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Borders which unite anddisunite: Mobilities anddevelopment of newterritorialities on the Chile ‐Argentina frontierCristina Hevilla a & Perla Zusman ba University of San Juan , Argentina E-mail:b Conicet/Institute of Geography/University ofBuenos Aires , Argentina E-mail:Published online: 21 Nov 2011.

To cite this article: Cristina Hevilla & Perla Zusman (2009) Borders whichunite and disunite: Mobilities and development of new territorialities on theChile ‐ Argentina frontier, Journal of Borderlands Studies, 24:3, 83-96, DOI:10.1080/08865655.2009.9695741

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Borders Which Unite and Disunite: Mobilities and Development of New Territorialities on the Chile - Argentina Frontier

Cristina Hevilla and Perla Zusman*

Abstract: Upon the establishment of National States in the Southern Cone, borders started to be considered as differentiation settings and, according to circumstances, international cooperation areas. Integration processes and neo-liberal policies implemented in the region in the 1990’s, however, nurtured discourses encouraging the constitution of a common territory and the end of National State borders. These discourses and their associated rules paved the way for the creation of a new territory on a binational area. Thus, the Veladero and Pascua-Lama mining complexes (Iglesia, San Juan, Argentina - Regions III and IV, Chile) became geographical settings where only one transnational mining company may “use, influence upon, control people, phenomena, and relationships” (Sack 1986). While production and reproduction areas can be defined almost freely by transnational capital, the traditionally transhumant inhabitants of the Andes have seen their border mobility restricted by a set of sanitary rules hampering the performance of their activity, e.g. the placement of a portion of their handmade production on non-local markets. What strategies, then, have been devised by these transhumant social groups in order to continue to carry out their family economic activity, which is actually a legacy from their ancestors?

Borders and political and academic agendas in the Southern Cone1

In the 1990’s, borders were brought back to the forefront of South American political and academic issues. On the one hand, the regional block formation process intended to enlarge a setting for capital reproduction, as in the case of MERCOSUR (Mercado Común del Sur [Southern Common Market], Asuncion 1991)2 and the implementation of neo-liberal policies originated the development of rules ensuring free capital actions and movement throughout the region. Against this background, borders were understood as a specific setting where it was possible to materialize integration processes and which, further, could be thought of as areas likely to be incorporated to global networks. The end-of-borders discourse endorsed these political proposals.

On the other hand, these same processes helped research to be conducted in various individual (geography, history, anthropology, communication) and multidisciplinary fields of study, either accompanying or challenging political concerns (Laurín 2005; Grimson 2000; Schäeffer 1995; Ciccolella et al. 1993). In general, academic papers produced since the 1990’s have reflected an epistemological “turn” regarding the approach to borders adopted in the 1960’s and 1970’s, when they had been directly associated to the legal and administrative boundaries of National States.

For example, in the 1960’s, some border scholars had become interested in finding a univocal definition for the terms ‘boundary’ and ‘border’, or in defining typologies. In all cases, a static analysis of the outcome of the political and social events leading to frontier establishment was prioritized over a review of the process itself. Then, when border creation became an object of study, frontiers were brought to the foreground and their evolution was reviewed from this perspective, devoid of any political considerations and deprived of historical and social interpretations (Eyzaguirre 2000; Meira Matos 1990; Rey Balmaceda 1979). “If until the mid

* Cristina Hevilla, University of San Juan, Argentina crishevilla@yahoo.es Perla Zusman, Conicet/Institute of Geography/University of Buenos Aires, Argentina perlazusman@yahoo.es English translation. Isolda Rodríguez Villegas

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1980s the concerns of nation states were focused on the preservation of their own territory against any possibility of conflict, trends in the regional integration ended happily with those geopolitical speculations and opened the way to a new competition. States have moved their concern and their policies from an emphasis on the territory and population to issues like import and export movements; they were not interested in space, but in flows” (Grimson, 2003, 150).

