This article deals with the problem of development based on the production of natural resources which in recent years has increased substantially in Latin America. This is a trend which includes de case of Argentina where large petroleum, mining and agribusiness corporations have become some of the main economic actors of the country. What are the consequences of this type of "development" when the main objetives of these corporations is to exploit these natural resources which on the whole were preserved in our countries of the "periphery" while they were depredated in the countries of the "centre"? More then 80% of the natural resources available at present in the world for the future of humanity are localized in territories pertaining to peasant and indigenous communities and, in large measure, in Latin America. In this paper several case studies are considered: the expansion of mining, forestry related to the paper pulp industry and agribusiness. The condiciones in which these activities are expanded and the resistances and disputes developed by the populations that tend for the care of nature and the environment are considered. Finally, some reflexiones in which a critique of the concept of development based on techno-science and the activities of these large corporations as some of their fundamental supports is presented.

The institutional crisis in Argentina in December 19-20, 2001 was preceded by a decade of social protests. Differently from other times, during those years the actions were gradually spread all over the country's territory, integrating new subjects, a new protest repertoire, new aesthetics and new demands. This work approaches such change processes in Argentina within great changes in Latin America seen both from institutional orders and from social resistance and movements in which the rural worlds were significant scenarios. Both new-type governments - which insist in keeping neoliberal policies - and movements of peasants, natives and those who demand the preservation of natural resources, are building scenarios that challenge us to think of new ruralities and reflect about the conceptual tools we should use to approach all those processes. The case of changes in Argentinean agriculture is the proper scenario to understand multiple resistance by actors in "rururban" spaces (agrarian worlds and small towns). Based on whole-country data, the several collective actions carried out in 1999 are shown and a deeper reflection is made on some struggles. The final reflections attempt to articulate social protests in the 1990s in Argentina and the 2001 rebellions as well as later crises. We also resume the idea that rural sociology has to assume and move reflectively on such transition moments - both socioculturally and epistemologically.

La crisis institucional que se hace visible en la Argentina el 19 y 20 de diciembre de 2001 fue precedida por una década de protestas sociales. A diferencia de otros tiempos, en estos años estas acciones se fueron desplegando por todo el territorio incorporando a nuevos sujetos, nuevos repertorios de protestas, nuevas estéticas y nuevas demandas. Este trabajo aborda estos procesos de transformación de la Argentina en el marco de las grandes transformaciones de América Latina que pueden visualizarse tanto desde los órdenes institucionales como desde las resistencias y movimientos sociales en los que los mundos rurales fueron escenarios significativos. Tanto los gobiernos de nuevo tipo, que se resisten a continuar con políticas neoliberales, como los movimientos de campesinos, indígenas, y de aquellos que demandan la preservación de los recursos naturales, van conformando escenarios que nos desafían a pensar las nuevas ruralidades y a reflexionar con que herramientas conceptuales abordamos todos estos procesos. El caso de las transformaciones de la agricultura argentina constituye un escenario adecuado para comprender las múltiples resistencias de los actores de los espacios "rururbanos" (de mundos agrarios y pequeñas ciudades). Con datos para todo el país, se muestran las múltiples acciones colectivas en 1999 y se profundiza en algunas luchas. Las reflexiones finales intentan articular las protestas sociales de la década de 1990 en la Argentina, con las rebeliones de 2001 y con las crisis posteriores. También se retoma la idea de que la sociología rural tiene que asumir y transitar reflexivamente estos relevantes momentos de transiciones, tanto socio culturales como epistemológicos.

When the agrarian world seemed just to have stepped into the agroindustrial stage, with high technology application and inexorable population displacement, the issue of land and the access to it, as well as the struggle to keep it become top-level problems in neoliberal policy-stricken Latin America. This work shows that this new centrality of the struggle for land is a typical situation of the end of the 20th century and the beginning of the 21st Century, allowing for conceptions about these new times. In order to do that, it reviews mid-20th-century approaches and presents new post-structuralist conceptualizations. However, the new nonclass conceptualizations might allow us to consider that any agrarian struggle is a struggle for a fairer and more egalitarian society. The work is based precisely on actions by Uruguayan and Argentinean small farmers, whose demands are corporative and cannot be equaled to those by subordinate sectors for their lost or never acquired rights. In the Argentinean case, new rural workers' movements are added as well as those by indebted small farmers, who in the 90s heralded the great rebellions of late 2001 - the "new agrarian protest".

Cuando el mundo agrario paracía haber entrado en la etapa agroindustrial, con aplicación de altas tecnologías e inexorables desplazamientos poblacionales, la cuestión de la tierra y del acceso a ella o la lucha por conservarla, se convierten en la América Latina atravesada por las políticas neoliberales, en problemas de primer orden. El trabajo trata de mostrar que esta nueva centralidad de las luchas por la tierra es una situación de fines de siglo XX y comienzos del XXI y amerita conceptualizaciones de estos nuevos tiempos. Para tal objetivo revisa los enfoques de mitad del siglo XX y presenta las nuevas conceptualizaciones postestructuralistas. Pero las nuevas conceptualizaciones, no clasistas, pueden dar lugar a considerar que toda lucha agraria es una lucha por una sociedad más justa e igualitaria. El trabajo toma, justamente, acciones de agricultores de Uruguay y Argentina, donde los reclamos son de tipo corporativos y no pueden asemejarse a las luchas de los sectores subalternos por sus derechos perdidos o nunca adquiridos. Para el caso argentino se agregan los nuevos movimientos de campesinos, chacareras endeudadas, etc. que en los noventa preanunciaron las grandes rebeliones de fines de 2001. Fue la "nueva protesta agraria".