Constructing globalized spaces of tourism and leisure: Political ecologies of the Salta Wine Route (NW-Argentina) Gerhard Rainer * Institute of Geography, University of Innsbruck, Austria article info Article history: Received 19 February 2015 Received in revised form 26 October 2015 Accepted 7 November 2015 Available online xxx Keywords: Political ecology Tourism Leisure Amenity-led development Globalization Salta Wine Route abstract This study contributes to a growing body of literature examining tourism and amenity-led residential development in an emerging global countryside. It does so by analyzing the public-private efforts to nationally and globally position the Salta Wine Region as a premier tourism and leisure destination. A marketing effort highlighting the exceptional natural setting coupled with high-quality viticulture effectively seeks to reposition a peripheral Andean valley as ‘the world's highest wine route’. Enabled by neoliberal policies, a variety of actors such as national and international wineries, real estate developers and hotel companies have produced new spaces for leisurely consumption. This paper analyzes the discursive and material restructuring of societyenature relations through a political ecology lens. Drawing on long-term ethnographic fieldwork it provides a grounded, micro-political account of the way in which distinct actors engage in and experience tourism and amenity-led development. Findings show that the current boom benefits the land-holding elite and new investors while escalating costs of living and unequal access to resources have deepened historically inherited socio-ecological inequalities. In contrast to findings from places in the Global North that have experienced a similar tourism and amenity boom, conflicts over landscape aesthetics and environmental protection are virtually absent in the study area. Socio-ecological conflicts concentrate on access to resources, affordable living, and livelihood improvement. Despite an increasing importance of tourism, amenity migration and related speculative investment in the Global South, studies have primarily focused on the Global North. Given the uneven geographies that such developments produce, augmenting the broader literature on tourism and amenity-led rural restructuring with a political ecology perspective comes at a timely moment. © 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. “Only a few places in the world combine so many facilities in such a perfect location. And none can rival the value of this op- portunity. Only a few people have discovered the ideal conditions in this incredible place. Now is the time to join us” (La Estancia de Cafayate Wine & Golf; promotional brochure). “Many very important people come here and it does not stop to grow. Some say that because of its structure, because of the contribution of the Province, because of the contribution of the private sector, because of the characteristics of place, it could become the Napa Valley of Latin America” 1 (Interview with a hotel owner on the Salta Wine Route, 10/01/2013; a.t.). 1. Introduction By the end of the 19th century wine production had gained importance in the Calchaquí Valleys (Salta, NW-Argentina); how- ever the peripheral location in the Andes caused transportation problems, the agricultural techniques were outdated, and the re- gion was characterized by high out-migration rates. Since the 1990s and especially from the 2000s onwards this picture has changed dramatically. National and international firms such as Pernod Ricard, Pe~ naflor, and the Hess Group started to buy properties and/ or build new viticulture projects resulting in profound trans- formations of regional production conditions. Today the great majority of wines from the Salta province are produced by modernized wineries that compete at a global scale in the high- quality wine market segment. * Institut für Geographie, Universit€ at Innsbruck, Innrain 52f, 6020 Innsbruck, Austria. E-mail address: Gerhard.Rainer@uibk.ac.at. 1 All citations of interviews and citations from newspaper articles and public documents that have been published in Spanish were translated by the author into English. This is indicated by the abbreviation a.t. (author's translation). Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Journal of Rural Studies journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/jrurstud http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jrurstud.2015.11.007 0743-0167/© 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. Journal of Rural Studies 43 (2016) 104e117