Abstract

QUEVEDO, Cecilia  and  GIORDANO, Mariana. The tourist production of the Impenetrable chaqueño: advanced capitalists, nature and territory. Rev. colomb. soc. [online]. 2021, vol.44, n.2, pp.189-215.  Epub Apr 06, 2022. ISSN 0120-159X.  https://doi.org/10.15446/rcs.v44n2.85666.

Since the end of the 19th century, the Impenetrable (Chaco, Argentina) has been a border space at the same time as the scene of various public and private strategies for extractive exploitation, conflicts over land, and social intervention. At the moment, and as a consequence of the shifting of the agricultural frontier, the portion that corresponds to the Province of Chaco is a territory disputed by two capitalists developments: tourism and agrobusiness. In this context, the article addresses the state discourses and practices involved in building a brand and tourist destination. Considering the historical density in the construction of the landscape and its planning, we inquire into the permeability of nuclear images in two institutional figures of contemporary tourism policies: the National Park The Impenetrable (national management), and the Master Plan The Impenetrable (provincial management). We postulate that both projects are developed in the deployment of a third historical advance on a subordinate geography. Thus, in our argument, we identified three axes of relational analysis: on the one hand, the historical imagery projected on the Impenetrable as exuberant nature and updated from heterogeneous actors and public-private interests associated with tourism development; on the other hand, the symbolic production of the landscape from the tourist exploitation of the forest and conservationist discourses on the natural heritage; finally, the spatial production of the State imposing new territorial meanings, devices for displaying experiences and spatial markers. As a result, the article explores the configuration of a tourist experience around the Impenetrable based, first, on the link between the natural landscape and a historically subordinate geography within the national and provincial tourism policy; and second, the invisibility of social conflicts, inequalities and local discrepancies regarding both the innovative participatory strategy for the advancement of capital and the renewed promise of regional development.

Descriptors: government policy, National Park, State, tourism.

Keywords : Chaco; extractivism; imaginary; Impenetrable; nature; territory; tourist policy.

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