Campesino Communities Research Articles

Mountain Agrobiodiversity in Peru

Abstract Conservation of agricultural biodiversity has become an important paradigm in efforts to promote sustainable development throughout the world. This is especially the case in Andean countries, where ex situ conservation of crops has been a focus of attention since the 1970s. In Peru in the early 1990s, researchers and development specialists also focused on in situ conservation and the participation of campesino communities in mountain development processes. They designed the Cajamarca model as a result of several years of experience in rural development projects. This model includes so-called seed fairs (Figure 1) and encourages the creation of local seed banks managed by a conservationist campesino association. The HimalAndes Project, which promotes technical cooperation to support exchange of seeds and local knowledge between mountain agriculture ecosystems, is another recent project with a partial focus on agrobiodiversity conservation in Andean and other countries.

Useful Plants Within a Campesino Community in a Costa Rican Montane Cloud Forest

An ethnobotanical survey was carried out among a campesino community in a Costa Rican montane cloud forest. Campesino families were interviewed about how they used indigenous and introduced vascular plants along an altitudinal gradient (2000–3000 m). From a total of 590 species known in the area, 23.8% of 189 useful plant species were used for medicinal purposes, 39.7% for food, and 24.3% for construction (timber) or as combustibles (fuelwood, charcoal). Less important uses included dye, ornament (ecotourism), fodder, gum, oil, and poison. A total of 61.9 % of the plants were used for one purpose only. The introduced and exotic woody species Cupressus lusitanica and Eucalyptus globulus showed the highest diversity in types of use (7), together with the native Alnus acuminata. Trunks (53%) and fruits (47%) were the main plant organs used, followed by leaves (33%) and branches (30%). Over 27.5% of all plants were used on a daily basis, while 34.9% were used occasionally. About 11.6% of the species were rarely used. At present, use of indigenous species is becoming less common; the trend is to favor introduced and economically important species. In the short or medium term, local knowledge of medicinal plants will probably disappear in this rural community that is undergoing modernization, with a focus on new undertakings such as fruticultural export, rainbow trout hatcheries, and ecotourism.

Political Institutions and the Evanescence of Power: Making History in Highland Bolivia

The Bolivian Quechua community of Quirpini appears to be governed by a number of political institutions whose activities have little capacity for historically transformative action. An analysis of actions by each institution reveals that they either never mobilize people or are set up so that collective action is possible only with the assent and cooperation of the Spanish-speaking elite of the nearby regional capital. What appears to be Quirpini's system of self-governance is in practice the means by which the village is dominated. (Politics, Bolivia, power, mediation, action) Until approximately 1984, the major political role of the kurajkuna (political authorities) of the indigenous Quechua community called Quirpini was to perform menial services for the leading officials in the town of San Lucas, the regional capital. Most of the authorities were required to go to town on a weekly basis to do tasks such as sweeping the mayor's patio, taking eggs to the authorities, and gathering and cutting firewood for them. One of the commonplaces of political anthropology about the Andes region is that a key, if not the central, role of communal authorities is to represent the community to those outside, particularly neighboring communities and to elements of the dominant Hispanic society and government (Abercrombie 1986; Rasnake 1988). Seen in this light, the services provided by the kurajkuna to the officials of San Lucas were not only perquisites enjoyed by members of the central town's Spanish-speaking elite, but an unmistakable representation of the subordination of Quirpini to San Lucas. By performing menial tasks and giving minor tribute to the authorities of San Lucas, the communal authorities were repeatedly concretizing, if not embodying, the submission of Quirpini to the regional center. This was the state of affairs before a new priest was assigned to the San Lucas region in the early 1980s. He began a systematic program aimed to reduce the campesino(1) communities' subservience to San Lucas, a key part of which was to put an end to the kurajkuna's services to town authorities. In Quirpini, the form this change took was an attack on the kurajkuna as the institution then existed. He allied himself with the young head of the communal peasant union (sindicato), Justiniano Cruz. According to Cruz, who provided most of the information about these events, the official leader of the community at the time (the cacique) was ineffective. The union, with the padre's support, got the community to remove the kurajkuna (including the cacique) from their positions and declare that whereas in the past an incoming authority had been chosen by his predecessor, from then on they would all be chosen at a community meeting by popular vote. Furthermore, where in the past each authority changed at a different date, according to the cycle of fiestas, now all the kurajkuna would be chosen together, and take office together. There was no specific date on which the offices changed hands; rather, the transition was gradual, as marked by the presence of both old and new authorities at the weekly meetings of authorities for some weeks after the vote in January. Finally, the community unilaterally declared that the kurajkuna would no longer perform services for the town authorities. The change was instigated by the church and union together, and made the system by which the kurajkuna were selected more similar to that of the union. It would be reasonable to suppose that the change initiated a period of union domination over the traditional authority structures, as happened in the ex-hacienda communities of the highlands and elsewhere (Rivera Cusicanqui 1990; Izko 1992). In fact, however, the union local had virtually no political significance at all, and the position of local sindicato head was a rotating one-year position treated as a rather minor requirement of male adulthood, comparable to a lesser position in the school or kurajkuna hierarchy. …

“Campesinos” and the crisis of modernization in Latin America

This paper examines the effects of recent political and economic trends on the wellbeing of campesino communities in Latin America. After briefly reviewing the appropriateness of the term “campesino” in the rapidly changing political economy of Latin America, the article concludes that there is an identifiable group of people for whom the term campesino is appropriate and that members of campesino communities face common problems. Many analysts agree that campesino communities face interlocking social and economic crises with important consequences for the environment and the continued viability of their livelihoods. The paper analyzes these crises and their origins in the historical neglect of the rural poor. The paper concludes with some suggested actions to ameliorate these conditions, with special attention to the role of social scientists in this process.Key words: campesino, Latin America, environment, social scientists.

Ethnobotany in Mesoamerica at the dawn of the XXI century

A study was done on the methodology, evolution, and importance of ethnobotany. Mesoamerica is given special importance since it is the region which has given the world the best opportunities for ethnobotanical studies, especially in the in the central region Also, it is considered essential that mechanisms of public information be established in order to better preserve the accumulated knowledge and genetic materials. Furthermore, the importance of promoting a gradual change in the campesino communities toward living conditions that are more in accord with the modern world is stated.

Campesino Movements and Class Conflict in Latin America: The Functions of Exchange and Power

This paper will attempt to evaluate the utility of exchange theory for analyzing and interpreting the currently available evidence about emergingcampesinomovements in Latin America. The focus will be on the transactions and exchanges campesinos engage in both horizontally (with their peers) and vertically (with the landlord and other patrons). My principal thesis is that in the past the gains campesinos could accrue from vertical exchanges have outweighed the actual and potential gains derived from horizontal solidarities within their own community; furthermore, the vertical solidarities between campesinos and landholders served to undermine the precarious horizontal relationships in the campesino community which did exist. As a result, the development of campesino movements, organized or spontaneous, has been directly related to changes in the relative outcomes campesinos obtain in exchanges with one another, with their landlord, or with alternative patrons.