Recent approaches have surpassed a naturalistic view of borders to underscore their role in political and social constructions, involving pervasive symbolic, cultural, and religious implications for resident social communities (Newman 2006). It is from this perspective that the relationship with those who are on the other side of the imaginary line proposed by the international division, the “other”, started to be analyzed. Thus, a turning point can be identified regarding the positions held by military dictatorships in Argentina, Chile, and Brazil -based on the hypothesis of conflict theory-, for which borders were a setting of differentiation from the “other”, frequently represented as an enemy from which it was important to move apart (Hepple 1990; Child 1985; Atencio 1986; Do Couto e Silva 1981).

Perspectives developed since the 1990’s have highlighted the heterogeneity of current borders, i.e. “the circumstance that the trend merging political, cultural, socioeconomic frontiers, which was materialized with greater or minor success by Nation-States in the past, seems to be decreasing” (Balibar 2005, 84).

Some of these studies have intended to deconstruct either practices (e.g., the development of colonization plans to populate the so-called “population vacuums”, the delimitation of border security areas, or the organization of military corps for surveillance, as gendarmeries) or National State narratives (e.g. school discourses or cartography) considering borders as a constitutive element of identities (Andersen 2008; Lacoste 2003; Hevilla 2000). Others have attempted to challenge these practices and narratives by a review of the dynamics of economic exchanges (implemented lawfully as well as unlawfully) (Betancor Roses 2008; Osório Machado 2005), and cultural exchanges (symbolic goods) (Grimson 2003) observed both in the past (Mandrini 2006; Laliglia 1997; Villalobos, 1995) and the present and which, jointly with differentiation practices, were part of the border development process. Proposals based on post-modern epistemology have emphasized inter-border connections; the flow of people, goods, information, and symbols. Under this perspective, borders were considered as a transnational space, characterized by smooth movements and by their, in Hannerz’s terms (1996), identitarian hybridity, “idea which refers to the cultural mixture, a term of kinship with the possible creolization processes applicable to cultural confluence that extends on a continuum open to diversity” (Montenegro and Beliveau 2006, 28).

Territorial dynamics have been reviewed by some political-cultural studies, interpreting border reconfiguration from a globalization perspective. First, a series of studies was found, emphasizing that the definition of regional blocks has put an end to borders for some social groups and entailed the building of new ones. Contemporary to reviews of different contexts concerning the formation of a fortress Europe for off-community migrants (Gallardo, 2008) or the implementation of new control and surveillance resources on the Mexico-USA border (Akleston 2005), these studies have highlighted that integration processes in South America strengthened customs controls on borderline populations (Karasik 2000; Melo 2000). “Regional integration projects are contemporary qualitative increase in social exclusion. (...) Increased control over the border towns appears to have strengthened, both in relation to the movement of people and small products like ‘ant smuggling’. So in many cases border residents perceive a greater – not less-state presence. The State does not disappear but is transformed” (Grimson 2003, 229).

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In fact, MERCOSUR facilities determined the redesign of some habits of original peoples which, up to then, had managed to ignore National State divisions (Gordillo and Leguizamón 2004).

Then, a second set of studies was identified, underscoring border redefinitions which took place in light of the deterritorialization and reterritorialization processes (Haesbaert 2004) involved in the constitution of economic blocks. Thus, as the power of certain actors on some geographical settings decreased, others erected spaces where to exercise political and economic dominance. In other words, while the state control over the state territory under its domain weakened, transnational companies operated not only on a global but also on a national and local basis. Against this context, borders, conceived of by states as the confines of their own territories, formed part, in turn, of the territoriality of transnational companies and were considered as part of a network. In these cases, borders were reshaped by the juxtaposition of the national state’s and transnational corporations’ territorialities. These reconfigurations were not homogeneous in space, meaning that some actors were included, while others were not (Hevilla and Zusman 2007; Zusman, Hevilla, and Molina 2006).

