentinean Chaco (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2004).

15 Domingo F. Sarmiento. Facundo (Buenos Aires: Losada, 1963 [1845]).

16 The Spanish term montoneros refers to peasant and rural militias in Argentine civil wars. This term has also been used in other Latin American countries such as Peru and Bolivia. Argentine historiography has not given its due importance given the possible existence of demands and strategies particular to rural or ethnic populations within montonero movements (considered to be a general product of inorganic uprisings ‘without history’ or of struggles between elite parties or factions) even though recent publications have highlighted these components in Cuyo. Ariel de la Fuente, Childrens of Facundo (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2000). Escolar, Diego, ‘Huarpe Archives in the Argentine Desert. Indigenous Claims and State Construction in Nineteenth Century Mendoza’, Hispanic American Historical Review, 93: 3 (2013), pp. 451–86CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Los dones étnicos de la nación. Identidades huarpe y modos de producción de soberanía estatal en Argentina (Buenos Aires: Prometeo, 2007).

17 Domingo F. Sarmiento, Facundo.

18 Domingo F. Sarmiento, ‘El Chacho. Último caudillo de la montonera de los Llanos’, in Domingo F. Sarmiento, Vidas de Fray Félix Aldao y El Chacho (Buenos Aires: Argos, 1947 [1866]), p. 84.

19 Ibid ., p. 93.

20 For a general overview of European immigration, which has a vast bibliography, see Fernando Devoto, Historia de la inmigración en Argentina (Buenos Aires: Sudamericana, 2003); María Bjer and Hernán Otero (eds.), Inmigración y redes sociales en la Argentina Moderna (Tandil: CEML, IEHS, 1995).

21 República Argentina, Censo Nacional de Población de 1914.

22 Martín, Facundo, Rojas, Facundo and Saldi, Leticia, ‘Domar el agua para gobernar: concepciones socio-políticas sobre la naturaleza y la sociedad en contextos de consolidación del estado provincial mendocino hacia fines del siglo XIX y principios del XX’, Anuario del Centro de Estudios Históricos ‘Prof. S. A. Segreti’, 10 (2011), pp. 159–88Google Scholar. For example, both César Cipolletti and G. André were Superintendents of the DGI. In 1908, lands with irrigation rights were granted to G. André, which took water from large areas of the Guanacache wetlands. Leticia Saldi, ‘Procesos identitarios, naturaleza y políticas estatales en el noreste de Mendoza (Argentina)’, unpubl. PhD diss., Universidad Nacional de Cuyo, 2012.

23 Alejandro Paredes, ‘Los inmigrantes en Mendoza’, en Arturo Roig, Pablo Lacoste and Cristina Satlari (eds.), Mendoza a través de su historia (Mendoza, Caviar Bleu, 2004), pp. 209–44.

24 Pablo Lacoste, ‘Territorios y departamentos’, en Arturo Roig, Pablo Lacoste and Cristina Satlari (eds.), Mendoza, cultura y economía (Mendoza, Caviar Bleu, 2004), pp. 57–113.

25 Jorge, Chambouleyron, ‘La cultura del agua: de la acequia colonial a los grandes embalses’, en Arturo Roig, Pablo Lacoste and Cristina Satlari (eds.), Mendoza, cultura y economía (Mendoza, Caviar Bleu, 2004), pp. 115–43.

26 Among other publications, Rodolfo Richard-Jorba, Eduardo Pérez Romagnoli, Patricia Barrio and Inés Sanjurjo, La región vitivinícola argentina. Transformaciones del territorio, la economía y la sociedad (Quilmes: Universidad Nacional de Quilmes, 2006).

27 Juan Manuel Cerdá, Condiciones de vida y vitivinicultura: Mendoza, 1870–1950 (Bernal: Universidad Nacional de Quilmes, 2011). Rodolfo Richard-Jorba, Empresarios ricos, trabajadores pobres. Vitivinicultura y desarrollo capitalista en Mendoza, 1859–1918 (Rosario: Prohistoria, 2010). Mark Healey. The Ruins of the New Argentina. Peronism and the Remaking of San Juan after the 1944 Earthquake (Durham, NC and London: Duke University Press, 2011).

28 William Fleming, ‘Regional Development and Transportation in Argentina: Mendoza and the Gran Oeste Argentino Railroad 1885–1914’, unpubl. PhD diss., Indiana University, 1976. Salvatore, Ricardo, ‘Control del trabajo y discriminación: el sistema de contratistas en Mendoza, Argentina, 1880–1920’, en Desarrollo Económico, 26: 102 (1986), pp. 229–53CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

29 Alonso, Ana María, ‘The Politics of Space, Time, and Substance: State Formation, Nationalism, and Ethnicity’, Annual Review of Anthropology, 23 (1994), pp. 379–405 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

30 For a detailed analysis of this dynamic see Leticia Saldi, ‘Procesos identitarios’.

31 Our own calculations from the 1914 National Census.

32 Mauricio Pinto, Gladys Rogero and Marcel Andino, Ley de Aguas de 1884 comentada y concordada (Mendoza: Departamento General de Irrigación, 2006).

