White spatial politics in mainstream agroecology activism in Argentina

ABSTRACT This paper addresses whiteness in environmental imaginaries underpinning mainstream agroecology activism in Argentina. It examines the cultural politics of race and nature articulated by intellectual leaders during the period of nation-making, and by contemporary agroecology advocates who are preoccupied to define appropriate human-land relations. Empirically, it mostly focuses on an activist organization that has been reimagining alternatives to the dominant agro-export economy in an agricultural hub in central Argentina. Paradoxically, new territorial configurations to regulate pesticide drift from herbicide resistant (HR) soy fields leave fresh vegetable producers outside environmental protection zones. I argue that by neglecting the exposure to toxicity of farmworkers who fall outside dominant ethno-racial identifications, mainstream agroecology advocates endorse a double standard in food production. The article suggests that there is a need for deeper attention to the ways in which the practices of racialization work in and through ideas of ‘proper environmental relations’ in progressive agendas for socio-environmental change.