State-funded programs designed to make small-scale farmers in Chile independent market actors seem to have lost sight of their goal. The aim of these programs is to make the agricultural business more efficient and profitable. This development is thought to improve the farmers’ chances to become independent actors in a liberalized economic market and, in line with neoliberal ideals, improve their quality of life. Although the programs have resulted in some economic prosperity, the farmers have become dependent on these programs to the degree that the state hesitates to withdraw their support. Instead of becoming free market actors, it would appear the farmers have become dependent state actors. Some would claim that part of the reason is Mapuche cultural values not complying with the idea of the individualized economic actor, an idea central to these programs. Although this is probably true to some degree, I will argue that within a space of state dependency, these farmers create a growing space of economic freedom as well as state independency. Based on one year’s ethnographic fieldwork in a small-scale indigenous farming community in Chile, I seek to analyze how the farmers, in terms of economic integration, represent a combination of market and state integration. Furthermore, in an effort to understand the scope of the state and of state action, I will also ask whether these programs can be understood as forms of state governance, or to what degree they can be said to be state-liberating.
