Acciones y omisiones del Estado costarricense en la expansión piñera: El caso de la Zona Norte-Norte de Costa Rica

Abstract

La expansión del monocultivo de piña se ha traducido no solo en mayores ingresos económicos para el país, sino también en transformaciones e impactos sociales y ambientales para los cantones productores, como es el caso de Upala, Guatuso y Los Chiles. A partir del enfoque teórico de la antropología del Estado de autores como Abrams (2015), Trouillot (2001), Jessop (2014) y Osorio (2014), se analiza el papel del Estado costarricense a través de sus políticas, prácticas, omisiones y vacíos institucionales. Además, se demuestra cómo a partir de una serie de arreglos territoriales, políticos, económicos y sociales, el Estado se convierte en cómplice de la consolidación de esta industria y la expansión territorial de este cultivo.

Regulation by impasse: Pesticide registration, capital and the state in Costa Rica

“…Scholars have long indicated the exceptional character of Costa Rican neoliberal development, which has seen, on the one hand, the adoption of market-led regulation, while, on the other, relative preservation of social democratic norms and environmental protections (Fletcher et al, 2020; Ramírez Cover, 2020; Sandbrook et al, 2006). As Fletcher et al note, however, ‘roll-out’ forms of neoliberal regulation following structural adjustment integrated conservation and development more deeply, and thereby ‘intensified the long-standing strain between extraction and preservation’ (2020: 15).…”

“…Following three rounds of structural adjustment, the country's democratic legacy and technical capacity were mobilized to support a green development model based upon an extensive system of protected areas and ecotourism. Yet Costa Rica's reputation as the ‘Green Republic’ (Evans, 1999) rested upon a paradox: it was both a global leader in conservation policy and simultaneously a center of practices, innovations and technologies for monoculture agro-exports (Ramírez Cover, 2020). Spurred by foreign investment, state promotion policies and domestic innovations in agronomic sciences, plantation agriculture has expanded in the past decade, deepening these tensions in the country's development model (Galt, 2020; León Araya, 2021).…”

“…As various scholars have noted, the Costa Rican state has constructed its hegemony across the conflicting priorities of conservation and natural resource exploitation (Fletcher et al, 2020;León Araya, 2021;Obando Campos, 2020;Ramírez Cover, 2020). Following three rounds of structural adjustment, the country's democratic legacy and technical capacity were mobilized to support a green development model based upon an extensive system of protected areas and ecotourism.…”