Andean Migrants Research Articles

Ben Nobbs-Thiessen. Landscape of Migration: Mobility and Environmental Change on Bolivia’s Tropical Frontier, 1952 to the Present.

The eastern lowlands of Bolivia, almost in the center of the South American continent, appear to be one of the most isolated places in the world, far from foreign influences. Ben Nobbs-Thiessen’s Landscape of Migration: Mobility and Environmental Change on Bolivia’s Tropical Frontier, 1952 to the Present shows us this is not at all the case. The author delineates a world of transnational penetration in the second half of the twentieth century that transformed the subtropical lowland region as a producer of cotton, soybeans, beef, and dairy goods. It was a period during which people from many parts of the world streamed into the South American lowlands, cutting forest to plant crops, mostly for export. Mennonite migrants from Mexico and Canada, Okinawans and Japanese from the Pacific region, and Andean migrants from the Bolivian highlands achieved the conversion from forest to fields in two generations, with an assist from the...

Bolivia in the Age of Gas by Bret Gustafson

Reviewed by: Bolivia in the Age of Gas by Bret Gustafson Luis Sierra Gustafson, Bret. Bolivia in the Age of Gas. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2020. Bolivia in the Age of Gas examines fossil fuel capitalism in twenty-first-century Bolivia. Sociocultural anthropologist Bret Gustafson analyzes how the fossil fuel industry centered in North America and Western Europe, has historically shaped, bent, and twisted the mechanism of the Bolivian state. Bolivia in the Age of Gas demonstrates how Standard Oil and the United States in the 1930s stood to benefit from the Chaco War, 1932–35, between Bolivia and Paraguay. American political and economic interests dovetailed nicely with any conflict between the two nations and would result in favorable terms for American firms to extract and commercialize fossil fuels for consumption in the Global North and among Bolivia's wealthier, more industrial neighbors. Gustafson explores the growth of what he calls the "gaseous state" from a historical perspective, placing the latest developments in gas extraction in the longue durée economic framework of oil and mineral extraction. Bolivia in the Age of Gas details how, just like silver, tin, and copper mining and oil extraction, natural gas extraction [End Page 232] also generates state violence and repression, coercive labor regimes, limited economic and social gains for most of the population, and a subjugation of local, regional, and national political sovereignty to the interests of national and transnational capital flows. In this context, Gustafson traces how the Movimiento al Socialismo (MAS; Movement toward Socialism) political party envisioned a political program that slowly but surely transformed from a radical revision of the relations of the state to the people—the proceso de cambio (process of change)—toward a reactionary state that made tactical alliances with lowland elites, largely ignoring the structural economic problems that maintained Bolivia's vastly unequal society. Like other Bolivian historical reform movements, the MAS project stalled out and faced severe backlash. In the Bolivian lowlands, regionalism and autonomy became metonymic political discourses that embodied the racialized notions of the traditional political class within Bolivia. The autonomist movement of the eastern Bolivian lowland provinces employed political violence to shape their demands on the state and seek greater autonomy from the national government to retain control of the gas rents. Andean migrants to the eastern lowlands were seen as invaders who brought their disorderly politics, culture, and indigeneity. Indigenous peoples of the lowlands were ignored, disempowered, and targets of violence. Natural gas found in Guarani lands brought many fissures and tensions out into the open: political projects are co-opted, leaders are bought off or killed, the local power relations and structural conditions remain with the local indigenous and poor population aiming to capture a minuscule portion of the excess generated through state rents, employment, services, and financing in gas extractions. As the MAS government became more conservative and focused on maintaining political power and control of the state, it came to a détente with Big Gas and with Bolivian lowland elites. Bolivia in the Age of Gas asks readers to think through the contradiction of establishing a liberatory politics via the rents drawn from fossil fuel extraction. For the MAS government—or any government for that matter—to challenge the status quo, Gustafson argues that such liberatory political projects had to serve the interest of the multinational corporations and globalization, and at the same time chart a path independent of high fossil fuel prices through high fossil fuel prices—a clear contradiction in terms. Bolivia in the Age of Gas should readily serve a broad range of scholars, demonstrating how the gaseous state is a conduit through which global capitalism [End Page 233] continues to subjugate Bolivia—and places like it—to this day. Scholars of the Global South, especially those interested in the effects of the extractive economy in highly unequal societies, would benefit greatly from Bolivia in the Age of Gas as it illustrates how resource nationalism cannot escape the pressure of global capital. Scholars of business history, economic history, and institutional history could find much utility in Gustafson's approach and ideas. Bolivia in the Age of Gas insightfully and nimbly paints a complex...

