Regions of refuge and the agrarian question: peasant agriculture and plantation forestry in Chilean Araucania.

摘要

It is argued that the geography of peasant survival under capitalism is the product of ecological, social, economic and demographic processes in combination. Peasant agriculture survives when those processes remain gradual; when they accelerate, theequilibrium of peasant societies breaks down. South-central Chile, long a region of refuge for peasant agriculture and indigenous culture, is now under pressure from the spread of pine plantations. Three roads are emerging among the peasantry: displacement, proletarianization in situ, or the persistence of peasant agriculture. The final section considers the prospects for peasant participation in the forest industry as independent producers.