The Peruvian Amazon Co

Credit and Debt in the Putumayo “Wild Rubber” Business

Dados Bibliográficos

ID9285686
AutoresMargarita Serje (0000-0002-0565-0294, autor correspondente)
Ano2020
Volume22
Fascículo2
Páginas475-501
Data de publicação2020-03-26
Peer ReviewedSim
Open AccessSim
TipoARTICLE
PeriódicoEnterprise & Society (JOURNAL)
Identificadores do periódicoISSN: 1467-2227 • E-ISSN: 1467-2235
EditoraCambridge University Press (CUP) (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1017/eso.2019.79
OpenAlexW3013601206
IdiomaEN
Citações recebidas5
Referências citadas25

In this article, I trace the credit and debt practices of a company incorporated in the UK to extract “wild rubber” in the Amazon. Based on reports by Sir Roger Casement, an officer of the British diplomatic service, I present a general description of the organization of the Peruvian Amazon Co., whose operation did not depend on investment in technology or infrastructure but, rather, on the flow of credit in the form of merchandise. I will discuss debt-peonage as the form of labor privileged by the wild rubber industry in the Amazon and show how it works when indigenous peoples and their territories are involved, as was the case in Putumayo. I argue that the concept of debt-peonage is misleading in this situation, as it obscures both the conditions and the relations into which the Indians, as a society, were forced. I will highlight the role of debt in this relation, commonly referred to as the “conquest” of the Indians, as constitutive of both physical and symbolic violence. I conclude showing how credit and debt, usually considered to be instrumental for the development of capitalism, are here at the core of a system that not only was opposed to the logic of the market, but also strangled local production and exchange networks. The “credit engine” became here an instrument of genocide

Amazon rainforest · Biology · Business · Capitalism · Debt · Economics · Economy · Indigenous · Market economy · Political science · Politics · Anthropological Studies and Insights · Global trade, sustainability, and social impact · Law · Mining and Resource Management · Ecology · Finance