- Gothenburg, Västra Götaland, Sweden
Karsten Paerregaard
University of Gothenburg, School of global studies, Faculty Member
- Karsten Paerregaard is professor emeritus of Anthropology at the School of Global Studies, University of Gothenburg. ... moreKarsten Paerregaard is professor emeritus of Anthropology at the School of Global Studies, University of Gothenburg. Karsten does research in Cultural Anthropology. His work is focused on migration and climate change and his regional expertise is in Peru and Latin America. The topic of one of Karsten's current projects titled 'New Forms of Water Cooperation: Negotiating Water Values and Water Rights in Peru’s Highlands' is the social and cultural impact of water shortage in the Peruvian Andes. Another of his projects titled "Andean Meltdown: Climate, Culture and Change in the Peruvian Andes" deals with climate change and its repercussions for Andean culture and religion.edit
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
Arguing in favor of anthropology’s humanity centered research tradition, this article examines how the encounter with human remains on the bedrock of retreating glaciers shapes not only the notion of divinity and power underpinning Andean... more
Arguing in favor of anthropology’s humanity centered research tradition, this article examines how the encounter with human remains on the bedrock of retreating glaciers shapes not only the notion of divinity and power underpinning Andean pilgrimage but also the pilgrims’ identity as a species. The article asks: How do the pilgrims account for their own and other humans’ impact on Andean glaciers? How does the pilgrims’ experience of anthropogenic change challenge their ideas of human/non-human interactions? And, lastly, who is the new human emerging from this experience? My point is that climate change both secularizes the world, as the pilgrims know it, and lends them a new experience of transcendence. By causing glacier retreat climate change stripes Andean mountains of their divine powers. But by disclosing other people’s leftovers on the glaciers’ bedrock, it also offers the pilgrims a new perspective on humans’ role as the planet’s steward.
Research Interests:
is article examines how water's transformative quality shapes Andean offering rituals and how these in turn perform the hydrological cycle as a metabolic process that involves humans as well as superhuman beings. It enquires into the... more
is article examines how water's transformative quality shapes Andean offering rituals and how these in turn perform the hydrological cycle as a metabolic process that involves humans as well as superhuman beings. It enquires into the offering practices of an Andean community providing an ethnographic account of its water management and the tributes it pays to the mountain and the springs that supply it with water. Building on the concept of water metabolism, the article interrogates the offerings as a replica of the metabolic process that produces water. e argument is that by triggering a "change of matter" of the offering items the ritual transforms these into a gift to the deities that control the water. Moreover, invoking Roy Rappaport's study of rituals as regulators of humans' interaction with the environment, the article suggests that by enacting water metabolism, Andean offerings not only lubricate the hydrological cycle, but they also offer Andean people a window on their own agency and its bearings for their water resources. Reviewing the recent development in a neighbouring settlement and ongoing changes in the community's own water supply, the article concludes that the holistic calibration of the hydrological cycle as a metabolic process which engages both humans and non-humans makes Andean offerings emblematic of the effort to achieve water sustainability anywhere and therefore resilient to change.
Research Interests:
The article examines how the design and governance of Peru’s water infrastructure shape the social practices and cultural values stakeholders engage in and draw on when negotiating water rights in a year of drought. Reviewing ethnographic... more
The article examines how the design and governance of Peru’s water infrastructure shape the social practices and cultural values stakeholders engage in and draw on when negotiating water rights in a year of drought. Reviewing ethnographic data on a large irrigation project in south-western Peru, we discuss how the project both perpetuates power relations between water experts, authorities and users and creates room to challenge its hierarchical organization. The project’s infrastructural assemblage of state and community canals o!ers an interesting case to explore how the stakeholder cooperation encouraged by Peru’s water law produces hydrosocial communities.
Research Interests:
Why are migration, climate and AI among the most controversial issues in the contemporary world? And how do they intersect and speak to the sentiments of anger and fear that currently prevail in Western democratic countries? My talk takes... more
Why are migration, climate and AI among the most controversial issues in the contemporary world? And how do they intersect and speak to the sentiments of anger and fear that currently prevail in Western democratic countries? My talk takes its point of departure in these questions discussing how the perception of global migration has changed in the past decades and why it is now lumped together with other perils such as the natural hazards and semi-human robots. My claim is that the images of the migrant as the human Other, the climate as the natural Other, and the robot as the post-digital Other all tap into conflicting feelings of deception and blame that fuel populist movements. My conclusion is that in a time of ontological fear, migration has become an omen of where we all may end up – in a “no (hu)man’s land” where only the fearless dares to walk.
