Re-Imagining Land: Conceptualizing the changing form and content of the Andean Peasant Community in Peru

Abstract

In the highland Peru, people experience environmental and socio-economic change as simultaneous and interlocking. In this article, we study elements of change in livelihood activities and assets by combining survey (n = 247) with extensive ethnographic data. We study how changes in livelihoods do not only a modify the composition of activities and assets and argue that the form and content of the comunidad campesina as an important socio-political actor is transforming in a context where the key factor in generating uncertainty is no longer access to land, but compounding socio-environmental uncertainties.