Uses of territory and psycho-sphere: metal mining and social and economic development in three provinces of Argentina
Main Article Content
Abstract
In the current historical period, many modern uses of territory operate as mechanisms of accumulation by dispossession. Such situation is legitimized by the state and the corporate power through the concept of psycho-sphere, understood as a fable or a ideological construction whose promises of job and wealth’s creation seek to ensure certain social consensus for the adoption (necessary and inevitable, in theory) of a hegemonic spatial organization’s pattern. In light of that system of ideas, this article analyzes the rise of the metal mining in contemporary Argentina by focusing on the ‘trickle-down effect’ that this activity presumably would have on the economic development of the provinces of Catamarca, San Juan, and Santa Cruz. In order to meet this purpose, the (pro) mining psycho-sphere is contrasted regarding the evolution of different variables of analysis at the provincial and departmental level, such as the labor market, the circumstantial and structural poverty, the public finances’ situation, the collective infrastructure supply, and the Human Development Index.