Research Interests:
The paper discusses how anthropology contributes to climate change research and communication. Building on theoretical works that highlight the cultural framing of communication it investigates the signs and symbols that a Peruvian... more
The paper discusses how anthropology contributes to climate change research and communication. Building on theoretical works that highlight the cultural framing of communication it investigates the signs and symbols that a Peruvian highland community creates and the imaginaries and identities it generates to interpret and communicate climate change and its environmental impact. To explore the community’s communicative repertoire the paper explores three climate voices that illuminate the conflicting ways the global discourse on climate change impacts the community’s future visions. Arguing that anthropogenic climate change poses a new challenge to the communication of urgent public issues the paper asks: Should the communication discuss climate change as a matter-of-fact issue? Or should it present climate change as a cultural phenomenon that is acknowledged as an issue in dispute? The paper concludes that climate change research is a post-normal science that not only must engage a range of scholarly traditions and methods but also listen to the voices that are affected by climate change in the real world. It encourages climate change communicators to recognize that climate communication is a dialogical relation based on the mutual interests of its experts and its users in providing as well as receiving knowledge.
Research Interests:
Taking its point of departure from the debate on 'water as commodity' versus 'water as commons', the article compares recent changes in the water governance of two rural communities in the Peruvian Andes. It draws on the anthropological... more
Taking its point of departure from the debate on 'water as commodity' versus 'water as commons', the article compares recent changes in the water governance of two rural communities in the Peruvian Andes. It draws on the anthropological tradition of controlled comparison to examine the different ways that the state and other external agents have accelerated the commodification of water in these communities and challenged their notions of water rights and water accountability. The article suggests that water is commodified through three kinds of transaction: as tribute-for-usage, which is used to manage water as a common good; as tax/tariff-for-right, which is used to manage water as a public good; and as ticket-for-product, which is used to manage water as a private good. It argues that Peru's water users, rather than considering these three types of transactions to be conflicting forms of accountability, view them as complementary relations of exchange with the agents that control the water flow in their communities and regulate their water supply. It also proposes that, rather than being a one-way process that moves from communal control towards commercialisation and privatisation, the commodification of water is inherent in the water management of Peru's highland communities. The article concludes that in a time of climate change and growing water scarcity the communities are keeping as many options open as possible. Managing water as at the same time a common, public and private good, and accounting for their water use to not one but several water providers, is therefore an important priority for these communities.
Research Interests:
How is water best managed – as a common good or a commercial product? This is the key question of this paper that serves as introduction to a special section on Peru’s water crisis. The theoretical point of departure is Karen Bakker’s... more
How is water best managed – as a common good or a commercial product? This is the key question of this paper that serves as introduction to a special section on Peru’s water crisis. The theoretical point of departure is Karen Bakker’s (2007) discussion of water as "a commons versus a commodity" and the conceptual pitfalls and political dilemmas the dichotomy poses. The paper argues that in order to understand the social and political tensions not only in Peru but also in other countries suffering chronic and potential water shortage we must move beyond the idea that water is best managed as either a commons or a commodity. Rather, the paper suggests, we need to examine water governance as a multi-faceted and complex activity in which water exceeds the dichotomy and sometimes takes the form of commons and commodity at the same time. Unpacking the conceptual baggage of the commons/commodity dichotomy, as well as that of each term separately, the paper problematises their use in the study of Peru’s water governance. To illustrate the intricate and often unexpected ways in which water is claimed, accessed and allocated in Peru, it introduces the five studies that comprise the special section, concluding that only by providing in-depth, ethnographic descriptions of the country’s water governance can we gain insight into its socio-political complexity and propose alternatives to its water crisis.
