Between the mine and the farm: livelihood diversification and social differentiation in the Bolivian highlands

ABSTRACT

This paper analyzes livelihood diversification and social differentiation in the Bolivian highlands. It argues that peasants’ increased dependence on mining is undermining the material basis of their farming practices and leading to social differentiation which threaten their autonomy, control over their resource base and, ultimately, farming futures. While pluriactivity is necessary to sustain life on the farm, it also actively depletes it. The multiple identities and complex class positions of these smallholders have hindered forms of organized resistance. Mining is part of agrarian life and these dynamics are important to understand rural livelihoods and agrarian change in the contemporary context.

KEYWORDS:

• Peasants
• mining
• pluriactivity
• differentiation
• Bolivia

Acknowledgments

This article would not have been possible without support from Fundación TIERRA and the excellent work of Efraín Tinta, Stephany Velasco, Wilfredo Plata, Martha Irene Mamani, Fernando Alcons, Raúl Fernández, Gonzalo Colque and Daniel Cruz. I am indebted to the people of Palca for their collaboration and generosity. I would also like to thank two peer reviewers for their comments and criticisms, as well as the JPS Editorial team. This article draws on research supported by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC).

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 Such as trade liberalization and export-oriented development strategies, economic deregulation, and privatization.

2 See McKay (2018a).

3 See Ojeda (2012) on how these exclusionary categories characterize different subjects in Colombia’s Tayrona Park.

4 Bolivia’s poverty measurement is based on the Insufficient Basic Needs Index which includes access to housing, water, sewer and energy supplies, education and health. See INE (2022).

5 Principal crops include potato, beans, peas, lettuce, tubers, corn, tomato, and onion, among others.

6 A village approximately 65 km southeast of La Paz, located within the Municipality of Palca.

7 A village approximately 50 km east of La Paz, located within the Municipality of Palca.

8 ‘Capitalism from above’ (the Prussian path) is a process whereby a feudal or pre-capitalist landlord class is transformed, or transforms itself, into a capitalist class. ‘Capitalism from below’ (the American path) is a process whereby agrarian capitalism emerges from the differentiating peasantry (see Byres 1996).

9 87% of participants in our study said they had never received any support from the state or technical assistance, while 76% were not aware of any agricultural policies whatsoever.

10 86% of participants indicated that the lack of access to irrigation was the most limiting factor for affecting agricultural production.

11 Approximately 85% of mining cooperatives operate without an environmental license (Campanini 2020).

12 See https://www.agrobolsas.org.bo

13 Categorized under three typologies: (i) subsistence; (ii) transitional, producing a surplus for domestic markets with little or not hired labour; consolidated, producing a surplus and focusing on specialty cash crops with some hired labour.

14 The basic family basket consists of 38 crops which are deemed fundamental for the daily diets of Bolivians and require little to no processing for consumption. It includes several varieties of potatoes and maize, cassava, and other fruits and vegetables (see Tito and Wanderley 2021).

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada [grant number 430-2018-00439].

Notes on contributors

Ben M. McKay

Ben M. McKay is Associate Professor of Development and Sustainability at the University of Calgary in Canada. His research focuses on the political economy and ecology of agrarian change in Latin America, agrarian extractivism and food sovereignty alternatives. He is the author of The Political Economy of Agrarian Extractivism: Lessons from Bolivia (Fernwood, 2020) and co-editor of the Handbook of Critical Agrarian Studies (Edward Elgar, 2021), and Agrarian Extractivism in Latin America (Routledge, 2021).