From a world history perspective, the most noticeable trend in the history of the late 19th century was the domination of Europeans over Non­Europeans. This domination took many forms ranging from economic penetration to outright annexation. No area of the globe, however remote from Europe, was free of European merchants, adventurers, explorers or western missionaries. Was colonialism good for either the imperialist or the peoples of the globe who found themselves subjects of one empire or another? A few decades ago, the answer would have been a resounding no. Now, in the wake of the collapse of the Soviet Union, the more or less widespread discrediting of Marxist and Leninist analysis, and the end of the Cold War, political scientists and historians seem willing to take a more positive look at Nineteenth Century Imperialism. One noted current historian, Niall Ferguson has argued that the British Empire probably accomplished more positive good for the world than the last generation of historians, poisoned by Marxism, could or would concede. Ferguson has argued that the British Empire was a \" liberal \" empire that upheld international law, kept the seas open and free, and ultimately benefited everyone by ensuring the free flow of trade. In other words, Ferguson would find little reason to contradict the young Winston Churchill's assertion that the aim of British imperialism was to: give peace to warring tribes, to administer justice where all was violence, to strike the chains off the slave, to draw the richness from the soil, to place the earliest seeds of commerce and learning, to increase in whole peoples their capacities for pleasure and diminish their chances of pain. It should come as no surprise that Ferguson regards the United States current position in the world as the natural successor to the British Empire and that the greatest danger the U.S. represents is that the world will not get enough American Imperialism because U.S. leaders often have short attention spans and tend to pull back troops when intervention becomes unpopular. It will be very interesting to check back into the debate on Imperialism about ten years from now and see how Niall Ferguson's point of view has fared! The other great school of thought about Imperialism is, of course, Marxist. For example, Marxist historians like E.J. Hobsbawm argue that if we look at the l9th century as a great competition for the world's wealth and …

The New Imperialism

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Archaeologies of the Future: The Desire Called Utopia and Other Science Fictions

Overview of the geography of the Monte Desert biome (Argentina)

In arid regions throughout the world, shallow phreatic aquifers feed natural oases of much higher productivity than would be expected solely from local rainfall. In South America, the presence of well-developed Prosopis flexuosa woodlands in the Monte Desert region east of the Andes has puzzled scientists for decades. Today these woodlands provide crucial subsistence to local populations, including descendants of the indigenous Huarpes. We explore the vulnerability and importance of phreatic groundwater for the productivity of the region, comparing the contributions of local rainfall to that of remote mountain recharge that is increasingly being diverted for irrigated agriculture before it reaches the desert. We combined deep soil coring, plant measurements, direct water-table observations, and stable-isotopic analyses (2H and 18O) of meteoric, surface, and ground waters at three study sites across the region, comparing woodland stands, bare dunes, and surrounding shrublands. The isotopic composition of p...

/pdf/water-subsidies-from-mountains-to-deserts-their-role-in-4zx8ydqcsr.pdf

Water subsidies from mountains to deserts: their role in sustaining groundwater-fed oases in a sandy landscape

Human ecology, ethnobotany and traditional practices in rural populations inhabiting the Monte region: Resilience and ecological knowledge

Resumen: En el presente trabajo se analiza el proceso de con-figuracion territorial de Mendoza,Argentina,represen-tativo de otros pertenecientes a tierras secas de AmericaLatina, en el marco de la concepcion de las “nuevasperiferias” asociadas a la reestructuracion de las eco-nomias.La fragmentacion ter ritorial actual seria el pro-ducto de una misma logica que, mientras concentrarecursos, poblacion y poder en una pequena por-cion del territorio —los oasis irrigados—, lo hace acosta del despojo o agotamiento de recursos y grupos * Investigadora del Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Cientificas y Tecnicas( CONICET ),Instituto de Ciencias Humanas,Sociales y Ambientales ( INCIHUSA ), Labo-ratorio de Desertificacion y Ordenamiento Territorial ( LADYOT ),Instituto Argentinode Investigaciones de las Zonas Aridas ( IADIZA ), Centro Regional de InvestigacionesCientificas y Tecnologicas ( CRICYT ).Con la colaboracion de Maria Eugenia Fusari ySilvia Urbina.Telefono: (54-261)4280080/4288314, direccion postal: Ruiz Leals/n, Parque General San Martin, (5500), Mendoza,Argentina. Correo electronico:emontana@lab.cricyt.edu.ar ** Becaria del

http://www.scielo.org.mx/pdf/regsoc/v17n32/v17n32a1.pdf

Los espacios invisibles: Subordinación, marginalidad y exclusión de los territorios no irrigados en las tierras secas de Mendoza, Argentina

