During the last century many latin american countries went through processes of land reforms whose main spirit was to resolve unequal land distribution from the perspective of a necessary social and political inclusion of widely marginalized groups, but also considering the agricultural sector as a system whith great deficiencies concerning its potential contribution to economic growth. Several decades later, we fix our eyes on these historical events to reflect about our contemporary ruralities, specifically the cases of Bolivia and Chile. We are particularly interested in observing how were the land reform processes carried out in these countries, in order to consider the main similarities and differences that they present, and finally to weigh the incidence of its traces under the hypothesis that the study of these events as significant phenomena for the comprehension of current rural conflicts.