Copper, llamas and a virus: a tale of historically entangled frontiers

This essay reflects on my re-encounter with the llama herders of Turco (Bolivia) and their entanglement with histories of capitalism and indigenous resistance (after many years without visiting). The pandemic sheds a new light on these shifting entanglements

Comunidad, conmensuración y conflicto. Transformaciones rurales en el altiplano desde una perspectiva de ecología-mundo

Este artículo aplica una perspectiva de “ecología-mundo” (MOORE 2015) a la dialéctica entre expansión capitalista y reproducción comunitaria en los andes. La “sobrevivencia” de las comunidades campesinas indígenas y sus sistemas de tierras comunales en el siglo XXI se revela como producto del cambio social. A través de ciclos históricos y globalizadores de extracción de recursos y luchas indígenas por la tierra, los territorios comunales están siendo despojados, imaginados y (re)construidos como reservas “baratas” para la acumulación. Basado en investigaciones de archivo y trabajo de campo en Bolivia y Perú, elabora un estudio de caso de comunidades aymaras atrapadas en el avance de las fronteras extractivas a fines del siglo XIX y principios del siglo XX y relaciona las estrategias de resistenciacomunal y las reconfiguraciones sociales con los cambios a largo plazo en la expansión del estado y del mercado. El artículo argumenta que es en el contexto de tales conflictos socio-ambientales que lo que podemos identificar como “comunidad” se erosiona,forma, transforma y, a menudo, se reinventa como un “contra-espacio” en un análisis de Lefebvre

Carangas en movimiento : estado liberal, elites provinciales y movilidad trans-fronteriza andina entre el Altiplano boliviano y el Pacífico (1860-1930)

Este trabajo examina los cambios y continuidades en la movilidad transfronteriza de pastores de la provincia de Carangas (Bolivia) en un contexto de formación de Estado y expansión mercantil. Hacia finales del siglo XIX, la frontera que conecta comunidades altiplánicas con los valles, ciudades y puertos del Pacífico se convirtió en un terreno –geopolítica, económica, y simbólicamente– en disputa. Se sostiene que frente el creciente –aunque frágil– control estatal y la intermediación por nuevas elites en circuitos económicos transnacionales, prácticas y redes de movilidad e intercambio andinas operaron como una estrategia subalterna de participación negociada. En un escenario de marginación, el despliegue de prácticas transfronterizas andinas parece ofrecer un amortiguador contra una asimilación completa a los ritmos estatales y mercantiles

Entre comunidad indígena y Estado liberal: los 'vecinos' de Carangas (siglos XIX-XX)

This text questions the historical role of the vecinos (residents) in their relation between the highland communities and the Bolivian State (late 19th-early 20th century). Departing from a case study in the Carangas province (Oruro), the consolidation of these rural elites as the nexus between the community and the State and between the community and the market will be analyzed. Paradoxically, the strategies developed to that end implicated their gradual integration in the community, converting them into ambiguous intermediaries between two apparently opposite worlds

A world-systems frontier perspective to land : exploring the uneven trajectory of land rights standardization in the Andes

This paper proposes a world-systems frontier framework by approaching frontiers and frontier zones as analytical tools in indicating and understanding the uneven local-global interactions underlying world-systemic incorporation processes. It argues that the notion of frontier can highlight the role of ‘peripheral agency’ in local-global interactions, revealing incorporation as a negotiated process. This paper applies a world-systems frontier perspective to the analysis of historical processes of land rights standardization in the Andes. Based on a longue durée assessment of the implementation and contestation of land reforms in Highland communities in Bolivia, the formation and reorganization of a centralized land regime in a peripheral setting is unveiled as a negotiated process. Its course is shaped by the interplay of the modernizing aspirations of public authorities and international interest groups and the strong communal land claims defended by indigenous peasants. This complex (re)negotiation over rights and resources drives the creation and movement of (new) frontiers of land control, materializing in an uneven trajectory of land commodification. The presented frontier perspective is instructive to questions on the expansion, limits, and contradictions of the capitalist world

Review of Barter and social regeneration in the Argentinean Andes

Barter and social regeneration in the Argentinean Andes, by Olivia Angé. Berghahn Books, 2018

The Great Commodification and its Paradoxes. A Historical, Comparative and Global Perspective on Land Regimes and Land Reforms

This presentation applies a comparative and global perspective to regional trajectories of land reforms and rural change within a globalizing world (18th -21st centuries). The struggle over the allocation of (rights over) resources between owners of the land, users of the land and state structures acts as a centripetal force behind the intertwinement of the rural areas with global processes of capitalist incorporation. The commodification of land is shaped by and has shaped different though connected regional histories of incorporation for about five centuries now. This process intersects with other historical developments, such as economic transformations in view of increasing resource competition, ecological changes, increasing state control and the social reorganization of peasant livelihoods, in which peasant and indigenous peoples appear as active negotiators rather than mere objects of assimilation or segregation. New public regulations pertaining to land use have been a primary tool for opening access to labour and commodity production. State-induced land reforms have acted as a crucial instrument in the deepening and widening of centralized land regimes and can be adopted as revealing research entries for historical, comparative and global analyses of trajectories of rural transformation. Bringing the regional trajectories of rural transformation into dialogue enhances our understanding of how shifting regulations of access and property rights over land mould into interconnected, “uneven” and intensely negotiated trajectories

Into their land and labours : a comparative and global analysis of trajectories of peasant transformation

The fate of rural societies in the past and today cannot be understood in a singular manner. Peasantries across the world have followed different trajectories of change and have developed divergent repertoires of accommodation, adaptation and resistance. Understanding these multiple trajectories requires new historical knowledge about the role of peasantries within long-term and worldwide economic and social transformations. This paper aims to make sense of this diversity from a comparative, integrated, and systemic approach. The paper is structured around the notions of peasant work, peasant frontiers, peasant communities and peasant regimes. These concepts figure as key analytical tools in an innovative research framework to analyze the paths of peasant transformation in modern world history beyond idealization and teleologization

Fieldwork in the Poultry Capital of the World: An Interview with Carrie Freshour about her work on Race, Place, and Labor in the US South

Hanne Cottyn and Stha Yeni of the CFI spoke with Carrie Freshour about cheap meat, workers’ care and resistance, and fieldwork in Georgia, USA, which has been named the “poultry capital of the world.” The article is a lightly edited transcript of their conversation from 5 August 2021