Transnational Capital and its Role in the Reconfiguration of Social and Economical Inequalities: The case of wine production in Mendoza state, Argentina
The research proposes an approach to the power asymmetries established between different agents of wine production after its reconvertion. Specially relevant is the role of the transnational capital in the configuration of new social and economical inequalities and the persistency and deepening of already existing ones.
In the frame of globalization processes and the implementation of neoliberal policies in Argentina, the wine sector is restructured: the foreign investment flow and the exportation of wine increased substantially; the technology of production and the handle of crops were modernized; the varieties of grapes produced changed; the consumption of fine wines grew; the vertical integration between primary grape producers and wine producers grew. The transition from a quantity oriented production system to another which has as its main objective “quality” and orients to elaboration of differentiated products was the main result and the main trend of this process. The empirical support of this research is the biggest wine producer in Argertina: The Mendoza State.
This research plan is part of a postgraduate (doctorate) research. The analysis framework combines different perspectives: agro-industrial complex analysis, agrarian structure analysis and different approaches about inequalities. This framework is organized in several dimensions which allow the study of power structure and power construction. Inequality is considered as a multidimensional and relational phenomenon that should be in studied in a processual perspective.
The main interest to apply for this scholarship is to exchange working results with other students and researchers and to frame the case of study selected in a wider analysis and knowledge of the globalization processes and the ways in which transnational capital reconfigure the inequality regimes both in regional and on a global level.