Sustainability, resilience and agency in intensive agricultural enclaves

This paper addresses the sustainability and resilience of intensive agricultural production in specific contexts. The constitution of an intensive agricultural enclave implies to develop a deep social, labour, production, institutional and technological transformation of the local territories. This multilevel process of transformation pose important contradictions within these territories in terms of ecological and social sustainability. This article attempts to demonstrate that sustainability and resilience are not necessarily interrelated phenomena. Indeed, it is possible to find a highly resilient territory with huge problems of social and ecological sustainability. The article will try to demonstrate it based on the fieldwork conducted in the table grape sector of intensive agricultural production of Murcia, Spain.