Froemming, Steven John; 1999; Rational Choice and Collective Action in an Andean Community. Ph.D. Thesis, University of Washington, Seattle. Excerpt from Epilogue (pages 844, 855-858).

Epilogue

Introduction

After being away for six years, I returned to Ccachín in July 1998 to find that the pace of change in the village had quickened during my absence. The principal changes can be related to the extension and improvement of roads between Ccachín, Calca, Cusco, and Yanatile. But the road plays a facilitative role and in itself is an insufficient condition for explaining the sociocultural changes. A combination of push-and-pull factors have set a sizeable portion of community members on the move. The coming of age of a generation educated in the Spanish language and exposed to urban values, the end of terrorist activity in the region, the stabilization of the Peruvian economy, and a run of catastrophic weather associated with El Niño are among the factors that have provided villagers reason and opportunity to change....

Conclusion

The landscape, community, and people are recognizably the same, and most villagers pass through the days and seasons much as before, but a surprising amount has changed in Ccachín in the six years since I did the fieldwork on which this thesis is based. For the most part, the changes follow patterns that have been developing for the last thirty years, intensified by the arrival of a road to the village center and disastrous crop yields associated with El Niño. The village has been marked by rapid population growth throughout this century, however, and I was not prepared to find so many houses empty on my return. Migration toward urban centers and the jungle frontier -- opposing but complementary directions -- is not new, but the extensive migration I encountered in 1998 is, and whether the current decline in the resident population will be temporary or permanent remains to be seen. The vitality of the community depends on villagers feeling that they have a future in Ccachín.

Leaving one's natal environment for the promises of a new one has potential rewards, but also risks and dangers. This point was driven home to me by the situation of one of my compadres, who in the years since I left, has established dual homes in Yavero and Calca. Working together with his oldest son in their fields in the "eyebrow of the jungle," his son was bitten by a snake, and far from medical facilities, my compadre looked on helplessly as his firstborn died an agonizing death. Back in Calca, where they rented a room from relatives, my compadre and comadre were faced with the decision of using their savings to build a house or buy a used pickup to haul passengers and merchandise for hire. At the urging of their second son, who wished to be the driver, they chose the latter, but as of my visit the truck was out of operation due to a broken part, and they didn't have the money to fix it. In retrospect, my compadre questioned the decision. Family members who move ahead to a new area are often in a position to help ease the transition for those who come after them, but it is not the same as being able to draw on generations of accumulated experience to weigh the risks and rewards of one's actions in new environments. Neither of these things would have happened if the family had stayed in Ccachín, and it is hard to say whether or not they would have in their new surroundings had they had more experience. It is hard to trade the familiar against the unknown. As best as possible, most families are hedging their bets and keeping a foot in both worlds, but prior decisions constrain the present, and there comes a point where one can not go home again.

In Ccachín itself, the shiny new public buildings and other infrastructural improvements are impressive, and they provide evidence that community members and their leaders have not stood still. The amount of phayna labor that was required to carry out these projects is appreciable. During the two months of my visit, the usual peak of phayna activity if there is to be any, there were no major projects requiring community-wide labor in progress, and there were few communal work parties at all. Communal labor requirements fluctuate from year to year depending on the projects targeted, so this is not altogether unusual, and after a period of intense activity, people seemed to appreciate the break. How much of it can be attributed to so many families being out of the village I can't say. In any case, I was unable to gather any additional first-hand data on communal labor in Ccachín.

I was struck by two things that besides labor migration are likely to affect phayna participation in the future, however. First, the new buildings being constructed, designed from outside the community, require a greater amount of specialized labor -- the services of millers, truckers, carpenters, masons, plasterers, plumbers, and the like. Some of the comuneros are learning new skills and investing in the appropriate equipment to carry out these activities, and more and more wage labor is replacing what was once provided without compensation. Second, existing differences between the comuneros in wealth, especially as measured in cattle, are now being translated into differences in trade and opportunity. A growing differentiation between comuneros along multiple dimensions was noticeable on my return, and with present trends, it will continue. As I noted in Chapter 13, differentiation can be a mixed blessing for collective goods production. On the one hand, asymmetries in demand can increase a group's success in providing such goods as subgroups become interested and able to provide some or all of the good on their own. On the other hand, the growing specialization of skills and trades, along with the changing opportunity costs of labor, lead to a degeneration of the phayna system as we know it. The system has probably continued with relatively little qualitative change for centuries in the village, most changes having been in the amount of labor required, focal projects, and enforcement techniques. The community may soon be on the verge of a change in the way it recruits labor for community projects itself.

People respond to change differently, and Ccachín has both conservative and progressive elements. The divisions tend to fall along wealth and generational lines, although not entirely so, and the same individuals may favor change in some areas and not in others. Visiting anthropologists have feelings about change too. Some of this has to do with familiarity, as returning to one's field site after a long absence is a homecoming of sorts, and after having investing so much energy in finding one's place in a community, there's a temptation to want the people, the place, and one's place in it to remain much as one remembers them. Catching up with personal news -- with births and deaths and the ups and downs of people's lives -- is emotionally draining enough, without having to assimilate major sociocultural change.

Part of the reason for going back is to document such change, and in so doing, we need to take care not to let our own nostalgia, careers, and cultural goals interfere with the task. Urbano (1991) argues that the backgrounds of many social scientists working in the Andes today betray them; that the disproportionate focus on small-scale, endangered societies, on participating in unique rituals and experiencing strong sensations, on documenting esoteric and exotic practices, is conditioned by current tastes and consumer behavior in the well-off societies that most researchers come from. Among the results are that they provide a distorted image of history and contemporary life in this part of the world, and that "Without being conservative by nature, the majority of these disciplines advance very traditionalist and retrograde positions in the Andes" (1991:XXX).

What is conservative in one society may be radical in another, and my interest in cooperation and collective action in the Andes is not neutral in this regard. Beyond understanding the conditions under which certain forms of cooperation and collective action prosper, I am concerned with how this knowledge can be used for the better in my own society. Accordingly, I take Urbano's concerns to heart. I have tried to be cautious in this thesis, and to bracket my own desires and beliefs as best as possible so that they do not interfere with accurately describing and analyzing the subjects at hand. This is my first effort, and going back to the field offers the possibility of amplification and correction. Living as I do afar, all I can provide are time slices. I am heartened that with current trends in Ccachín, villagers will soon be in a position to read and react to what I have written, and to go beyond my work by offering data, interpretation, and analysis of their own.

References Cited

Urbano, Henrique
1991 Modernidad en los Andes: un Tema y un Debate. In Modernidad en los Andes. Henrique Urbano, ed. Pp. IX-XXXVII. Cusco - Qosqo: Centro de Estudios Regionales Andinos "Bartolomé de las Casas."