Within this framework, the purpose of this paper is to analyze the process of reconfiguration of the Chile-Argentina frontier center-western area3 taking account of the dynamics associated to such global practices as transnational mining since 2003. While transnational capital can define its production and reproduction settings almost unrestrictedly, crianceros (goatherds; people who make their living by raising goats and droving livestock searching for the best pastures) and baqueanos (expert mountain guides who know the Andean physical, climate, and road characteristics perfectly well) see their borderline mobility constrained by a set of sanitary rules hampering the performance of their activities. Against this background, our paper will also focus on adaptation or resistance strategies adopted by crianceros and baqueanos to provide continuity to their historical dynamics.

Our study has a qualitative character. It is based on five fieldworks we carried out between 2004 and 2007 in the departments of Iglesia and Calingasta (San Juan - Argentina) and the provinces of Atacama and Coquimbo (Regions III and IV - Chile). Fieldworks were supplemented by extensive interviews with regional authorities conducted in Argentina and Chile capital and other cities (San Juan, La Serena, and Coquimbo). Our sample was set up under the snowball technique and supplemented by particular care to reflect the voice of the different actors involved (State stakeholders associated with tourism, sanitary controls, border controls, the promotion of local development policies; baqueanos and goatherds differentiated based on their gender and generation). Thirty-six interviews were conducted in all. This information was triangulated with an analysis of documents produced by state agencies, which were accessed either over our fieldwork or through the web sites of these institutions. The relationship between the State and the mining activity, and the State and the practices of baqueanos and goatherds was also critically examined through the discourse found in the national press (La Nación in Argentina, Mercurio in Chile) and the provincial press (El diario de Cuyo in San Juan and the newspaper from La Serena in Chile) during the 2004-2009 period.

Transnational mining, binational state cooperation, and new borderline territorializationsDuring the 1990’s, liberal measures were implemented by many Latin American countries to deregulate such economic activities as mining. In Argentina, legislation supported by the national government fostered investments by multinational corporations in the industry under laws offering benefits and exemptions. For example: National Law on Mining Investments 24196/93 established tax stability for thirty years and granted exemptions on some taxes, and National Law on Mining Restructuring 24224/93 set forth the development of geological

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charts of the whole national territory in order to make an inventory of “non-renewable natural resources, encourage investments in and population settlements on border areas” 4.

These actions were endorsed by the Mining Integration and Complementation Treaty entered into between Argentina and Chile in 1997 to take mutual advantage of the mining resources found in the Andes Mountains. In broader terms, this treaty represented a strategy of projection on the global world, while challenging the restrictions imposed by the rules which had erected the international boundary in the nineteenth century.

That was the legal framework receiving the arrival of such mining transnational companies in Argentina as the Canadian Barrick Gold Corporation (second gold producer in the world). This company exploited silver and gold deposits under an open-pit mode on the Andes Mountains in San Juan province, more precisely on the Argentina-Chile frontier, and set up camps at 4000 and 5000 meters above sea level.

At present, in San Juan, this Canadian corporation is exploiting the Veladero mining complex and will start the construction of Pascua Lama in September, 2009. This complex will be the first borderline binational initiative. Pascua is located in the Huasco province, in the Third Atacama Region, Chile, and Lama is situated in the department of Iglesia (Valle del Cura), in San Juan province, Argentina.

As this will be the first mining exploitation site located on the border between two countries, its production and exploitation design will be divided into Argentina and Chile. This binational exploitation has originated a complex legal and tax5 situation which would lay the foundations for similar projects, such as copper exploitation at Pachón, a mine on the south of Pascua Lama and Veladero (San Juan – Chile) currently managed by Xstrata Copper, an Anglo-Swiss corporation.

These mining projects, supported by globalization discourses and the proposal to create MERCOSUR as a common economic space, claiming the “end of borders” (in this case, to extract non-renewable resources) have given rise to deterritorializations and reterritorializations in this Andean environment. Actually, as the “line” dividing national state territories intended to differentiate national identities keeps fading away, a new territory is originating: the one controlled by the mining corporation, the Border District. According to the mining protocol6, Barrick corporation’s workers and goods may move freely over this territory. Thus, the power of the transnational corporation is greater than the power of provincial and national states as the corporation may “use, influence upon, control people, phenomena, and relationships on these areas” (Sack 1986). In this way, the territory dominated by the mining company on the center-western frontier between Chile and Argentina is part of the company’s global network, the company being based in Canada with exploitation sites in different countries, including Peru, the United States, Tanzania, and Australia.

