INTERNAL MIGRATION and UNEVEN INTEGRATION in SANTA CRUZ, BOLIVIA a Dissertation Presented T
CIUDAD DE ANILLOS (CITY OF RINGS): INTERNAL MIGRATION AND UNEVEN INTEGRATION IN SANTA CRUZ, BOLIVIA A Dissertation Presented to the Faculty of the Graduate School of Cornell University in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy by Joshua Daniel Kirshner August 2009 © 2009 Joshua Daniel Kirshner CIUDAD DE ANILLOS (CITY OF RINGS): INTERNAL MIGRATION AND UNEVEN INTEGRATION IN SANTA CRUZ, BOLIVIA Joshua Daniel Kirshner, Ph.D. Cornell University 2009 This dissertation investigates the consequences of internal migration to Santa Cruz, an expanding urban center in lowland Bolivia whose growth stems from uneven regional development. Regional divisions between the highlands and the lowlands have long afflicted Bolivia. The roots of the regional differences predate the country’s independence, but they have intensified in the past decade amid unresolved power struggles between Bolivia’s central government and the opposition based in the lowland region, as recent events in Bolivia over regional autonomies have demonstrated. Drawing on the perspectives of political geography, urban planning, and sociology, this study examines the processes of migrant integration and social exclusion in Santa Cruz, and how migration is affecting regional identity formation in Bolivia’s lowland region. In Chapter 2, I explore the historical construction of the eastern lowlands region, called the Oriente. I trace its transformation from an isolated frontier to Bolivia’s major production zone and the emergence of the regional elite though periods of economic change based on extractive industries. Chapter 3 shifts the focus to the city of Santa Cruz and argues that modernist planning in the 1950s and 1960s did not coincide with the realities of mass urban migration that ensued.
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