Being a tobacco worker after the farms closed. The reshaping of social belonging in a context of transformation

Abstract

This work is part of a research that studies the current socio-spatial reconfiguration process of the peri-urban region of western Salta, historically associated with agricultural production. In a context of material transformation -disappearance of farms and installation of real estate projects-, we think that the past is still a reference for the actors in the construction of their senses of social belonging and understanding of the world. In this sense, if the bond that people establish with a space is not only determined by the ‘being there’, the physical disappearance of the properties [fincas] does not imply the loss of the sense of belonging that the peons have as tobacco workers. This sense of belonging is anchored in the link between employers and workers, characterized by the work and residence of the latter in the properties, as well as a series of exchanges, favors and debts of a moral nature. Before the closing of the last property in the town of El Encón, this article is interested in the practices and narrations through which the old peons maintain and reconfigure their sense of belonging and in the role that the property has in these. Specifically we will show here the differences and similarities with which the oldest workers of the town and those who left the last property are related to this past, to identify themselves within the community.