The Patagonian Sublime: The Green Economy and Post-Neoliberal Politics by Marcos Mendoza

Marcos Mendoza's book, 'The Patagonian Sublime: The Green Economy and Post-Neoliberal Politics,' reveals that Argentina's Kirchnerismo movement integrates conservation and economic development through a strategy termed 'green productivism.' This approach, rooted in public-private alliances, leverages rent capture, place branding, and land monopolization to drive tourism growth while undermining long-term sustainability. Mendoza's 18-month ethnographic study in El Chaltén, near Los Glaciares National Park, exposes contradictions in post-neoliberal development by analyzing interactions among diverse stakeholders—tourists, entrepreneurs, park rangers, and activists—to demonstrate how conservation and extraction coexist under a 'semiotic estate.' The research highlights Patagonia as a case study for broader tensions between economic nationalism, environmental governance, and sustainable development.

Beer, C. (2020). The Patagonian Sublime: The Green Economy and Post-Neoliberal Politics by Marcos Mendoza. Journal of Latin American Geography, 19(3), 368–370. https://doi.org/10.1353/lag.2020.0067