RETHINKING RURAL CITIZENSHIP IN COMMODITY REGIONS. LESSONS FROM THE LOS LAGOS REGION, CHILE

Abstract

Recent literature on commodity frontiers and resource-based economies has reopened the debate surrounding the effects of extractive economies on people’s connection to a political system that sustains predominant modes of production. However, the debate has focused on struggles and broader political tensions between social movements and private companies or the State. The present article adopts a different approach, reflecting on the emergence of distinct forms of citizenship in rural territories. Through examining the salmon industry in the Los Lagos region of Chile, I identify connections between commodity production, place-based identity politics, and citizenship performance. I argue that the concept of rural citizenship understood here as the set of practices of relating to the state grounded in a rural sense of belonging and assessment of the place rural areas have in the frontier project is central to understanding political participation in commodity regions and is informed by the trialectic relationship between place identity, commodity production, and the democratic institutions in place. The article concludes with an invitation for further research into frontier politics from a commodity perspective.