After servitude

Bonded histories and the encumbrances of exchange in indigenizing Bolivia

Bibliographic Data

ID2157258
AuthorsMareike Winchell (0000-0002-9982-7969, corresponding author)
Year2018
Volume45
Issue2
Pages453-473
Publication date2018-02-23
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueThe Journal of Peasant Studies (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0306-6150 • E-ISSN: 1743-9361
PublisherInforma UK Limited (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1080/03066150.2016.1229309
OpenAlexW2530377695
LanguageEN
Citations received8
References cited45

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

Agrarian reform · Agrarian society · Agriculture · Economic Justice · Indigenous · Kinship · Political economy · Political science · Politics · Restitution · Sociology · State (computer science · Anthropological Studies and Insights · History · Indigenous Cultures and History · Law · Politics and Society in Latin America