The meeting of multiple governmentalities and technologies of participation in protected areas: the case of the Amarakaeri Communal Reserve (Peruvian Amazon)

This paper analyzes the meeting of different forms of governmentality in the Amarakaeri Communal Reserve (RCA), a protected natural area in the Peruvian Amazon. The variety of practices governing the RCA and the indigenous and non-indigenous populations in its buffer zone, responds to the intersection of socio-historical processes of extraction and conservation. These processes are marked by years of struggle by the indigenous movement to recapture the governance of their territories, resulting in the co-management of the RCA through a negotiated e co-governmentality between the Peruvian state and ECA-Amarakaeri, an indigenous organization. However, while this co-management arrangement permits participatory governance by historically excluded actors such as indigenous peoples, it excludes another population: Andean migrants. This type of governance challenges the role of multi-stakeholder forums related to protected areas and poses questions about the technologies of participation necessary for an equal interaction between the different interests in the governance of protected area.

"A veces quisiera volver": Racialization, Ruins, and Migrant Tactics in Oswaldo Estrada's Short Stories

"A veces quisiera volver":Racialization, Ruins, and Migrant Tactics in Oswaldo Estrada's Short Stories Christian Elguera Estoy como las aves que no hallan dónde hacer el nido —Oswaldo Estrada, Las guerras perdidas (109) Peruvian migrant writing continues to grow in the United States today. Anthologies, literary competitions, and publishing houses such as Sudaquia or Suburbano Ediciones have forged a literary system beyond the geographic limits of Peru.1 Time and again, authors such as Melissa Rivero, in The Affairs of the Falcón's (2019), describe the cultural experiences and economic struggles of Peruvian migrant characters in American neighborhoods. Peruvian-American author Daniel Alarcón is known for his treatment of Peruvian migration in several of his works. His recent short-story collection, The King is Always Above the People (2017), presents migrants from various sociopolitical angles: at times depicted as marginal subjects, as in "The Ballad of Rocky Rontal," or as a means to reflect on universal matters such as solitude and melancholy, as we see in "The Auroras." Other Peruvian writers prefer to depict one specific type of migrant: the intellectual who travels to the United States to pursue a graduate degree or to continue a literary career. This is something [End Page 177] that we see in several works, including the recent anthology Cuentos de ida y vuelta. 17 narradores peruanos en Estados Unidos (2019), edited by Luis Hernán Castañeda and Carlos Villacorta, where most of the texts focus on Peruvian migrants from middle or upper social classes. Within this context, I consider that Peruvian-American writer Oswaldo Estrada represents migration from below, describing the racialization, ruination, and survival tactics of Peruvian, Mexican, and Central American migrants in their new environments. Estrada's short stories reveal the numerous difficulties and abuses that these newcomers experience in the United States. He also examines how migrants employ day-to-day resistance to affirm their presence in a society that refuses to recognize their cultures and identities. Between the ruins and the illusions of migration, the author portrays migrant scenes from the inside rather than as defined by intellectual or exotic predicates. Two of Estrada's short-story collections, Luces de emergencia (2019) and Las locas ilusiones (2020), shift our attention to the migrant struggles for dignity and respect, describing their practices of solidarity, their use of humor to heal wounds, and their tactics (à la de Certeau) for negotiating rights in contexts of racial prejudice and social inequality. Estrada has acknowledged his migrant origins throughout his extensive academic production. His edited volume, Senderos de violencia (2015), for example, is dedicated to his family: "Para mi hermano Omar, porque juntos vivimos estas y otras violencias … Y para nuestra madre, por librarnos de ellas …" (7). Along these lines, in an essay titled "Traducir la violencia: soñadores e inmigrantes en la narrativa fronteriza de Daniel Alarcón", he states: por pertenecer a la ola migratoria de los ochenta y los noventa causada en parte por el conflicto armado entre Sendero Luminoso y el Ejército Peruano, reconozco en los personajes de Alarcón las ganas de llegar a un mundo 'mejor', lejos de la violencia, la hiperinflación, el desempleo y la inestabilidad política, aunque el costo sea habitar un espacio de perenne extranjería y extrañamiento. (218–19) These and other statements help us recognize recurrent topics in Estrada's literary universe: migration, violence, the challenges faced by Latin American women within patriarchal societies, and the detrimental consequences of Peru's internal armed conflict.2 The titles of these books of fiction a priori connect to the atmosphere of Estrada's short stories. Luces de emergencia explores how migrants and other characters live in a world of constant danger and ongoing atrocities. Las locas ilusiones, on the other hand, evokes the famous Peruvian song "El provinciano", by Luis Abanto Morales. The first line of the song states: "Las locas ilusiones me sacaron de mi pueblo", referring to the nostalgia experienced by Andean migrants in the city [End Page 178] of Lima. Following Gérard Genette's ideas on intertextuality (10), I would argue that Estrada's work reflects the migrant journey described in the...