Under these business initiatives, the department of Iglesia, Chilean regions and the Argentina-Chile frontier have become part of this global network. At the same time, a regional network is being developed to ensure capital flow. Within this framework, efforts by the San Juan government to build and improve the Agua Negra international road and integrate it to the Porto Alegre-Coquimbo bi-oceanic corridor seem sensible. Actions by Chilean regional governors to improve the Coquimbo port and commence new port studies can also be understood under this perspective.Supplementary actions are being conducted in the Southern Cone within the framework of the Initiative for the Integration of Regional Infrastructure in South America (IIRSA). The completion of infrastructure (road, rail, and energy) works across the so-called Southern Andean Hub (from north to south in Argentina and Chile) would contribute to IIRSA’s general (explicit and implicit) objectives: removal of borders, movement of goods, and extraction of natural resources to be taken off the region (Arias Toledo 2009).

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Figure 1. Center western Chile - Argentina frontier

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The implementation of these large scale mining projects do affect populations on both sides of the border, changing their everyday life and, particularly, their territorial dynamics. As a response to strong criticism by green movements (Svampa and Antonelli 2009), press narratives, corporation publications, and provincial and regional governments have highlighted that mining companies will help lower unemployment both in Iglesia and Atacama7. It is important to note that qualified people from San Juan, other country provinces, and other Latin American countries have been engaged by the Veladero mine for administrative and productive tasks. However, according to data provided by Barrick and interviewees, Iglesia inhabitants can barely be employed on account of their underqualification8.

Thus, the economic and political integration proposed by MERCOSUR has been evidenced both by the development of a legal framework supporting mining activities on the Andes Mountains, and by the management of other initiatives which would add to the intended regional development favoring the activities performed by the transnational corporation (the construction of road and port facilities within and out of IIRSA). Nevertheless, borders have been erected anew by such other rules as sanitary barriers. Actually, since 1981 Chile has been declared as a foot-and-mouth-disease-free- country without vaccination and from 2000 has prohibited the crossing of goat herds and of any other animal to the Argentine side9.

This has had an impact on crianceros and baqueanos’ activities, who typically cross the border taking horses and mules with them. It is worthwhile mentioning that both crianceros and baqueanos’ practices have colonial roots and involve a full mode of living in the mountains. (Bendini, Tsakoumagkos, y Nogués 2005; Medinaceli 2005, Livenais and Aranda 2003; Castillo 2003, Bendini and Pescio 1999; Gambier 1986, Aranda 1971).

Thus, while states have favored the actions and flows of global capitalism, they have hindered the traditional movement of border inhabitants. Cleanliness and health have been used, then, to establish a social hierarchy and a difference (Grimson 2003, 134), and, more specifically, to endorse a resignification or, even, the disappearance of practices.

Andean routes followed by crianceros and baqueanosGoat raising is a traditional activity in the Chilean Coquimbo and Atacama valleys. Goats are moved according to seasons searching for pastures up to highland valleys in San Juan (Calingasta and Iglesia) on Argentine territory. Until the implementation of sanitary controls, crianceros having the largest number of livestock used to go to Argentine summer pastures10, while those with smaller herds moved their animals towards the Chilean littoral to find pastures which survived thanks to the humidity of coast mist (Gambier 1986).

Typically, crianceros start to cross the Argentina-Chile frontier in spring. They drove their flocks on their horses and carry their mules loaded from winter feeding stations11 (on the lowlands) to summer grazing areas (on the highlands). During the summer, crianceros stay on these areas taking advantage of grasses found at different heights and manufacturing handmade cheese, which will be sold at a later time. In April, crianceros start to get down to winter feeding stations, where they will stay from May to October, only to restart their ascending-descending cycle in the following spring (Castillo 2003; Gambier 1986; Aranda 1971).

