Migration among Landholdings by Bolivian Campesinos

Abstract

M IGRATION is a complex phenomenon, and the study of it often is intractable. Counting by itself is difficult, and explanation of residential changes may be unsatisfactory.' One aspect of Latin American migration that has challenged the explanatory powers of geographers is the establishment of pioneer farms in the sparsely settled tropical lowlands on the eastern side of the Andes.2 The purpose of this study is to demonstrate that the migration in the Chapare colonization zone of Bolivia is not a simple pattern of movement from one place to another but rather involves the maintenance of multiple landholdings, each with differing ecological characteristics. Bolivia lies in the tropics, but the extreme range of elevation produces environmental conditions that vary from snow-covered Andean peaks to tropical forests in the Amazon basin. The rugged terrain presents problems of internal circulation.3 Since pre-Incan times, the human population has been concentrated in the Andean highlands. Currently only one-fifth of the Bolivian population lives in the oriente, the lowlands to the east of the Andes, that constitutes approximately three-fifths of the area of the country.4 In one part of the oriente, Santa Cruz developed into a major agricultural center during the nineteenth century. Santa Cruz was in decline by the end of the century when railroad lines connected the highland mining centers of Bolivia with Buenos Aires and Chilean seaports. Rice and sugar transported by mule from Santa Cruz could not compete with the quality or the price of imports that became available in the highlands.5 The Bolivian economy had been dominated by mining since the colonial era, but the bulk of the labor force remained agricultural. Until 1953 the Bolivian agrarian system had many feudalistic characteristics. The workers, or peones, were virtually serfs. A sweeping agrarian reform in the 1950s resulted in the expropriation of large haciendas to provide farms for landless agriculturalists. The peones, who soon came to be called campesinos, or peasants, were freed