Research Interests:
Water is important not only as a natural resource but also as an object of political empowerment, social meaning, and cultural imagination. To unpack the social nature of water the article examines it as “a total human-material fact”... more
Water is important not only as a natural resource but also as an object of political empowerment, social meaning, and cultural imagination. To unpack the social nature of water the article examines it as “a total human-material fact” which implies enquiring into water’s fundamental properties, i.e. its transgressive, transmutable, transparent characteristics, and exploring how the different forms of powers they engender impinge on human life. One such power is the power in water (its physical force), another the power of water (its social and political bearings) and a third the power as water (its cultural and imaginary potential). The article argues that regions suffering from chronic water scarcity are particularly pertinent to the study of water’s agentive powers. The Peruvian Andes constitutes such a field site. Reviewing regional literature on Andean history and contemporary culture the article explores how water’s multiple forces impact Peru’s current water crisis and shape Andean people’s struggle for social recognition. Moreover, the article employs the notion of the hydrosocial cycle to examine the author’s own ethnographic data discussing two cases that in opposite ways illustrate people’s perceptions of water and the way the convergence of its agentive powers constitutes a “total fact” in the Andes. It concludes that even though the discussion is focused on the regional context that shapes Andean water struggles, the two cases document something universal about water: its unique quality to represent raw physical power, malleable social and political power and soft imaginative power at one and the same time.
Research Interests:
What are the lessons from development practice that adaptation interventions can use to engage people? This paper tries to answer this question by reviewing field data on perceptions of environmental and climatic change in a Peruvian... more
What are the lessons from development practice that adaptation interventions can use to engage people? This paper tries to answer this question by reviewing field data on perceptions of environmental and climatic change in a Peruvian mountain community and discussing both the possibilities and the limitations of using local climate voices to prepare for climate change adaption. The data comprise two complementary household surveys. The first survey provides information on the community’s socio-economic situation while the second survey documents the villagers’ climate perception. The data reveal a paradox in the way the community understands global climate change. The villagers who live on the margin of the global world and belong to the poorest economic strata in Peru are deeply concerned about global climate change that is impacting their environment. Yet when locating the cause of climate change they point at their own community rather the industrialized world and suggest mitigation actions rather than adaptation initiatives as answer to the problems it entails. The paper suggests that in order to understand this paradox adaptation initiatives must both listen to the villagers’ climate perceptions and examine the socio-economic and discursive conditions that shape these perceptions and constrain their means of actions. It concludes that in order to support climate change adaptation in mountain communities the Peruvian State and other external organizations need to find the right balance between, on the one hand, engaging local climate voices and encouraging local participation and, on the other, recognizing their limitations and preparing for anticipatory adaption.
Research Interests: Adaptation, Participation, Peru, Climate, Mountain communities, and 3 moreAndes, Development, and Environment
How do Peruvian migrants use ethnic entrepreneurship to make headway in their countries of settlement? This article answers this question by using three ethnographic case studies to explore how Peruvian entrepreneurs mobilize resources to... more
How do Peruvian migrants use ethnic entrepreneurship to make headway in their countries of settlement? This article answers this question by using three ethnographic case studies to explore how Peruvian entrepreneurs mobilize resources to open restaurants in the United States, Spain and Chile. The finding is that Peruvian restaurant owners are adept in converting their educational skills and previous work experiences into human capital but that they often lack financial and cultural capital to establish new enterprises. Another insight is that while most Peruvian entrepreneurs use bonding capital to access these resources not all command enough bridging capital to capture customers outside their family and ethnic networks, which is critical to compete on the ethnic restaurant market. A final topic of inspection is the receiving contexts and the opportunity structures in the three countries and the way they facilitate or restrain immigrant entrepreneurships. The article concludes that migration scholars should inquire into the relations of inequality that the concepts of network and social capital gloss over and scrutinize how they shape the bonding and bridging capital immigrant entrepreneurs use to create mixed clienteles.