As they move along in their route, crianceros families organize their activities in season stone houses called pircas, which remain over time and can be easily distinguished against the Andes Mountains landscape. Next to these pircas, they often set up pens where to keep their flock every evening, after day-grazing.

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Work during the summer grazing season includes family groups. Women and children tender flocks and make cheese, while other members of the family seek different pastures or supply places. One interviewed baqueano told us: “families arrive with wives and children and everything, and they all work. There are others with a few goats, and they get together. For example, some have 50, others have 100, others, 20 and they get together… they leave the younger men there and the older get here just to get [cheese] … to sell it and they bring them food12. In this way, a socialization network is built by doving the animals and producing and selling cheese: between the families of crianceros and Chilean carabineros (border guards) and Argentine gendarmes (who are now in charge of watching that Chilean crianceros should not cross to the Argentine side with their animals); between crianceros and institutional agents surveilling the sanitary condition of animals (Agricultural and Livestock Service [Servicio Agrícola Ganadero], Farming Development Institute [Instituto de Desarrollo Agropecuario], Municipal Agents); between crianceros families and cheese buyers (whether end or intermediary buyers); and between crianceros and baqueanos, who both live on the border and often help and support each other to face inclement weather and meet everyday needs.

Baqueanos are mountain guides. Their expert knowledge of the terrain and inclement weather conditions are required to visit or cross the mountains. They have been and are currently engaged in leading miners, mountain climbers, scientists, and tourists across the Andes Mountains and have also cooperated in the rescue of or search for missing persons. Our interviews have revealed that they have their own animals (mules and horses) to exercise their activity, and that their knowledge represents a family tradition.

Baqueanos’ expert knowledge of the mountain, natural shelters, water springs, animals, flora, climate, and minerals is their cultural capital, which has been passed down from generation to generation. When baqueanos evoke their ancient territoriality, the Andes are represented as a free movement area where they could even hunt and fish.

From the beginning of the twenty-first century, the trades of baqueanos and crianceros on the center-western Argentine-Chile mountain range have changed or become restricted by such government actions as sanitary controls. Therefore, what policies have the Argentine and Chilean governments developed regarding the practices of these social groups? And how have crianceros and baqueanos responded to government actions?

Government actions against crianceros and baqueanos practices One of the major headings of Chilean foreign trade is the export of farm and livestock products. Certain quality standards are required by international trade. Thus, in order to remain as a foot-and-mouth-disease-free country, Chile banned the crossing of animals and goats through the Argentine border in the year 2000. This decision rendered transhumant practices a topic of discussion by some government agencies. Within this framework, the Chilean government implemented measures to avoid border crossing activities and, at the same time, make up for the difficulties encountered by crianceros and their families originating in sanitary controls and border crossing penalties.

The Farm and Livestock Service (Servicio Agrícola Ganadero - SAG) is the Chilean institution which surveils crianceros and baqueanos’ flocks of goats and other animals. Services controlling the border in both countries cooperate with this agency: Chilean carabineros and the Argentine gendarmerie. The SAG has agencies in provincial capital cities and in Chilean communes and towns. In some communes, this institution keeps a land registry where crianceros are entered. Their flocks are controlled on a monthly basis and they are provided with a number evidencing the quantity of sanitary controls performed on their goats. This number must appear on the handmade cheese they produce in order to identify easily who is responsible for that production

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in case a consumer becomes sick from cheese-related food poisoning. Similarly, the SAG will penalize crianceros if caught on Argentine fields with their animals grazing illegally by slaughtering the animals.