Este articulo se propone presentar para su discusion y reflexion una estrategia que vincula desarrollo local y desarrollo rural en tierras secas del centro oeste argentino. La propuesta que se presenta posee rasgos diferenciales que afirman su caracter innovador respecto de las estrategias hasta ahora implementadas tanto por los planes de desarrollo rural como por otras actuaciones destinadas al aprovechamiento de los recursos de un area que ha sido devastada en sus recursos naturales. Se basa en el reconocimiento del potencial existente en el medio rural para el desarrollo desde una optica del desarrollo rural sostenible superadora del enfoque compensatorio y asistencial. Se enmarca en una concepcion de Desarrollo Territorial Rural que tiene el proposito de articular competitiva y sustentablemente un territorio rural a mercados dinamicos. Finalmente se senalan algunas de las lecciones aprendidas y las recomendaciones que emanan de las mismas como ejes de transferencia que permitiran que esta experiencia sea replicada en areas de caracteristicas ecoproductivas semejantes.

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Desarrollo local en el desierto de Lavalle. Estrategia para pequeños productores caprinos (Argentina)

“Knowledge Assessment on Sustainable Water Resources Management for Irrigation” (KASWARMI) project made evident cases of unsuccessful or non sustainable irrigation experiences that could only be explained by the underestimation of deep socioeconomic issues. This involves not only the social factors related to the implementation/ adoption of new or better technologies by a wide spectrum of users but also the way in which water use and irrigation projects are conceived, planned and implemented by scientists, politicians and practitioners. The project was interested in assessing the social science inputs irrigation specialists receive. With this objective, this paper presents a state of the art on some selected socioeconomic subjects as they appear in the irrigation literature, and analyzes the way in which they are conceived, thought and articulated with the more “technical” factors of irrigation. This should be useful to raise new avenues of research and to enhance articulation of “technical” and social science approaches in quest of a more close to sustainability irrigation practices. A first search covered eight of the most prestigious journals devoted to irrigation subjects. After this search yielded meager results in terms of the amount of papers found, a new search was conducted, without restraining to specific journals but moving freely with a deliberate thematic purpose. The results showed less socioeconomic issues than desirable in the papers within easy reach of irrigation engineers, a meager presence of Latin American cases and an approach to socioeconomic subjects that lack comprehensiveness, as they did not appear to be fully articulated with the technical subjects of irrigation.

/pdf/socioeconomic-issues-in-irrigation-literature-approaches-3uc39m08n0.pdf

Socioeconomic issues in irrigation literature: approaches, concepts, and meanings

Fil: Torres, Laura Maria del Rosario. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Cientificas y Tecnicas. Centro Cientifico Tecnologico Conicet - Mendoza. Instituto Argentino de Investigaciones de las Zonas Aridas. Provincia de Mendoza. Instituto Argentino de Investigaciones de las Zonas Aridas. Universidad Nacional de Cuyo. Instituto Argentino de Investigaciones de las Zonas Aridas; Argentina

/pdf/585-turismo-de-lujo-y-extractivismo-la-ruralidad-como-presa-1pgaqbsmcc.pdf

585. Turismo de lujo y extractivismo: la ruralidad como presa del capital. Reflexiones a propósito de Valle de Uco (Mendoza, Argentina)

Rural territories in the province of Mendoza, Argentina, particularly those located in the Uco Valley, have been affected by severe transformations connected to two key factors: first, the national state's (de)regulation of water use and, second, the dramatic expansion of capital into winemaking and tourism These activities have been developed on former livestock farming areas, turning them into fresh produce lands where food production is carried out in a "natural landscape" of unquestionable beauty: the iconic scenery of Mendoza This article deploys the concept of extractivism to analyze "enclaves of commodity landscapes" associated with high-end wine tourism Its purpose is to show the extent to which high-end wine tourism requires a sleek and highly aestheticized enclave landscape in order to enable the commodification of singular experiences This article suggests that: 1) The development of tourism enclaves commodifies the landscape so as to provide the sense of a unique touristic experience; 2) the development of these enclaves is underpinned by the extraction of common, collectively-constructed goods Keywords: Landscape; enclave; tourism; commodity; extractivism; wine

https://journals.uair.arizona.edu/index.php/JPE/article/download/22953/22452

Gabriela Claudia Pastor

Papers

Los espacios invisibles: Subordinación, marginalidad y exclusión de los territorios no irrigados en las tierras secas de Mendoza, Argentina

Desarrollo local en el desierto de Lavalle. Estrategia para pequeños productores caprinos (Argentina)

Socioeconomic issues in irrigation literature: approaches, concepts, and meanings

585. Turismo de lujo y extractivismo: la ruralidad como presa del capital. Reflexiones a propósito de Valle de Uco (Mendoza, Argentina)

Landscape enclaves: wine capitalism and luxury tourism in Mendoza, Argentina