Towards an agrarian question of circulation: Walmart's expansion in Chile and the agrarian political economy of supply chain capitalism

Abstract

AbstractThe central role that infrastructures of circulation and connectivity—logistical, financial, and digital—have come to perform in the reproduction of agro‐food systems calls for an expanded conception of agriculture that integrates dialectically the production of economic value and its subsequent realization in the sphere of exchange. Through the case of Walmart's expansion in Chile, and on the basis of a critical theorization of the circulation of capital, this paper proposes an agrarian question of circulation in which the apparently distinct realms of food production, transport, storage, and consumption are brought together into a contradictory and yet unitary whole. The case of Walmart Chile is illustrative of how the reconfiguration of spaces of urban mass consumption and the organizational restructuring of agro‐industrial hinterlands constitute each other in intricate ways. An agrarian question of circulation, the paper concludes, bears important political implications for rethinking the scope and extent of contemporary discussions on agrarian reform being put forward by transnational rural organizations.