Actions have also been implemented by the Chilean government parallel to these controls so that farmer family agriculture may meet the quality standards required by global markets. Along these lines, the SAG has been promoting the improvement of goat quality and the initiative to manufacture cheese as per professional standards for potential exports. On account of sanitary reasons, the production of handmade cheese by crianceros – according to the government– does not meet minimum salubrious conditions to be sold on local and foreign markets. For this reason, crianceros and communal organizations from Region IV fostered the development of agreements to set up Belgian cheese plants complying with sanitary rules, in 2006. The local press from Region IV and our own field work13, however, revealed that results differed from expectations. The cheese manufactured at these plants did not meet, in general terms, the taste of the major portion of local inhabitants, and could not compete with the price set by those who continued to go to summer grazing areas. One interviewee mentioned that “it was not good for crianceros (…) these plants seemed to have been given to cooperative associations. There were several crianceros partners, who left one by one, and the Pichasca plant was finally closed down” 14.

At the same time, such Chilean official institutions as the Farming Development Institute (Instituto de Desarrollo Agropecuario - INDAP), implemented a loan and subsidy system for crianceros so that they can mitigate problems caused by droughts or the lack of good grasses on Chilean mountains, where fields are private or owned by mining corporations. Taking account of the –also sanitary– prohibition to move livestock along roads and highways, these subsidies help pay the carriage of flocks to pasture lands on truck. This reflects an attempt to help crianceros meet some of their needs while keeping them from crossing the border.

Parallel to the above, Argentina and Chile have created other forms to watch baqueanos, whose mobility and work dynamics are less visible than those of crianceros, in an attempt to make them join the practices by state agencies carrying out border controls. Along these lines, the State has resignified the historical habits of this social group. For example, the Chilean government engaged baqueanos through the SAG to accompany patrols and officials making livestock controls on the border. The Argentine government, in turn, has established a local authorization system in mountain municipalities, e.g. Calingasta, for baqueanos to help in rescue activities of missing persons. Therefore, as they are identified on the municipal record and have their own flock of mules and horses, they can help in collecting pasture fees from crianceros, and can further act as guides for scientists, miners, sportspeople, and tourist groups.

Strategies by baqueanos and crianceros to adapt and resist to government actionsAdaptation and resistance strategies have been developed by baqueanos and crianceros in order to face the actions implemented by Chile to prevent them from crossing the Andes Mountains. While adaptation strategies involve accepting any imposed conditions and searching for forms of survival within their framework, resistance strategies entail “an active and organized response to changes. It goes far beyond recovering a sense of dignity” (Katz 2000, 39).

Some Argentine baqueanos have decided to accept these control rules and enter their names on local records. In order to be accepted for registration, they were required to take an examination set by such state institutions as the Gendarmerie and/or Local Governments to show their knowledge of the Andes. Baqueanos have adopted this decision based on their need for money and the possibility to continue performing their activity in departments where transnational mining and tourism have grown in recent years. Similarly, appearing on these records would

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ensure security and expert knowledge to tourists, miners, and scientists who hire their services.

At the same time, some baqueanos have given their activity a business profile both on the Chilean and the Argentine sides by setting up tourist initiatives (camps, cottages) to organize visits to the mountain range in order to meet European demand. For example, in the department of Calingasta (Argentina), highly sophisticated excursions are offered featuring several riding animals per person, a cook, satellite telephone and all terrain vehicles15. On the Chilean side, interviewed baqueanos had cottages and horses for rent, as well as camping lands providing the opportunity to “get close to nature”16.

The situation has been different for crianceros. The very few who own fields on the Andes Mountains have adapted to government requirements. They have abandoned the practice of crossing the border and are trying to earn their living by activities not involving their own mobility: they have set up cheese manufacturing facilities, reengineered their property for suitable farming crops, organized tourist activities where they can take advantage of their knowledge of the territory and their own goods (horses, shelters, or cottages)17.

In contrast, crianceros without property have resisted government initiatives and established community organizations advocating their interests and setting a framework to negotiate with INDAP. Examples of these are the farmers’ confederation and crianceros’ cooperative associations. These associations voice the opinion of farmers and workers18 who claim for the government’s payment of subsidies for their activity, the delimitation of alternative pastures to make up for the prohibition to cross the Andes, or the construction of deep water wells to solve water shortage problems in drought years. Over their negotiations with INDAP, crianceros may also propose the use of available loans or topics on which they would like to receive education.