Beyond the 2008 crisis? Tracing global social protection arrangements amongst onward Andean migrants in Belgium

ABSTRACT After the 2008 financial crisis, migrants were particularly affected by restrictive migratory policies as well as welfare state budgetary cuts in family allowances, pension rights and unemployment benefits. In this context, this contribution looks into the experiences of Andean migrants that have moved onwards from another EU state to Belgium while trying to counteract these policies. The author argues that depending on their gender, class and ethnic locations Andean migrants are able to construct different sets of global social protection arrangements that allow them to protect themselves and their family members in various countries across Europe and Latin America. Data draws from a multi-sited ethnography conducted during 20 months in Belgium, Colombia and Peru with 85 participants that included the Andean migrants themselves as well as their family members. The analysis contributes to the literature on onward Intra-European migration as well as studies on transnational social protection.

Discretionary Ethnography: Eliding the Personal and the Political in Two Latin American Research Settings

Anthropological fieldwork entails unforeseen details and raises unanticipated issues. My dissertation research in the mid-1970s explored the organization of work among Quechua Andean migrants cultivating coca in the Amazonian forests of eastern Bolivia. I collected too much information to process all that was relevant (omissions) and had to avoid reporting potentially harmful data (silences), especially given the expanding cocaine traffic beyond the community. Beginning in 1993, my next research project in a Costa Rican ceramic artisan community involved less analysis of aggregate data (omissions) and a greater emphasis on individual actors. This required discretion in reporting on conflicts (silences), especially concerning struggles to create an ecomuseum. Throughout long careers, changing anthropological orientations shape our choices about what and what not to pursue in the field and then recount. For me, an initial focus on human ecology expanded to include political economy and later also expressive culture, fostering a more holistic commitment.