33 Pinto, Rogero, Andino, Ley de Aguas de 1884, p. 46

34 Benito Marianetti, Problemas de Cuyo, p. 88.

35 Ibid ., p. 188. Emilio Civit was governor of Mendoza twice between 1898 and 1907. In his second term he expanded upon water policies established in the 1884 Ley de Aguas, directing water to vineyards and trees in the city of Mendoza.

36 Benito Marianetti, Problemas de Cuyo.

37 Tasso, Alberto, ‘La sequía de 1937 en Santiago del Estero. Antecedentes y consecuencias de un acontecimiento ambiental’, Trabajo y Sociedad, 15: 17 (2011), pp. 17–39 Google Scholar.

38 Galileo Vitali, Hidrología mendocina, p. 201.

39 José Chirapozu, ‘A orillas de Huanacache’, Páginas sanjuaninas (Buenos Aires: Rosso y Cía, 1924), pp. 197–205.

40 Chirapozu, ‘A orillas de Huanacache’, p. 201.

41 Martín de Moussy, Descripción geográfica y estadística de la Confederación Argentina, vol. 1 (Buenos Aires: Dunken, 2005 [1860]).

42 María del Rosario Prieto, Área del desaguadero. Cap. I desaguadero norte, 1 (Buenos Aires: Programa de Investigaciones sobre Epidemiología Psiquiátrica, 1981).

43 Carlos Rusconi, Poblaciones pre y posthispánicas, p. 111; Abraham y Prieto, ‘Enfoque diacrónico’, pp. 110–39; Elena Abraham de Vázquez y María del Rosario Prieto, ‘Contributions of Historical Geography to the Study of Processes of Landscape Change. The Case of Guanacache, Mendoza, Argentina’, Bamberger Geographische Schritten, 11, (1991), pp. 309–36Google Scholar.

44 Estado de la Provincia de Mendoza, Departamento General de Irrigación, ‘Lagunas del Rosario, 28 de diciembre de 1937’, realizado por E. Giménez, Memoria año 1937, pp. 177–85.

45 According to Oscar Damiani's regional archaeological typology, the Guanacache canals are trapezoidal in cross-section, some sections having artificial banks on both sides, and originating from open connections to the river. They are built with clay soil that might have been made impermeable. There are also remains of secondary canals, which have a cross-section like a hopper (a funnel set below parallel straight walls), and tertiary canals that are oval-shaped. Damiani, Oscar, ‘Sistemas de riego prehispánico en el Valle de Iglesia, San Juan, Argentina’, MultequinaI, 11 (2002), pp. 1–38, 8Google Scholar.

46 Salvador Debenedetti y José Pozzi, ‘Diario de la XXI expedición a las Lagunas de Huanacache en 1925, Museo Etnográfico’, Archivo Fotográfico y Documental del Museo Etnográfico de la Universidad de Buenos Aires ‘Juan Bautista Ambrosetti’ (manuscript).

47 Regional lands destined for cash crops usually refer to orchards and vineyards or alfalfa growing areas which require canalised irrigation.

48 Diego Escolar, Los dones étnicos de la nación, pp. 109–17; Huarpe Archives, pp. 462–76.

49 In 1980, intermittent water rights were granted to the municipality of Gustavo André. In 1930, the Jocolí canal was extended northwards and  the extension was named the ‘Progress’ canal.

50 Juan Isidro Maza, Ensayo sobre la historia del Departamento de Lavalle (Mendoza: Estudio Alfa, 1981).

51 Leticia Saldi, ‘Procesos identitarios’, pp. 110–11.

52 Jules Huret. La Argentina. Del Plata a la Cordillera de los Andes, pp. 214–15.

53 In the department of Lavalle, the office of water inspector dates from 1888. There is one water inspector for the Bajada de Araujo canal and another for the Tulumaya canal, located to the south and south-east of Lavalle (Maza, Ensayo sobre la historia del departamento, p. 85). In practice, water inspectors change infrequently and sometimes not for decades. In Jocolí, for example, members of the Montalto family were water inspectors of the El Progreso canal from 1946 until the 1990s.  In the Gustavo André municipality, descendants of the first colonists controlled water in the area. In 1927–28 Gustavo André’s eldest son was the DGI's superintendent, the provincial irrigation ministry's highest office. Today his direct descendants continue controlling water in the region. Leticia Saldi, ‘Procesos identitarios’, pp. 111–12.

54 Perón was president of Argentina from 1946–52, 1952–55 and 1973–74. He was the founder of a political movement which is a central feature of national politics incorporating populism and the state. Peronist governments carried out important social reforms to guarantee workers’ rights and created and restructured vast networks with a developed capacity for political mobilisation.

