Nationalism, Sovereignty, and Agrarian Politics in Venezuela

398 Pages·2015·3.64 MB·English

by  Aaron Kappeler

Sowing the State: Nationalism, Sovereignty, and
Agrarian Politics in Venezuela
by
Aaron Kappeler
A thesis submitted in conformity with the requirements
for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy
Department of Anthropology
University of Toronto
© Copyright by Aaron Kappeler 2015
Sowing the State: Nationalism, Sovereignty and Agrarian
Politics in Venezuela
Aaron Kappeler
Doctor of Philosophy Degree
Anthropology
University of Toronto
2015
Abstract
Sowing the State is an ethnographic account of the remaking of the Venezuelan nation-
state at the start of the twenty-first century, which underscores the centrality of
agriculture to the re-envisioning of sovereignty. The narrative explores the recent efforts
of the Venezuelan government to transform the rural areas of the nation into a model of
agriculture capable of feeding its mostly urban population as well as the logics and
rationales for this particular reform project. The dissertation explores the subjects,
livelihoods, and discourses conceived as the proper basis of sovereignty as well as the
intersection of agrarian politics with statecraft. In a nation heavily dependent on the
export of oil and the import of food, the politics of land and its various uses is central to
statecraft and the rural becomes a contested field for a variety of social groups. Based on
extended fieldwork in El Centro Técnico Productivo Socialista Florentino, a state
enterprise in the western plains of Venezuela, the narrative analyses the challenges faced
by would-be nation builders after decades of neoliberal policy designed to integrate the
nation into the global market as well as the activities of the enterprise directed at
ii
transcending this legacy. Not merely a restoration of the status quo or reassertion of a
prior independence, I argue, the Venezuelan nation-state is being reinvented in this drive
for sovereignty and that the tensions between peasants, workers and technical experts in
the Florentino enterprise reflect the cleavages of an emerging state form.

iii
Acknowledgments
The research for this dissertation was funded by the Wenner Gren Foundation and the
School of Graduate Studies at the University of Toronto. El Centro Técnico Productivo
Socialista Florentino provided countless forms of institutional support along the way. I
thank the workers and employees of the center for all their help.
Anthropology is a profoundly social endeavor which draws upon interactions with
diverse groups of people written recursively until we arrive at an ethnographic text which
approaches the lived reality, although I doubt we ever entirely reach it. I could not have
succeeded in this research project without the help of the countless people with whom I
have dialoged over the past eight years, only a fraction of whom are listed here. My
dialogs with these individuals have greatly enriched the insights of this dissertation and
created a text whose merits I cannot wholly claim, but whose defects are mine alone.
First, I would like to start by thanking a talented group of graduate students in the
Department of Anthropology at the University of Toronto. I could not have made it
through the program without the support of Chantelle Falconer, Hollis Moore, Daniella
Jofre, Stephen Campbell, Secil Dagtas, Glen Chua, Emily Hertzman, Alejandra Gonzalez
Jimenez, Matt Hilder, Asli Zengin, Danko Jaccard, Anna Kruglova, Laura Sikstrom,
Jacob Nerenberg, Vivian Solana, Jessica Tremblay, Lukas Ley, Sharon Kelly, Matthew
Mosher, Timothy Makori, Maria Martika, Claire Montgomery, Sandy Oh, Maria Sabate
Dalmau, Sardar Saadi, Columba Gonzalez Duarte, Kate Rice, Behzad Sarmadi, Eugenia
Tsao and Alyson Stone.
iv
Postdoctoral fellows in residence at the time of my graduate studies who proved
to be especially helpful interlocutors include Kregg Hetherington, Ashley Lebner, Malini
Sur, Angeles Lopez-Santillan, and Phuc Xuan To. Graduate and professional students in
other academic departments and institutions who helped me along the way include
Lindsay Bell, Irena Wenk, Gail Russel, Christian Chun, Nathaniel Heisler, Burak Köse,
Umit Adogymus, Jaby Matthew, Aziz Güzel, Lucy Angus, Özlem Aslan, Begüm Uzun,
Zach Anderson, Tom Long, Caitlin Henry, Ashleigh Ingle, Amy Buitenhuis, Prasad
Khanolkar, Meghana Rao, Patrick Vitale, Katie Mazer, Corey Ponder, James Nugent,
Sara Suliman, Mai Taha, John Paul, Daniel Vandervoort, Wai Kit Tang, Sara Suliman,
Michaela Kopka, Annie Donald, Alyssa Titus, Heather Millar, Johanna Moore, Eddy
Green, Carl Root and Lisa Conley.
My housemates Amanda Wilson and Jasmyn Singh performed valuable emotional
labor during the arduous first years of graduate school and I am also grateful to my
friends in Arizona, Mary Jo Ghory, Jody Gibbs, Betsy MacDonald, Christopher Floess,
Gabriel Schivone, Josh Banno, and Chad Wellins. Danielle Root, Rosa van den Beemt,
Janne Dingemans, and Dragana Obradovic have all in their own way proven to be
essential figures in my life, and I would not trade the time we have spent together for
anything. I owe a special debt of gratitude to my friend Dustin McDaniel for sojourning
with me during my first trip to Venezuela in 2007, and to George Ciccariello-Maher for
showing us the ropes in Caracas. I should also thank Andrey Gomez Sanchez and his
family for hosting me over the Christmas holiday in 2009.
v
Faculty members who gave freely of their time to discuss aspects of the project
include Ken Mills, Harriet Friedman, Scott Prudham, Thembela Kepe, Victor Rivas, Ana
Maria Bejarno, Valentina Napolitano, Hilary Cunningham, Girish Daswani, Jeffrey
Webber, Henry Bernstein, Henrietta Moore, Tad Muttersbaugh, Karen Rignal, Garret
Grady, Amira Mittermaier and the late Krystyna Sieciehowicz. Special thanks to faculty
members at the University of Arizona for my training in Latin American Anthropology,
and help in getting to graduate school from Linda Green, Kathleen Schwartzman, Lydia
Otero, Victor Braitberg, Julian Kunnie and Mark Nichter.
At the University of Toronto, I have to thank the support staff in the Department
of Anthropology for saving me multiple times. Thanks to Natalia Krencil, Josie Alaimo,
Sophia Cottrell, Kristy Bard, Annette Chan, and Diane Yeager. My greatest debts during
research in Venezuela were contracted to my language instructor Carmen Rojo Lobo, to
Jose Guerrero and Carlos Sanchez of the National Institute of Lands, both of whom used
their credentials to vouch for me, and to Florentino social development workers, Jose
Luis Cano, Marianny Apostal, Amilcar Kassem, Gabriel del Valle Mercado, Arelis
Blanco, Holbert Laborda and Jorge Luis Godoy de Betancourt. Special thanks go to the
truck drivers and security guards of the Florentino enterprise, especially Alberto
Chaparro and Freddy Torrealba for keeping up my weight and my spirits, and to all the
Venezuelans who shared the intimate details of their lives with me and who believed me
when I said I wasn’t a member of the C.I.A.

