Blue Revolution and the conquest of the piedmonts: towards a (de-)integrated, autonomous and privatista management of water in the oases of the Province of Mendoza, Argentina (in Spanish)

In this paper we describe the process of agricultural frontier expansion in the Uco
Valley in the semi-arid province of Mendoza, Argentina, in order to question two strong
paradigms of water management that are actively used in local eco-technocratic
discourses; the so-called Blue Revolution and Integrated Water Resources Management
(IWRM). Drawing on personal fieldwork and analysis of secondary sources (triangulating
interview materials, business reports, websites, cadastral information and censuses) we
investigate how theses processes of corporate control grabbing over peripheral rural
spaces of this oasis and its water resources − in particular the adoption of precision
agriculture and pressurized irrigation systems − contribute to forge locally a model of
(de)integrated, autonomous and privatised water management