55 Néstor Lencinas, ‘Manifiesto al pueblo’, cited in Rodolfo Richard Jorba, ‘Los gobiernos lencinistas en Mendoza. Salud pública y vivienda popular, 1918–1924’, Avances del Cesor, año 8, (2001), p. 39.

56 ‘La cuestión del agua en Jocolí’, La Libertad, 23 March 1929; ‘El interventor nacional realizó una gira por el departamento de Lavalle, interesándose especialmente por la situación de los colonos alemanes’, La Libertad, 2 July 1929, ‘Vecinos de Lavalle entrevistaron ayer al superintendente de irrigación’, Los Andes, 3 Dec. 1930; ‘Ha sido solucionada la situación de los regantes de Jocolí’, 17 Nov. 1933, La Libertad; ‘El problema del riego en Jocolí’, La Libertad, 13 Dec. 1933; ‘La colonización en Jocolí’, La Palabra, 23 Dec. 1935; ‘La comisión investigadora de los desagües de Jocolí’, La Palabra, 18 Jan. 1936, ‘¿Dónde están los hombres que quieren el bien de Lavalle?’, El Tulumaya, 20 Feb. 1936.

57 ‘Lagunas del Rosario y San José tendrán agua de regadío’, La Palabra, 13 July1935.

58 Ibid .

59 ‘Trátese de restituir el sistema de riego en Lagunas del Rosario’, La Prensa, 21 Dec. 1935.

60 ‘La colonización en Jocolí’, La Palabra, 23 Dec. 1935.

61 ‘Por el departamento de Lavalle’, La Palabra, 24 Dec. 1935.

62 ‘Problema que se agrava’, Nuevo Diario, 23 Jan. 1936.

63 ‘Caravanas de hombres recorren la provincia’, Los Andes, 14 Nov. 1937.

64 Rusconi, Poblaciones pre y post hispánicas, p. 111.

65 ‘Visita de pobladores lejanos’, Los Andes, 17 Nov. 1937.

66 Gobierno de Mendoza, Informe de Gestión de Guillermo Cano, 1938, p. 150.

67 Provincia de Mendoza, Departamento General de Irrigación, Memoria año 1937, ‘Lagunas del Rosario, 28 de diciembre de 1937’ by E. Giménez, pp. 177–5.

68 Ibid ., p. 181.

69 Ibid ., pp. 181–2.

70 Ibid ., p. 184.

71 Ibid ., p. 185. Emphasis added.

72 ‘Los pobladores de las lagunas de Guanacache arrastran una penosa existencia que debe merecer la atención del gobierno’, Los Andes, 16 April 1939.

73 ‘Los pobladores de lagunas de Guanacache’.

74 Ibid .

75 Rusconi, Poblaciones pre y post hispánicas, p. 111.

76 Escolar, Los dones étnicos de la nación, pp. 63–83, 157–83, 219–23; ‘¿Mestizaje sin mestizos?: etnogénesis huarpe, campo intelectual y “regímenes de visibilidad” en Cuyo, 1920–1940’, Anuario IEHS, Instituto de Estudios Histórico-Sociales, 21 (2006), pp. 151–79Google Scholar.

77 This involved, on one hand, redirecting the Tunuyán River to Guanacache and then to the fields as well as rebuilding natural dams downstream from Guanacache. Vitali believed that the destruction of these dams was an additional cause of the wetlands drying up. Vitali, Hidrología mendocina, p. 151.

78 Vitali, Hidrología mendocina, p. 205.

79 ‘The era is over of water being used to cover up shady business, Mr. Ángel C. Cremaschi told us’, Últimas Noticias, 10 June 1946. Cremaschi was the superintendent of the DGI at the time. Three months later, he met with landowners who used irrigation in Lavalle, a group principally represented by Mr. Montalto, who explained the principal problems of irrigation in the area. His presentation focused on the need for construction projects that would solve the flooding problems in the properties of southern Guanacache. He was completely prejudiced against the inhabitants of Guanacache and the projects he proposed were meant to direct water to dry lands and further centralise water in the hands of landowners.

80 These images are still used forcefully in local theories of desertification, which treat the culture and social conditions of the lagoon people as a force of ecological deterioration, which would justify intervention, technical control and external policies in environmental management. Other sources we can mention are ‘Oasis y desierto en el norte de Mendoza, Argentina’, in A. Fernandez Cirelli and Elena Abraham (eds.), El agua en Iberoamérica, vol. 11: uso y gestión del agua en tierras secas (Mendoza: CYTED, 2005), pp. 11–24; Elena Abraham, ‘Lucha contra la desertificación en las tierras secas de Argentina. El caso de Mendoza’, in Elena Abraham and Alicia Fernández Cirelli (eds.), El agua en Iberoamérica, vol. 17: de la escasez a la desertificación (Mendoza: CYTED, 2002), pp. 27–44.