Frontiers of Luxury, Frontiers of Conservation: The Faces of a Prism Called Extractivism

Abstract

This paper proposes an interpretation of the intersection of extractivism and frontiers. It explores the effects of the progressive settling of luxury wine tourism and protected areas over small livestock producers associated to grazing systems. We choose a locality at the foothills of the Andes cordillera (Uco Valley), focusing on the site called Manzano Histórico (Historical Apple Tree). The combined use of different research tools (secondary data and documents analysis, in-depth interviews, direct observation, and the production of cartography) permits to observe that these territories —the living space for cattle producers— have been progressively incorporated to capital and conservation, especially since the xxi century. At present, they express multiple and diverse compression situations on direct producers, that lead in turn to a remodeling of cattle-raising activities keeping pace with high-end tourism. This paper shows that high-end tourism and nature conservation are not opposed but rather mutually reinforcing activities. Also, that direct producers are not victims in lack of agency, since they reshape their productive profiles to take part in the tourism market highlighting their particular traits.