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
Conventionally, anthropologists have described ayni as an egalitarian practice of cooperation in Andean communities. This article examines the anthropological literature on ayni and investigates Andean cooperation as a grammar of... more
Conventionally, anthropologists have described ayni as an egalitarian practice of cooperation in Andean communities. This article examines the anthropological literature on ayni and investigates Andean cooperation as a grammar of reciprocity that glosses over both an ideology of equality and a practice of difference. Reviewing field data from an Andean community and its migrant colony in the United States, this work scrutinizes the ayni relations that transnational migrants draw on to sponsor community fiestas, and interrogates the power structures in which these relations are embedded. It argues that, when displaying their wealth and competing to gain prestige in the fiesta, migrants disclose the inequality of ayni. The research suggests that unlike the reciprocity described in Andean ethnographies, migrant cooperation is exclusive and reinforces existing relations of dominance. It concludes that future studies of ayni need to examine the changing economic and political context in which Andean cooperation evolves. [Andes, ayni, cooperation, migration, Peru, power, reciprocity]
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
... The political and religious situation in the district had indeed changed on my last visit to Tapay in 1993, which coincided with Peru's municipal ... For more than a century Tapay was dominated by a misti family who occupied... more
... The political and religious situation in the district had indeed changed on my last visit to Tapay in 1993, which coincided with Peru's municipal ... For more than a century Tapay was dominated by a misti family who occupied all administrative offices in the district and controlled the ...
Research Interests:
This article discusses the meaning and use of generation in migration studies. It argues that the term is useful to examine how migrants create linkages between their pre- and post-migration lives. The article draws on Mannheim’s notions... more
This article discusses the meaning and use of generation in migration studies. It argues that the term is useful to examine how migrants create linkages between their pre- and post-migration lives. The article draws on Mannheim’s notions of ‘generational units’ and ‘fresh contact’ to scrutinize how Peruvians engage resources from their previous lives in Peru to achieve social mobility in the United States, Japan, Spain and Argentina. In particular, the article focuses on the role of education, ethnicity and conflict in Peruvians’ efforts to create support networks and form migrant institutions. It suggests that generational units grow out of migrants’ shared experience of mobilizing the same resource to establish fresh contact with their receiving society. The article concludes that while generational belonging can generate a strong sense of solidarity among some groups of migrants, this often happens at the cost of the unity and inclusion of the migrant community at large.
Research Interests:
Improving water governance in the Andes is one of Peru’s biggest challenges. This article examines the state’s role in the water supply of an Andean community. Thirty years ago the community resisted the state’s interference in its water... more
Improving water governance in the Andes is one of Peru’s biggest challenges. This article examines the state’s role in the water supply of an Andean community. Thirty years ago the community resisted the state’s interference in its water management but now it has adopted a state model. The present article examines this change in the context of two
occasions: the Peruvian state’s investment in a new channel in the area and the community’s confrontation with the state to gain access to this infrastructure. In the article, it is suggested that rather than viewing the confrontation as a form of resistance against the state’s interference in Andean irrigation, we can see it as a way of opposing the state’s water policy that privileges Peru’s coastal desert at the cost of the country’s highlands. It argues that, paradoxically, the community’s success in challenging this policy and gaining rights to new water sources has prompted it to recognize
the state as a legitimate water governor. The article concludes that, to overcome Andean communities’ distrust of the state, the state must allow communities to play an
active role in water management and assure water equity in Peru.
occasions: the Peruvian state’s investment in a new channel in the area and the community’s confrontation with the state to gain access to this infrastructure. In the article, it is suggested that rather than viewing the confrontation as a form of resistance against the state’s interference in Andean irrigation, we can see it as a way of opposing the state’s water policy that privileges Peru’s coastal desert at the cost of the country’s highlands. It argues that, paradoxically, the community’s success in challenging this policy and gaining rights to new water sources has prompted it to recognize
the state as a legitimate water governor. The article concludes that, to overcome Andean communities’ distrust of the state, the state must allow communities to play an
active role in water management and assure water equity in Peru.
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
This article examines the implementation of Peru’s new water law and discusses how it produces new forms of water citizenship. Inspired by the global paradigm of “integrated water resources management,” the law aims to include all... more
This article examines the implementation of Peru’s new water law and discusses how it produces new forms of water citizenship. Inspired by the global paradigm of “integrated water resources management,” the law aims to include all citizens in the management of the country’s water resources by embracing a “new water culture.” We ask what forms of water citizenship emerge from the new water law and how they engage with local water practices and affect existing relations of inequality. We answer these questions ethnographically by comparing previous water legislation and how the new law currently is negotiated and contested in three localities in Peru’s southern highlands. We argue that the law creates a new water culture that views water as a substance that is measurable, quantifiable, and taxable, but that it neglects other ways of valuing water. We conclude that water citizenship emerges from the particular ways water authorities and water users define rights to access and use water, on the one hand, and obligations to contribute to the construction and maintenance of water infrastructure and pay for the use of water, on the other.
