“…To make sense of the fluid forms of political contestation and practices of negotiation between peasant community and the state, the article draws from work on the struggle for land in the Andes (Platt, ; Yashar, ; Gill, ; Pajuleo, ; del Pino 2016; De la Cadena 2018), where mobilisation, contestation and negotiation are rooted in historically conditioned forms of doing politics, shaping idioms and practices of rights claims (Niño Murcia and Salomon, 2003; Theidon, ; Rønsbo, ; Pajuleo, ; Del Pino, ; De la Cadena, 2015). The second part, which focuses on participant observation of sub‐national government, is informed by the anthropology of the state literature.…”