Possibilities and limitations of the demonstrations against sliding export taxes. Interpretations of the "conflicto del campo" from a local reality

Abstract

The expression "conflicto del campo" refers to a complex set of events that involved many people during the first half of 2008. Its background was the sanction of sliding taxes on soy exports. An essential part of this phenomenon was the high number of people who organized the roadblocks and campings outside many cities and towns all across the country. These groups of people were the ones who made possible the demonstrations, gave strength and carried out the negociations for the agricultural corporations involved. For this reason, it is considered necessary to analyse the factors that made possible the emergence of this small but numerous sources of protest. In order to do that, the influence of the immediate environment of the rural farmers on the dynamics of the protest on a local level in a specific scenario will be analyzed, taking into account the different perspectives of those who, whether voluntarily or not, were involved in these events.