Identity in a medicine cabinet: Discursive positions of Andean migrants towards their use of herbal remedies in the United Kingdom

This study explores different rationales for using herbal remedies among people from Andean descent in the United Kingdom, using positioning theory as a conceptual framework. By analysing processes of positioning in narratives about healthcare choices conducted with 40 Bolivian and Peruvian migrants in London (between 2005 and 2009), we examine in which ways talking about personal preferences for herbal medicine can be constitutive of one's health identity. The results reveal three distinct discursive repertoires that frame the use of herbal remedies either as a tradition, a health-conscious consumer choice, or as a coping strategy, each allowing specific health identity outcomes. An enhanced understanding of how people make sense of their use of traditional, plant-based medicines enables healthcare professionals to better assist patients in making meaningful decisions about their health. Through illustrating how treatment choices are discursively linked with identity, the present results debunk the tendency to perceive patients with a migration background as one homogenous group and thus urge for a patient centred approach.

Who benefits from hospital birth? Perceptions of medicalised pregnancy and childbirth among Andean migrants in Santa Cruz de la Sierra, Bolivia

This paper uses ethnographic data on reproductive experiences of indigenous Andean migrant women in the lowland eastern Bolivian city of Santa Cruz de la Sierra as a starting point for discussion of different perspectives on the efforts of the Bolivian state to biomedicalise the processes of pregnancy and childbirth. Pregnant women and babies up to six months of age are covered by the state-funded Universal Mother-Infant Insurance (SUMI) that favours the use of biomedical facilities over the services of traditional midwives that are not covered by the insurance. Unlike in the western Andean highlands of Bolivia, most women in Santa Cruz give birth in hospitals while actively negotiating their options. They are not motivated by strictly medical factors as social or economic circumstances also come into play. Simultaneously, the increased levels of hospital deliveries in Bolivia translate into decreased levels of maternal and perinatal mortality, which in turn help Bolivian statistics to fare better from the point of view of the government and international bodies, such as the WHO. However, the restrictions on qualifying for SUMI are such that women in Santa Cruz are often forced to meet the costs of medical services themselves. I argue that the initial socio-biomedical intention of SUMI has become obscured by its political impact. Keywords: biomedicalization; traditional medicine; migration; childbirth; Santa Cruz de la Sierra; indigenous peoples.

Sobreparto and the lonely childbirth: Postpartum illness and embodiment of emotions among Andean migrants in Santa Cruz de la Sierra, Bolivia

The goal of this paper is to analyse the phenomenon of sobreparto, a traditionally Andean postpartum condition, among Andean migrants to the lowland city of Santa Cruz de la Sierra, Bolivia. Although matters of maternal health have usually be examined through the lens of traditional Andean understandings of the body, health, and illness, it is also analytically worthwhile to foreground the social and emotional dimensions of this postpartum illness. This is especially important given the fact that most research participants emphasised that biomedical doctors do not know how to cure sobreparto. In particular, it is especially productive to consider it as a lens for wider, not necessarily medical, processes at work in migrant women’s lives, such as motherhood and womanhood, emotions and sociality, or the biomedicalisation of pregnancy and childbirth. While narrating their individual experiences of sobreparto, female migrants in Santa Cruz pointed to aspects of women’s lives beyond the episodes of illness, revealing the complex landscapes of their everyday existence. Using migrants’ accounts of their experiences of childbirth, I argue that sobreparto may be read as a way of dealing with the feeling of loneliness within a weakened social network, so common among migrants to urban areas. Furthermore, this postpartum illness becomes an emblem of ethnicity for the Andean migrants in the increasingly biomedicalised landscape of childbirth in Santa Cruz, enabling them to articulate an embodied commentary on the social realities they experience.

Science, Knowledge and Belief. On Local Understandings of Weather and Climate Change in Amazonia

ABSTRACTThis article explores different modes of understanding such atmospheric phenomena that in English are described as ‘weather’ and ‘climate’ applying Norman Fairclough’s critical discourse analysis. In consequence, focus is not on the physical phenomena as such but on ontological differences as reflected in expressions and practices pertaining to indigenous Matsigenka people and migrants from the Andean highlands to the tropical lowlands, centring on their respective interaction both with each other and, more generally, with the social, natural and supernatural dimensions of the environment. Adhering to ideals of modernity and modern science, the Andean migrants employ the climate change discourse as an indication upon social advancement to promote and legitimize their superiority over the allegedly backward and irrational Matsigenka to whom the climate discourse makes little sense. The climate change discourse thus serves here as a means of environmental colonialism in order to turn Matsigenka people into proper citizens.

