Catamarca: Peripheral periphery. Locus of en unciation and peripheral context construction

Abstract

This paper seeks to question the construction of the Argentine north-west, of Catamarca and particularly of Santa Marí­a, through time, as peripheral areas from the hegemonic viewpoint. We will problematize, from the standpoint of the coloniality of power, the way time periods are fragmented from a locus of enunciation which could be defined as Colonialist-Capitalist-Neoliberal, which has become hegemonic since the conquest of America. First it was the Colonial period, later on it was the development of Capitalism, and as of late it is within Neoliberalism that this locus has enabled an expropriation dynamics, in the present times, which is linked with the mega-mining that, during the past two decades, has stressed the region's peripheral status. This dynamics, understood as the continuation of a pattern of colonial power, has operated shaping territories, subjectivities and nature, to which we will also add the way time is fragmented