Territorios pensados, territorios migrados: una historia de la formación del territorio hortícola platense

Abstract

La ciudad de La Plata posee una zona de producción de hortalizas que, creciendo desde sus orígenes para abastecer a la urbe, se convierte en poco más de un siglo en una de las regiones más relevantes del país. Las pequeñas quintas fueron la primera manifestación de la horticultura en la Argentina. Con la profundización del capitalismo y el crecimiento del mercado interno a lo largo del siglo XX, tuvieron lugar una serie de relocalizaciones de las explotaciones. Partimos de la premisa que el territorio no sólo es una construcción natural, sino también social. La concepción del territorio como construcción social, como conjunto de relaciones sociales, nos presenta la dificultad de tener que definir conjuntamente qué dinámicas sociales, económicas y políticas lo construyen y conforman en un contexto histórico determinado. Cuáles son las relaciones que establecen entre ellas que dan forma e identidad al territorio, qué contextos históricos lo han determinado.

The city of La Plata has an area of horticultural production, growing from its origins to supply the city, which in little more than a century has become one of the most important regions of the country. Small farms were the first manifestation of horticulture in Argentina. With the strengthening of capitalism and market growth throughout the twentieth century a series of relocations of these exploitations has occurred. We assume the premise that territory is not only a natural environment, but also social environment. The concept of territory as a social environment, as a group of social relations as a whole, presents the difficulty of having to jointly define what social, economic and political dynamics have contributed to it in a historical context. What are the relationships established between them that give shape and identity to the territory, and which historical contexts have defined it. In this paper the historical formation of the La Plata horticultural region is developed. Its initiation as part of the city planning and its extension in the hands of Italian migration was during the 50's. A third moment of definition was due to the appearance of new technologies (the greenhouse) and a new immigrant (the Bolivian horticulturist) in the decade of the 90's. Following the tenets of critical geography it is concluded that space, territory and region are social environments. Founded from heterogeneous and unequal social relations that express and create power. Thus, from the development of its history and incorporating the multiple social, political and historical influences to the argument, it is seen why the La Plata is the most developed green belt region of the province of Buenos Aires.