Landed elites in Latin America: A systematic literature review of elites, wealth and land from colonial times until today

Abstract

A defining feature of Latin American history is the long-term concentration of land among elite groups, a key factor in explaining the region's persistent wealth inequalities. Scholars and civil society organizations have conceptualized the relationship between elites, wealth, and land (EWL nexus) through a range of terms and approaches that reflect historical configurations of this articulation in specific contexts. Examining how these terms have been employed over time can therefore provide a means of comparing continuities and changes in the main actors, strategies and mechanisms of this nexus in Latin America history. This is of particular relevance to understand the agency of the 1-10% of the richest in the (re-)production of extreme social inequality. This article presents a systematic literature review (SLR) as a methodological tool to examine the EWL nexus. The protocol combined PRISMA Guidelines based reporting, framework-based extraction through a semi-inductive code system and a historical narrative synthesis approach. This SLR is based on 45 journal articles in a multilingual database spanning over 70 years. The results are presented in four major historical phases to facilitate a historical comparison of changes and continuities in the EWL nexus. Our findings highlight the complex role that land plays in the (re-)production of elite wealth, the moving entanglements of multiple actors, strategies and mechanisms in the region. Our results show how the emic and etic terms to denote landed elites and the EWL nexus are historically contingent and conceptually situated. Recent terms increasingly capture the variety of corporate forms and mechanisms of land control. Meanwhile, colonial and “feudal” terms persist or acquire new meanings, revealing structural continuities within contemporary EWL realities. This SLR reveals that important gaps suggest that the EWL nexus provides a fertile ground for developing a distinct field of study in order to contribute to a historical grounded analysis of the landed elite in Latin America.