| Summary: | This review brings together four essential contributions to the study of Argentinean agribusiness to reflect on the porosity that characterizes the organization of the country’s large agricultural companies. The review dissects popular representations of agribusiness as a highly mechanized and collaborative production network dispersed across rented plots of land and upheld by service providers. These representations ignore the lived experiences of rural workers, whose increasingly nomadic work throughout spatially scattered agricultural plots pushes them away from their local communities, highlighting the porous and hierarchical nature of current agricultural configurations. While ignoring labor exploitation, these representations shed light on the will of agribusiness actors to expand their influence beyond the classical sites of production (the farm, the factory, the laboratory). By portraying their companies as porous, powerful agribusiness actors justify interventions beyond the productive sphere as this helps them to create specific social environments that are friendly and useful to agribusiness. Agribusiness capital is deployed to promote particular values, behaviors, and knowledges in local populations, which in turn render them amenable to agribusiness. Moreover, the porosity of the agricultural company, as revealed by its local interventions, sparks conflict with actors who compete for local power and influence, such as the State.
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