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
One of the many dimensions of globalization is climate change that in recent years has caused much concern in the developed world. The aim of this article is to explore how people living on the margins of the global world conceive climate... more
One of the many dimensions of globalization is climate change that in recent years has caused much concern in the developed world. The aim of this article is to explore how people living on the margins of the global world conceive climate change. Drawing on
ethnographic field data from the 1980s and today it examines how the ritual practice and
the religious belief of a rural community in the Peruvian Andes has changed during the last 27 years and how the villagers perceive this change. It argues that the villagers traditionally conceive the environment as co-habited by humans and non-humans but that recent environmental change in the Andes has caused a shift in this world-view. Today, many villagers have adopted the global vocabulary on climate change and are concerned with their own impact in the environment. However, the villagers reject the idea that it is human activities in other parts of the world that cause environmental problems in their community and claim that these must be addressed locally. It suggests that even though the villagers’ reluctance to subscribe to the global discourse of climate change makes them look like the companions of climate skeptics in the developed world, their reasons are very different.
ethnographic field data from the 1980s and today it examines how the ritual practice and
the religious belief of a rural community in the Peruvian Andes has changed during the last 27 years and how the villagers perceive this change. It argues that the villagers traditionally conceive the environment as co-habited by humans and non-humans but that recent environmental change in the Andes has caused a shift in this world-view. Today, many villagers have adopted the global vocabulary on climate change and are concerned with their own impact in the environment. However, the villagers reject the idea that it is human activities in other parts of the world that cause environmental problems in their community and claim that these must be addressed locally. It suggests that even though the villagers’ reluctance to subscribe to the global discourse of climate change makes them look like the companions of climate skeptics in the developed world, their reasons are very different.
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
The aim of this chapter is to scrutinize this predicament by discussing the use of the concept of diaspora in the study of global migration. My suggestion is that diaspora serves as an analytical category to study particular aspects of... more
The aim of this chapter is to scrutinize this predicament by discussing the use of the concept of diaspora in the study of global migration. My suggestion is that diaspora serves as an analytical category to study particular aspects of migration processes rather than as a general term for all forms of hybridity and mobility in the contemporary world. More specifically, I propose that we use diaspora to explore migrant populations as communities that constantly are negotiated and contested and that exclude as much as they include rather than as entities that are bounded and homogeneous and that automatically embrace all migrants from a particular nation. To illustrate this I draw on my own data on Peruvian migration to explore how diasporic networks and ties shape the conflicts, commitments and organizations that migrants living in the United States, Spain and Argentina engage in. I develop this analysis by first discussing the analytical problems of using diaspora as a general concept to understand social fluidity and identity construction in a globalizing world and suggesting an analytical framework to explore global migration. I then investigate three kinds of power struggles and contestations among Peruvians in the United States, Spain and Argentina with a particular focus on the role that the bi-lateral ties, which migrants in the three countries create to Peru, and the multi-sited ties, which they establish to Peruvians in other parts of the world, play in these power struggles and contestations. Finally, I discuss the possibilities of using the concept of diaspora to understand Peruvian migration and conclude by proposing that it is primarily the Peruvian migrant elite that claims to belong to a diasporic community and that well-off migrants construct such an identity by excluding large numbers of working class and less privileged Peruvian migrants.
Research Interests:
Lives Together, Worlds Apart. Quechua Colonization in Jungle and City by Sarah L. Skar. Oslo: Scandinavian U Press (1994); Autonomy and Power, The Dynamics of Class and Culture in Rural Bolivia by Maria L. Lagos. Philadelphia:... more
Lives Together, Worlds Apart. Quechua Colonization in Jungle and City by Sarah L. Skar. Oslo: Scandinavian U Press (1994); Autonomy and Power, The Dynamics of Class and Culture in Rural Bolivia by Maria L. Lagos. Philadelphia: University of Philadelphia Press (1994); Cumbe Reborn. An Andean Ethnography of History by Joanne Rappaport. Chicago: U of Chicago Press (1994).
