When labour rebels: Landowners strategies during the Chilean agrarian reform (1964-1973)

Abstract

The object of this article is to describe and analyze the strategies landowners used against mobilized workers in south-central Chile during the agrarian reform. Key aspects analyzed in the development of landowner strategies include the traditional composition of the rural world, the changes occurring in the socio-political panorama over time, as well as workers' unions and landowner organizations. Along with the potential for violence, unusual actions included patron organization unity, a propositional discourse opposing agrarian reform, a search for agreements with the peasant movement, and the establishment of an alliance with higher-level legal and tenant resources. A review of bibliographic, documentary and archival sources offers greater understanding of the reformist period. It has traditionally been conceptualized through a historiographic narrative of interclass struggles and political and labor confrontation but here incorporates variables that include negotiation, coalitions and modernization.