Frontier expansion and settlement in lowland Bolivia

Abstract

This article examines the expansion of cash crop production into the lowland Bolivian frontier and explores the dynamics of class formation that shaped peasant political consciousness. It discusses the factors that moulded local‐level response to the conditions created by capitalist development: the process of social differentiation that affected settlers and the relationship between subsistence agriculture and wage labour; the tensions between settlers and large‐scale entrepreneurs; and changing state policies and economic conditions. It concludes that rigid analytic distinctions between peasants and proletarians ignore the historical development of production relations in Bolivia.

Notes

FLASCO (Facultad Latinoamericana de Ciencias Sociales), La Paz, Bolivia. I would like to acknowledge financial support from the Leverhulme Foundation and the University of East Anglia, where I was a fellow in the School of Economic and Social Studies during 1984–85. I am also grateful to Susan Lowes, Donna Plotkin, Maria Lagos and members of the Cambridge University Latin American Seminar for helpful criticism and editorial advice.