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
... his initial training as a mathematician and engineer ('a glorious experience'); his early business career in China and his first amateur ethnological expedition to Botel Tobago, leading to his encounter with... more
... his initial training as a mathematician and engineer ('a glorious experience'); his early business career in China and his first amateur ethnological expedition to Botel Tobago, leading to his encounter with Raymond Firth in London in 1936 and his 'conversion' to anthropology in ...
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
List of Tables and Figures Acknowledgments 1. The Social Life of Remittances 2. Peru: Migration and Remittances 3. Compromiso: The Family Commitment 4. Voluntad: The Community Commitment 5. Superacion: The Personal Commitment 6. After... more
List of Tables and Figures Acknowledgments 1. The Social Life of Remittances 2. Peru: Migration and Remittances 3. Compromiso: The Family Commitment 4. Voluntad: The Community Commitment 5. Superacion: The Personal Commitment 6. After Remittances References Index
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
... In Chile my thanks go to Lorena Nunez, Carolina Stefoni, and Francisco Malouf, who introduced me to the Peruvian colony in Santiago and ... Thus Portes, Guarnizo, and Landolt contend that "if all or most things that immigrants do... more
... In Chile my thanks go to Lorena Nunez, Carolina Stefoni, and Francisco Malouf, who introduced me to the Peruvian colony in Santiago and ... Thus Portes, Guarnizo, and Landolt contend that "if all or most things that immigrants do are defined as 'transnationalism,' then none is ...
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
... Finally, I would like to thank my wife, Ana Maria Torres, toget-her with Laura and Sofie, our two daughters, for all their help and inspiration while ... shanty towns which started to crop up in Peru's major cities forty... more
... Finally, I would like to thank my wife, Ana Maria Torres, toget-her with Laura and Sofie, our two daughters, for all their help and inspiration while ... shanty towns which started to crop up in Peru's major cities forty to fifty years ago as a result of the grow-ing rural-urban exodus. ...
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
How is water best managed – as a common good or a commercial product? This is the key question of this paper that serves as introduction to a special section on Peru’s water crisis. The theoretical point of departure is Karen Bakker’s... more
How is water best managed – as a common good or a commercial product? This is the key question of this paper that serves as introduction to a special section on Peru’s water crisis. The theoretical point of departure is Karen Bakker’s (2007) discussion of water as "a commons versus a commodity" and the conceptual pitfalls and political dilemmas the dichotomy poses. The paper argues that in order to understand the social and political tensions not only in Peru but also in other countries suffering chronic and potential water shortage we must move beyond the idea that water is best managed as either a commons or a commodity. Rather, the paper suggests, we need to examine water governance as a multi-faceted and complex activity in which water exceeds the dichotomy and sometimes takes the form of commons and commodity at the same time. Unpacking the conceptual baggage of the commons/commodity dichotomy, as well as that of each term separately, the paper problematises their use in the study of Peru’s water governance. To illustrate the intricate and often unexpected ways in which water is claimed, accessed and allocated in Peru, it introduces the five studies that comprise the special section, concluding that only by providing in-depth, ethnographic descriptions of the country’s water governance can we gain insight into its socio-political complexity and propose alternatives to its water crisis.
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
Page 1. ANTROPOLOGISKE PERSPEKTIVER REDIGERET AF KAREN FOG OLWIG OG KARSTEN PÆRREGAARD MUSEUM TUSCULANUMS FORLAG Page 2. Page 3. INTEGRATION This One 62X7-! LHuP ^ ^ ^^ Page 4. Page 5. ...