The refusal by crianceros to accept the rules in force has become a new form of resistance. Some have opted to sneak across the border19 and continue to produce handmade cheese20. They make efforts to become invisible to the eyes of state control authorities as this invisibility is the condition and possibility to resist.

ConclusionWithin a globalization framework, the Argentina–Chile border appears as a space displaying new possibilities for transnational capital. National states, reconfigured within a liberal context, have paid special attention to encouraging foreign investments in these areas. They have created a suitable legislative framework under which the mining industry has been deregulated and have played an active role in developing facilities that support the free movement of goods by large corporations. Under these policies, new territories were created in a bi-national context, without contact with adjacent spaces but in full harmony with other territories controlled by corporations, forming a network.

National states have legitimized the extraction of natural resources by transnational corporations under the end-of-borders discourse, while erecting new frontiers for local societies living on the borderland. These societies have witnessed the emergence of a state that seems to be more concerned about controlling and regulating their actions than about providing them with basic services (health care, education, infrastructure for their daily activities) as it used to do over past decades.

Crianceros and baqueanos have been directly affected by these new border policies inasmuch as the new sanitary rules have redefined their practices. Even though both have resorted to adaptation or resistance strategies to face these rules, their practices have not been actually

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annihilated by global dynamics. In some cases, the State found the need to set up a negotiation framework or redefine its own policies as these social sectors voiced their claims. In fact, the San Juan government has stated to the Chilean administration that there is a need to discuss the possibility of establishing a foot-and-mouth-disease-free area similar to the ones existing in western Patagonia21. Thus, borders have become a space where, in addition to some barriers being removed and new ones being erected, the neo-liberal state is negotiating the possibility of coexistence for global and local practices.

Endnotes(1) In this paper, Southern Cone will mean the area covered by Argentina, Brazil, Chile, and Uruguay.

(2) The Asuncion Treaty was signed by Argentina, Brazil, Uruguay, Chile, and Paraguay. At present, Bolivia, Peru, Chile, and Venezuela are associated states to the MERCOSUR.

(3) San Juan province in Argentina (departments of Iglesia and Calingasta) and Regions III and IV in Chile (provinces of Atacama and Coquimbo).

(4) The modification of the Mining Code, which had not been changed since the end of the nineteenth century, should be added to the passing of laws favoring transnational capital investments. This new Code has defined mines as private national or provincial property, depending on the territory where they are located. It has further set forth that the State may not exploit or benefit from the mines and, therefore, has granted power to private parties to make use of the right of usufruct. The Mining Code has also eliminated limitations concerning the size of exploration and production concessions, while extending mine rental and usufruct timeframes (Svampa, Bottaro and Alvarez 2009, 35).

(5) Chile and Argentina have reached agreements under which, based on the definition of this cross-border area, double taxation is avoided and tax enforcement on cross-border services is clarified. Customs, immigration as well as labor, health care, and security procedures have also been defined by additional protocols applicable to this area.

(6) Section 3 of the additional protocol specific to the Integration and Complementation Treaty signed on August 13, 2004, provides for the opening of a cross-border path to be solely used by the Pascua-Lama project “in order to allow for the entry, exit, and movement of persons, goods, and services on its Operational Area throughout the border sector encompassed by this area” (cited in Giovannini, et al. 2009, 256). Beyond what is established by this rule, the corporation would not allow anyone who does not work for the company to enter the area under its control.

(7) The Argentine and Chilean press has endorsed the job creation capability of the Pascua Lama project at the height of a world financial crisis. See El Mercurio.2009. La fiebre del oro que enciende Pascua Lama: 80% de postulantes son chilenos. Sección Economía y Negocios. May 24, 2009. http://www.mer.cl/modulos/catalogo/Paginas/2009/05/24/MERSTEB002BB2405.htm (accessed May 24,2009). Diario de Cuyo. 2009. En San Juan y en Chile. Para trabajar en Pascua Lama, 400 postulantes se presentan por día. Suplemento Cuyo Minero, June 18, 2009. http://www.diariodecuyo.com.ar/home/new_noticia.php?noticia_id=348038 (accessed June 18, 2009).

