'To Work Is to Transform the Land': Agricultural Labour, Personhood
THE LONDON SCHOOL OF ECONOMICS AND POLITICAL SCIENCE ‘To work is to transform the land’: Agricultural labour, personhood and landscape in an Andean ayllu. Clara Miranda Sheild Johansson A thesis submitted to the Department of Anthropology of the London School of Economics for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy, London, June 2013 1 Declaration I certify that the thesis I have presented for examination for the MPhil/PhD degree of the London School of Economics and Political Science is solely my own work other than where I have clearly indicated that it is the work of others (in which case the extent of any work carried out jointly by me and any other person is clearly identified in it). The copyright of this thesis rests with the author. Quotation from it is permitted, provided that full acknowledgement is made. This thesis may not be reproduced without my prior written consent. I warrant that this authorisation does not, to the best of my belief, infringe the rights of any third party. I declare that my thesis consists of 97, 961 words. I can confirm that my thesis was copy edited for conventions of language, spelling and grammar by Alanna Cant, Kimberly Chong, Katharine Dow and Stuart Sheild. 2 Abstract This thesis analyses the central role of agricultural labour in the construction of personhood, landscape and work in an Andean ayllu. It is an ethnographic study based on fieldwork in a small subsistence farming village in the highlands of Bolivia. In employing a practice-led approach and emphasising everyday labour, ambiguity and the realities of history and political power play, rather than the ayllu’s ‘core characteristics’ of complementarity and communality, the thesis moves away from the structuralist approaches which have dominated this field of study.
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