TRENDS OF GEOGRAPHICAL RESEARCHES IN ARGENTINA

Lic. Ana María
Liberali
University of
Buenos Aires,
Argentina
President,
Alexander von Humboldt Research Institute
Geographic research in Argentina has been influenced by the
context and the different macroeconomic policies implemented at the
national level.
At the
current time in our country, new occurances of regional, economic, social and
environmental import are present, a fact that has generated a lot of new
research programs and projects, which in the majority of cases, are undertaken
at centres of investigation in state institutions.
The Argentine territory has been affected in the last fifteen years by
the deepening of the process of transnationalization of the economy, which has
brought changes in the relations of production in our society.
The insertion of Argentina in the new international
division of labor, combined with a new internal division of labor, raises the
following issues:
-
Privatization of the principal means of production into the hands of big foreign
companies;
-
Brazil as the principal destination
of exports;
-
Primarization of the economy;
-
Agrarian homogeneisation;
-
Overexploitation of natural resources with the consistent deterioration of the
environment;
-
Increase in unemployment and social fragmentation;
-
Migration.
After a
long period in which Regional Geography had been absent in most research and
educational programs, recently we have held a major conference, or summit,
focused as much on regional national economies as on the geographical
consequences of integration with other countries of the region, such as the case
of MERCOSUR.
In
addition, the privatization of major companies has had a strong impact on nature
and on society. Because of this context, geographers have to a great extent
increased their commitment to addressing two related questions concerning: 1)
the destruction of the ecosystems due to the optimization of corporate earnings,
and 2) the problem of increasing unemployment. For this reason, there have been
an exponentially increasing number of environmental and social impact studies.
It is
necessary to add and clarify that Environmental Geography also forms a part of a
mode of research that exceeds beyond the borders of my country. Also, since
there is not much Human Geography, it seems that studies in Social Geography
have been the area experiencing major growth in recent times, at least in
relative terms.
Changes
in the rural land tenure system and in agricultural systems of soybean
monoculture mean that some colleagues are treating diverse aspects of Agrarian
Geography in their research. These processes have contributed both to the exodus
of the scant population that remain in the Argentine countryside, as well as to
a great urban fragmentation, with neighborhoods of mixed luxury and urban
poverty previously unknown. There is also then a demonstrated increase in urban
studies both for big cities and for intermediate ones, where Argentina is being spoken about in
terms of a “Latinoamericanization” of a formerly European space. Research in
Urban Geography is related to these facts, and together with subsidies for
programs in Local Development, many geographers have been stimulated to adapt
urban problematics to this field.
Another
phenomenon that we have been experiencing in Argentina in recent years is the
deepening complexity of migratory processes and patterns. We have on the one
hand an exodus of inhabitants particularly from professional and middle classes,
to the USA and Europe. We have a strong process of urbanization and a net
inmigratory positive balance, not only from traditional sources of bordering
countries but also from new origins like Eastern Europe and Asia. This has generated new investigations in the area of
Social Geography.
In
addition, Economic Geography has been one of the means to understand new
commercial relations and how changes in the productive system have modified the
processes of property accession in the whole country. After devaluation, tourism
has increased rapidly, and this speciality is set to become an important subject
for upcoming research trends.
All of
these territorial changes produced in a short space of time have political
manifestations, given that they have been fulfilled through those who forcefully
influence the annihilation of geographical space. For this reason, the works of
Political Geography has begun to prosper lately, leaving aside the more
traditional kind of Geopolitics, in order to study macroeconomic politicians and
the new insertion of Argentina in the international
context.
Bibliography
CENTRO DE ESTUDIOS ALEXANDER VON HUMBOLDT.
Censo Noticias del CeHu. Buenos Aires. 2006.
LIBERALI, Ana María: “From the geography of limits to
the geography of integration,” in Geografía y Gestión Territorial, No. 5,
Universidad de Guadalajara, México, pp. 47-51. 2004.
LIBERALI,
Ana María: “La
Atomización de la Geografía,” in Revista Mundo
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AAG
Panel on U.S. and Latin American Collaboration
in Geographic Research and Education, in Race, Ethnicity, and Place Conference.
Texas
State University. San Marcos, Texas,
U.S.A. November
1-4, 2006.