(8) Interview Teruel, Andrea. 2004. Interview conducted by P. Zusman. Secretaría de Minas y Geología, Buenos Aires, Argentina. May 11. Vega, Cacho. 2006. Interview conducted by C. Hevilla. Angualasto, San Juan, December 11.

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(9) As infected animals were found on the Argentine north-western region, Argentina lost its condition of foot-and-mouth-disease-free country in 2000. Since 2006 it has become a foot-and-mouth-disease-free territory with vaccination.

(10) Mariano Gambier estimated that, by the 1980’s, the feeding capacity of highland Argentine valleys was about 500,000 heads of small livestock and that, by that time, at most 150,000 animals arrived lawfully according to guides’ control data.

(11) At winter feeding stations, crianceros let livestock rest. They take care that animals should not lose weight so that they can go up and graze in highland fields in the spring.

(12) Valdez, Mercedes. 2004. Interview to baqueano conducted by C. Hevilla. Tamberias, Calingasta, Argentina. August, 14.

(13) Interview to Castillo, José and Castillo, Arnoldo. 2007. Interview to owners of Andes mountain fields bordering Argentina conducted by C. Hevilla and P. Zusman. Las Ramadas, IV Región, Chile. January 11.

(14) Interview to Marcelo Galleguillos. 2007. Interview conducted by P. Zusman and C. Hevilla to Chilean border guard (carabinero) from the Río Hurtado station, Region IV, Chile. January 10.

(15) See www.fortunaviajes.com.ar for details on the sophistication of these initiatives.

(16) Conihuante Villarroel, Víctor Manuel.2006. Interview to baqueano conducted by C. Hevilla and P. Zusman. Cochiuaz , Region IV, Chile. January 30; Pinto, Juan. 2006. Interview to baqueano conducted by C. Hevilla and P. Zusman. Vicuña, January 25.

(17) Interview to Castillo, José and Castillo, Arnoldo. 2007. Interview to owners of Andes mountain fields bordering Argentina conducted by C. Hevilla and P. Zusman. Las Ramadas, Region IV, Chile. January 25.

(18) Castillo, Mateos. 2006. Interview to trade union leader from Confederación Campesina de Crianceros (Farmer Crianceros Confederation). La Serena, January 27.

(19) San Juan departmental authorities have recognized that Chilean livestock continues to be taken to Argentina. The Calingasta mayor has identified this activity as a source of resources for the local treasury. Thus, “he stated that as the prohibition has been enforced by Chile and not Argentina, we cannot afford to miss the collection of fees at Calingasta because animals get to this side to graze anyway (…)”. Diario de Cuyo. 2009. Contrapunto por veranadas, April 15, 2009. http://www.diariodecuyo.com.ar/home/new_noticia.php?noticia_id=337273 (accessed April 16, 2009). INDAP reports and papers on goats in Region IV have also accepted that highland crossing is actually hard to eradicate. Muñoz Iriarte, Y. 2008. Crianceros de Choapa solicitaron abrir veranadas argentinas y establecer zonas de exclusión. INDAP, November 7, 2008 (www.indap.gob.cl/ganadero/index.php?option=com.conten&task=view&id=38)

(20) The know-how required to produce handmade cheese is different from that necessary to make industrial cheese. For example, crianceros are aware of the fact that the season to make cheese is the season when animals give birth or that it is necessary that every goat suckle their offspring so that milk production is guaranteed. They also know what requirements should be met by rooms in the highlands for cheese to ripen and be preserved until it is sold.

(21) XV Encuentro Comité de fronteras Agua Negra Argentina y Chile. La Serena. October 18 and 19, 2006. www.sanjuan.gov.ar/goberino/aguanegra/fac_front/sag_senasa_2006.pdf/ (accessed March 29, 2007).

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