Length of urban residence and obesity among within-country rural-to-urban Andean migrants.

To evaluate the association between length of residence in an urban area and obesity among Peruvian rural-to-urban migrants. Cross-sectional database analysis of the migrant group from the PERU MIGRANT Study (2007). Exposure was length of urban residence, analysed as both a continuous (10-year units) and a categorical variable. Four skinfold site measurements (biceps, triceps, subscapular and suprailiac) were used to calculate body fat percentage and obesity (body fat percentage >25% males, >33% females). We used Poisson generalized linear models to estimate adjusted prevalence ratios and 95 % confidence intervals. Multicollinearity between age and length of urban residence was assessed using conditional numbers and correlation tests. A peri-urban shantytown in the south of Lima, Peru. Rural-to-urban migrants (n 526) living in Lima. Multivariable analyses showed that for each 10-year unit increase in residence in an urban area, rural-to-urban migrants had, on average, a 12 % (95 % CI 6, 18 %) higher prevalence of obesity. This association was also present when length of urban residence was analysed in categories. Sensitivity analyses, conducted with non-migrant groups, showed no evidence of an association between 10-year age units and obesity in rural (P=0·159) or urban populations (P=0·078). High correlation and a large conditional number between age and length of urban residence were found, suggesting a strong collinearity between both variables. Longer lengths of urban residence are related to increased obesity in rural-to-urban migrant populations; therefore, interventions to prevent obesity in urban areas may benefit from targeting migrant groups.

The Ethics of Success: Paradoxes of the Suffering Neoliberal Self in the Andean Peruvian Music Industry

In this essay I examine the effects and limit of neoliberal logics in the commercial huayno music industry in Peru. Commercial huayno is a mass-mediated musical genre which combines folkloric and popular elements and is performed and listened to nationally, especially in the Andes and among Andean migrants. I begin by outlining transformations in the industry during Peru's neoliberal period before focusing on the agency that a neoliberal notion of the subject and attendant ideas about ‘success’ have on the discourse and practice of commercial huayno pop stars. However, I seek to contextualise and complicate understandings of these neoliberal logics and identify their limits by highlighting alternative sources of ethical subject formation, which have the potential to endorse, contradict and mediate the ideal type of the neoliberal subject in practice. Thus, in the second section, I consider how the discourse of suffering associated with huayno music and huayno stars – itself connected to Catholic moral philosophy – complicates any straightforward mapping of a neoliberal subjectivity on to huayno performers.

A Contemporary Andean Type: The Representation of the Indigenous World in Claudia Llosa's Films

Claudia Llosa's films Madeinusa (2006) and La Teta Asustada (2009) are two interesting case studies of representation of indigenous people in contemporary cinema. Madeinusa tells about an isolated Andean village and its encounter with ‘modernity’; La Teta Asustada depicts Andean migrants who moved to the outskirts of Lima after the Peruvian 1980s Dirty War. Despite the several prizes the films were awarded (La Teta Asustada, for example, was awarded the Golden Bear at the 2009 Berlin festival), their national and international reception gave rise to controversy over the ways in which indigenous people were portrayed. This essay analyses the patterns and roots of Llosa's representation of the Andean world. Through an interdisciplinary analysis of Llosa's works, 19th-century novels, and early-20th-century and contemporary visual works, I identify and discuss a number of cultural and aesthetic strategies in the films: the actualization of a colonialist-style discourse; the employment of pre-existing models of representation of the Andean subjects developed by Indigenista artists; and the reformulation of these models through anthropological sources, kitsch and magical realism. I argue that those strategies allow Llosa to create a new contemporary Andean type, which is ultimately an unproblematic and accessible way of thinking of and symbolically representing ‘otherness’.

