Immigration territoriality of Bolivian workers in Mendoza (Argentina). Ethnographic approach based on three case studies located in rural areas

Abstract

Based on an ethnographic fieldwork in the rural territories of Mendoza made between 2009 and the present, in this work I analyze the way in which the territorial movements of labor migrants between different regions of Bolivia and some rural locations of this province, have given place to the construction of migratory territorialities. To that end, I first synthesize the territorial mobility that links both countries based on the migratory trajectories of Bolivian workers, and then I focus on the territories of permanent or transitory settlement of these migrants in some rural areas of Mendoza. I consider three empirical cases that are exemplary of these dynamics: Ugarteche (Lujan de Cuyo), Cordon del Plata (Tupungato) and 25 de Mayo (Maipu); locations that have in common an important presence of Bolivian migrants that articulate in certain segments of the labor market, mainly the agriculture. This approach will allow us to show the particularities assumed by the process of re-territorialization carried out by Bolivian migrants in these places, process in which they build unique territorialities, charged with objective attributes and subjective senses that mark their distinctiveness.