ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the discursive social construction of the introduction of drip irrigation for small-scale family farmers and the relationships between small farmers and the state. The analysis is based on a case study in the Limari valley of Rio Grande, in the region of Coquimbo, Chile. Chile is well known worldwide for the attempt of the dictatorship to promote a neo-liberal political project through series of reforms toward a market-centric society. In so doing, the state lost its role of regulator to the benefit of markets, which were supposed to regulate social relations, resource allocation and financial systems in a process of globalisation of capital. The peasants delegitimise the entrepreneur's identity. The peasants consider the entrepreneur and the companies as profit-oriented with a capitalist rationality in which the territory is considered to be a means of obtaining income with no further significant meaning.
