After servitude: bonded histories and the encumbrances of exchange in indigenizing Bolivia. Issue 2 (23rd February 2018)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Winchell, Mareike
• Is Part Of: Journal of peasant studies. Volume 45:Issue 2(2018)
• Page Start: 453
• Page End: 473
• Publication Date: 2018-02-23
• Subjects: servitude -- indigeneity -- exchange -- Bolivia -- hacienda -- patronage -- moral economy; Peasantry -- Periodicals; Sociology, Rural -- Periodicals; Rural development -- Periodicals; 305.563305
• DOI: 10.1080/03066150.2016.1229309
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 0306-6150

Abstract

Abstract : Since 2006, Bolivia has undertaken a dramatic program of state reform aimed at overcoming the injustices of the nation's colonial and neoliberal past. In the process, rural practices and sensibilities originating in the former hacienda system have assumed new importance, arising as volatile sites of state intervention and political critique. Like eighteenth-century Bourbon administrators, state reformers today express concern with agrarian patronage, which, they argue, facilitates continued land dispossession and reproduces a particularly servile Quechua-speaking peasantry. Yet, despite reform efforts, hacienda-based ties remain crucial to rural life, structuring acts of redistributive exchange and providing a relational medium by which former landlords attempt to make amends for past violence. By taking seriously the moral and political dimensions of post-hacienda patronage, this contribution challenges dominant frameworks of indigenous justice to foreground the reconciliatory possibilities of exchange relations rooted in a bonded past.