Le katarisme bolivien : émergence d'une contestation indienne de l'ordre social

The Katarist movement that emerged in the 1970s in the Bolivian Andes owes its name to Túpac Katari, the Aymara leader of the Great Rebellion of 1780-1783. In order to understand what led Katarist activists to turn to this marker of ethnic identity, the historical and sociological conditions that preceded the production of an Indian discourse must be considered : first of all, the degradation of relations between the State and the peasants and, next, the urban experience of Andean migrants. It seems that the contradictions that have appeared in Katarist discourse concern the contemporary political situation of Bolivia and the questions raised by the arrival to power of Evo Morales.

In Defence of Community? Long-Distance Localism and Transnational Political Engagement Between the US and the Peruvian Andes

This article takes its point of departure in an incident of communal violence in the rural Peruvian community of Urcumarca to discuss the transnational political engagements of a group of Andean migrants from this community based in Maryland and Washington DC. As inhabitants of rural Peru, only a few Urcumarquinos have historically exercised full citizenship in their country of origin prior to migration. It is argued that, while the particular incidence of economically supporting the legal process following the violent incident in Urcumarca may be taken as evidence of the development of ‘diasporic citizenship’ among US-based migrants, it is important to understand such political practices as a continuation of local struggles against economic and juridical marginalisation within Peru.

Disputing Limeño Historical and Cultural Heritage

In the 1970s many persons of andean origin migrated to Lima. Informally and through the mediation of emerging grassroots organizations, the nuevos limeños negotiated with the state for their right to residency in the city and to sanitation and other services. They struggled for recognition as citizens. Gradually an informal economy mainly based on Andean cultural practices of production gave way to entrepreneurship, which created a new middle class. In this way Andean migrants to Lima became urban workers and consumers and appropriated and transformed the city.

Migration et marginalité. Les migrants andins dans les quartiers de Santa Cruz de la Sierra (Bolivie)

Sophie Blanchard - Migration and marginality : Andean migrants in the fringe neighbourhoods of Santa Cruz de la Sierra, Bolivia. This research looks at the marginalization of migrants moving from the Andes into Santa Cruz, a city in the Bolivian lowlands. In the discourse of urban planners and political authorities, these migrants are associated with the poor fringe neighbourhoods on the outskirts of the city. Yet, the landscapes of these neighbourhoods are distinguished more by poverty than by the origin of their inhabitants. What is emerging is both an urban citizenry defined by loss and a fusion of Andean migrants and people from the lowlands. Despite their image as poor and violent, these neighbourhoods are the scene of a new kind of hybridization.

The King in Lima: Simulacra, Ritual, and Rule in Seventeenth-Century Peru

The King in Lima: Simulacra, Ritual, and Rule in Seventeenth-Century Peru

Chicha in the shanty towns of Arequipa, Peru

Chicha, a fermented maize beer, traditional in the Andes and brewed by Andean migrants in the shanty towns of Peru's cities, has given its name to a musical movement, which first emerged in the migrant squatter settlements of Lima in the 1960s. By the mid-1980s chicha was the most well-known and wide-spread form of urban popular music in Peru (Romero 1990; Rowe & Schelling 1991, pp. 121–2), widely played, sung and danced in impromptu chichodromos, set up in walled-in vacant lots or back yards.

Diferenciación étnica y redes de larga distancia entre migrantes andinos: el caso de Sanka y Colcha

Ethnic differentiation and long-distance-networks between Andean migrants: the case of "sanka" and "colcha". The Andean migrants in Lima do not limit their social networks of interaction on the urban center. Together with the aggravation of the national crisis in Peru, which affects the urban population of Lima particularly hard, is emerging a remarkable spatial reorientation of those migrants. The formation of long-distance-networks between migrants is historically determined by the geographical space, which covers their migration history. Such networks of interaction suggest a specific form of social reproduction of the Andean migrants and are an important factor of social change.