Abstract
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
Highlights
Rural territories in the province of Mendoza, Argentina, those located in the Uco Valley, have been affected by severe transformations connected to two key factors: first, the national state'sregulation of water use and, second, the dramatic expansion of capital into winemaking and tourism
The literature on extractivism occasionally refers to luxury tourism as a practice that is extractivist in some of its dimensions, few studies analyze the relationship in depth
All authors address dynamics that may be linked with extractivism, such as large transfers of capital between sending and receiving destinations, and environmental impacts, the concept is not addressed in this literature
Summary
Extractivism in Latin America has managed to stand the test of time through its nuances and adaptations. The extractivist logic absorbs tourism and articulates it by reconfiguring the activity and the territories where it occurs as a driving force for the constitution of imaginaries that legitimate the neocolonial process This perspective shows the territorial idealization of Latin America as a tourist site with important historical background, most evident in Latin American eldoradismo, which refers to the legend of El Dorado and the ongoing quest for riches in the New World (Svampa 2012). The landscape acquires the status of a commodity for consumption (Beilin 2001; Santamarina 2009; Villar Lama 2013) This type of commodity requires capital flows for a two-fold purpose: 1) establishing a production site, and 2) building new networks on which to establish a tourism market connected with winemaking and real estate sales
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