Flexible Families: Capitalist Development and Crisis in Rural Peru

Abstract

In the Peruvian peasant community of Mata Chico, participation in the national economy over the twentieth century has transformed family relations. As people first adapted to an emerging capitalist economy, and then to a crisis in that economy, a family “community of interest” in farming gave way to “complementary interests” among parents and children, women and men. In pursuing complementary interests, younger family members undertake economic activities that lead them away from the farm but family ties, though significantly changed, remain strong.

Families and family study in international perspective

“…In addition, the change in families economically from producing and consuming units to simply consumers has left them with little reason to tolerate a bad marriage. In speaking of Peru, Vincent (2000) stated that the “family working in common” is disappearing, leaving couples with what she calls “more brittle bonds” (p. 168). But most of the macroexplanations focus on the societal changes noted at the outset of this article.…”

Mobility of the elderly in Peru: Life course, labour and the rise of a pensioner economy in a Peruvian peasant community

“…These stories point to the continuing strong inter-generational ties that have been well known in the Andes, but in quite different ways, as I have argued in previous work (Vincent, 2000). In the distant past, when peasant farm was viable, parents and children shared common interests in land as a productive resource that could be transferred through inheritance.…”

“…Lem (1988) shows similar negotiations among parents and children in a wine-growing region of France from the mid-20th century: while parents try to maintain the farm through patriarchal control of their children’s labour, the children ponder the freedoms offered in the wage labour force (see also Thomas and Znaniecki, 1996). These cases suggest that in viable agrarian economies elders control and provide for their children through the inheritance of productive land (also Vincent, 2000). While for some there was a concerted effort to continue family farming through subsidies from wages, many children clearly opted to avoid the travails of farming and – or – parental oppression by becoming proletarians.…”

“…More common is the expression of tremendous grief by people in their 50s or older for years after the death of a parent. My earlier work on inter-generational relations in Allpachico, (Vincent, 2000) documented their continuing strength, even while their quality changed over the 20th century turn to migrant labour. I turn now to describe key historical and contextual features of Allpachico.…”

Improving Oneself

“…Over the past two decades the Shining Path insurrection, violent military reprisals, and human rights abuses accelerated out-migration from the countryside (Skar, 1994: 86), left thousands of children orphaned with their support networks weakened (PAR, 2001;Revollar Añaños, 2001: 18), and exacerbated the already intense poverty in the highlands. And, despite Peru's improving economy (UNICEF, 2004), decreasing fertility rates (INEI, 1986;2000), and stabilizing postwar political climate, the benefits of such changes have neither trickled down to nor been directed by the government toward the poorer classes (Kim et al, 2000). The persistence of this stark socioeconomic imbalance essentially requires poor people to claim an ideology in which they must escape poverty in order to succeed.…”