Sustainable Pathways or Troubled Development? Rural community dynamics in the Andean valleys of Bolivia

Abstract

This study analyses development processes and the transformation of rural villages in the Andean valleys of Bolivia using a comparative and longitudinal perspective. The purpose of the study is to understand how local evolutionary development takes place, and how community pathways are defined and influenced by various internal and external factors. The theoretical perspective of the study is derived from the path dependency framework. Using this framework, it analyses the accumulative and sometimes contradictory interactions between different forms of agency and collective action and their impact on pathway development. Formal and informal institutions and collective action efforts at the community level play an important role in constraining or (re)creating community pathways. The study is based on two main periods of fieldwork, the first one in 1995-1996 and the second one 15 years later, in 2011. Based on a long-term analysis of trends and a detailed comparison of changes in the resource base between 1996 and 2011, the study reviews and investigates the different ways in which communities were established, and how they positioned and repositioned themselves, both in relation to their neighbouring communities and towards the different levels of government and other external organizations, such as NGOs. It also examines differences between these communities in their interaction patterns and in the public sphere as well as the productive environment. Different forms of agency and collective action (e.g., individual households, local leadership, community organization, informal exchange mechanisms, farmer associations and project committees) interact with or are triggered by external factors, such as external interventions and unexpected shocks, leading to further differentiation or convergence in access to resources and public goods.