vi
My supervisory committee deserves more reward and praise than I can give them
at present. I hope I will be able to pay them back over the years to come. Andrea
Muehlebach has truly inspired me with her dedication to the academic endeavor and
tireless work ethic. She provided critical feedback at crucial stages of the project and she
never made me feel as if she did not have time for me. Chris Krupa came in at a later
stage of the project, but was nevertheless able to offer some of the greatest insights I have
ever received into the project and the predicament of Latin America in the twenty-first
century. It is a testament to his wide-ranging knowledge and skills as an academic that he
could provide such input.
My external reviewer David Nugent offered extensive commentary on the
dissertation and greatly helped me to clarify my argument and avoid key conceits. His
praise meant a lot to me. Although now professor emeritus, Gavin Smith continues to
confront he present, and I would be remiss if I did not thank him for encouraging me to
do the same. At every turn, Gavin pushed me to go deeper, and articulate more clearly,
what I knew about social relations in Venezuela, and the implications for the social
actors. This dissertation is a stronger document for it.
My supervisor Tania Li has truly been the sine qua non of this project. Without
her support, I would never have started fieldwork in Venezuela, and I would not have had
as much success as I did without her guidance. Tania has an uncanny ability to bring
about the best in her students. I will spend the rest of my career paying her back.

vii
Final thanks go to my best friend Patrick Bigger; he has been with me every step
of the way, and I hope we continue to march in lockstep for years to come; and to my
parents, Victor and Jana Kappeler, for tolerating my occasional bouts of insanity and
knowing it would all be worth it in the end.

viii
Dedication

To my great-grandmother Pauline McVey who passed away during the fieldwork for this
dissertation. And to the Venezuelan people. They have endured great hardships on their
road to sovereignty. I fear there are many more still ahead.

ix
Table of Contents

Introduction 1

Part I: Problems 42
Chapter 1: Peasants and Petroleum 43
Chapter 2: The Devil and Florentino 103

Part II: Fixes 157
Chapter 3: The Technical and the Social 158
Chapter 4: Food Sovereignty and Security 210
Chapter 5: Dependency and Development 268
Conclusion 317
References 336
Notes 375

x