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
The aim of this chapter is to scrutinize this predicament by discussing the use of the concept of diaspora in the study of global migration. My suggestion is that diaspora serves as an analytical category to study particular aspects of... more
The aim of this chapter is to scrutinize this predicament by discussing the use of the concept of diaspora in the study of global migration. My suggestion is that diaspora serves as an analytical category to study particular aspects of migration processes rather than as a general term for all forms of hybridity and mobility in the contemporary world. More specifically, I propose that we use diaspora to explore migrant populations as communities that constantly are negotiated and contested and that exclude as much as they include rather than as entities that are bounded and homogeneous and that automatically embrace all migrants from a particular nation. To illustrate this I draw on my own data on Peruvian migration to explore how diasporic networks and ties shape the conflicts, commitments and organizations that migrants living in the United States, Spain and Argentina engage in. I develop this analysis by first discussing the analytical problems of using diaspora as a general concept to understand social fluidity and identity construction in a globalizing world and suggesting an analytical framework to explore global migration. I then investigate three kinds of power struggles and contestations among Peruvians in the United States, Spain and Argentina with a particular focus on the role that the bi-lateral ties, which migrants in the three countries create to Peru, and the multi-sited ties, which they establish to Peruvians in other parts of the world, play in these power struggles and contestations. Finally, I discuss the possibilities of using the concept of diaspora to understand Peruvian migration and conclude by proposing that it is primarily the Peruvian migrant elite that claims to belong to a diasporic community and that well-off migrants construct such an identity by excluding large numbers of working class and less privileged Peruvian migrants.
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
La finalidad de mi articulo es contribuir al desarrollo de un modelo general de la organizacion social del mundo andino, en el cual pocos se han interesado en los ultimos diez anos. Dos son los aspectos que voy a analizar en base a datos... more
La finalidad de mi articulo es contribuir al desarrollo de un modelo general de la organizacion social del mundo andino, en el cual pocos se han interesado en los ultimos diez anos. Dos son los aspectos que voy a analizar en base a datos recogidos en el distrito de Tapay, en el valle de Colca, provincia de Cailloma, departamento de Arequipa. Primero, quiero analizar el patron matrimonial que caracteriza por un lado la relacion entre el distrito de Tapay y el rnundo externo, y por otro lado las relaciones entre los grupos sociales y culturales que forman la poblacion de Tapay. En otras palabras, analizar como la exogamia y la endogamia se manifiestan en los diferentes niveles de la socicdad tapena. Segundo, intentare interpretar este patron matrimonial dentro de un contexto mas amplio, el de la organizacion social de Tapay. Por lo tanto, presentark una serie de datos en torno al sistema de herencia en Tapay y la ayuda mutua entre los tapenos.
Research Interests:
Taking its point of departure from the debate on 'water as commodity' versus 'water as commons', the article compares recent changes in the water governance of two rural communities in the Peruvian Andes. It draws on the... more
Taking its point of departure from the debate on 'water as commodity' versus 'water as commons', the article compares recent changes in the water governance of two rural communities in the Peruvian Andes. It draws on the anthropological tradition of controlled comparison to examine the different ways that the state and other external agents have accelerated the commodification of water in these communities and challenged their notions of water rights and water accountability. The article suggests that water is commodified through three kinds of transaction: as tribute-for-usage, which is used to manage water as a common good; as tax/tariff-for-right, which is used to manage water as a public good; and as ticket-for-product, which is used to manage water as a private good. It argues that Peru's water users, rather than considering these three types of transactions to be conflicting forms of accountability, view them as complementary relations of exchange with the ...
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
Two contrasting images typically represent 'the poor' in development studies and practice. On the one hand, they are portrayed as those who do not have: deprivation is the quintessence of their identity, the definition of their... more
Two contrasting images typically represent 'the poor' in development studies and practice. On the one hand, they are portrayed as those who do not have: deprivation is the quintessence of their identity, the definition of their being. The very notion of 'poor' dooms the bearer to a subordinate, powerless status. Alternatively, they are idealistically depicted as thriving in solidarity, rich traditions and true authentic experience uncontaminated by capitalist ways of life and harmoniously linked to nature. An analysis of poverty requires stepping back from these stereotypical notions of the poor and examining the ways in which those identified as destitute deploy resources and act in pursuing their livelihoods. Taking cases from Zimbabwe, Mozambique, India, Bangladesh, Peru and Mexico and spanning diverse spheres of interaction: between donors and beneficiaries, local authorities and citizens, employers and employees, as well as between different social and ethnic gr...
Research Interests:
Description et comparaison des jeux et des differents moments du rituel funeraire dans deux communautes indiennes du Perou. Interpretation. Les croyances relatives a la mort, a la separation de l'âme et du corps, aux esprits et aux... more
Description et comparaison des jeux et des differents moments du rituel funeraire dans deux communautes indiennes du Perou. Interpretation. Les croyances relatives a la mort, a la separation de l'âme et du corps, aux esprits et aux fantomes