Abstract

VILLAR, Ana Beatriz. Evidence of the expansive existence of relative overpopulation in the paraguayan rural space (2000-2020). Folia [online]. 2023, n.48, pp.179-206. ISSN 0325-8238.  http://dx.doi.org/10.30972/fhn.48487089.

The aim of this work is to make a contribution on the characterization and understanding of the social structure of agricultural production in Paraguay and its historical evolution, focusing on the sectors that have been withdrawn or have seen their livelihood conditions deteriorate as a consequence of the recent productive transformations. In order to do this, the critique of political economy originally developed by Karl Marx is taken as a theoretical framework and aims to offer an explanation centered on the determination of social subjects by the place they occupy in the process of capital accumulation. In the last few decades, different works have shown the expansion of the working population’s surplus for the needs of capital accumulation in relation to the analysis of the recent transformations of the agrarian social sphere of other Latin American countries. In the case of Paraguay Paraguayan case, despite the impact that this phenomenon seems to assume, up to now, no studies that examine the social consequences of the deployment of recent agrarian transformations in this key have been published. Hence, the objective of this article is to present evidence of the expansive existence of a stagnant and consolidated relative overpopulation in the Paraguayan rural area between 2000 and 2020. To affirm this,according to official statistics and specialized studies on the subject, we will examine both the reduction or increase of the different types of agrarian productive units, such as data related to employment, unemployment, underemployment and/or other forms of precarious occupation that can conceal the supernumerary condition of a sector of the rural population. Similarly, we will analyze the growing dependence on alternative factors of employment to guarantee the reproduction of this sector of the population.

Keywords : Paraguay; Rural space; Relative overpopulation; Productive transformations.

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