A stolen river and dry relations in the Argentine pampas

Abstract

In 1947, Los Nihuiles dam was inaugurated in the province of Mendoza (Argentina), regulating the regime of the Atuel river, and causing profound changes downstream, in the province of La Pampa, where it used to form a large wetland. In this article I present lonko ranquel Nazareno Serraino’s reflections about the drought caused by the “theft” of the river. First, I describe how his ideas express that instead of being a natural phenomenon or a climatological anomaly caused by anthropic action, drought is, above all, a social phenomenon: what dried up when the flow of the river was cut off is the constitutive network of relationships between humans and between humans and non-humans in west Pampas, on the margins of the Atuel marshes. Secondly, I inquire into how the images of the drought and the scattering that this perspective contains allow us to approach the current process of reorganization and revisibilization of the ranquel People, understanding it as an attempt to revive certain relationships in the hope that one day, the river will also resume its course.