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Garcés H., Alejandro; Moraga R., Jorge GROUND TRANSPORTATION AND NEW INTERCONNECTIONS BETWEEN AYMARA SOCIETY AND THE ECONOMY Chungara, Revista de Antropología Chilena, vol. 48, núm. 3, 2016, pp. 441-451 Universidad de Tarapacá Arica, Chile

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GROUND TRANSPORTATION AND NEW INTERCONNECTIONS BETWEEN AYMARA SOCIETY AND THE ECONOMY TRANSPORTE TERRESTRE Y NUEVAS INTERCONEXIONES ENTRE SOCIEDAD Y ECONOMÍA AYMARA

Alejandro Garcés H.1* y Jorge Moraga R.2

This article explores the development of a transport market which moves passengers and goods over the road system currently connecting Bolivia and Chile. An elite of aymara transport entrepreneurs has emerged in both Colchane and Pisiga to provide these services. This elite has currently been put under pressure by the appearance of new national and international actors. In a context of rural depopulation, migration between cities in both Chile and Bolivia and deterioration of the farming economy, we will see how participation in this transportation market has implied an important source of economic accrual in which indigenous actors have found a place. This process has reconfigured pre-existing political structures and generated new forms of social mobility and economic and political leadership. Key words: Colchane, Pisiga, aymara, transportation, economy.

Este artículo se propone caracterizar algunas de las transformaciones sociales, políticas y económicas al interior del mundo aymara -en tanto grupo étnico predominante en la zona- de las localidades colindantes a la frontera nacional en torno al complejo fronterizo en Colchane-Pisiga, que conecta los territorios de la región de Tarapacá en el norte chileno y el departamento de Oruro en el occidente boliviano, las cuales han sido dinamizadas por el importante auge y desarrollo de la economía del transporte de mercancías y personas en las últimas décadas. Este proceso reconfigura las estructuras políticas preexistentes y genera nuevas formas de movilidad social-económica y liderazgo político. Palabras claves: Colchane, Pisiga, aymara, transportes, economía.

The object of this article is to characterize some with the Colchane-Pisiga border crossing, was paved of the social, political and economic transformations and generally improved. Since then, passenger and within the world of the aymara -as a dominant ethnic goods traffic has increased greatly. According to group in the region-in localities close to national Chilean Customs statistics (Aduanas 2012), passenger frontiers. The area studied was that dependent on the traffic between 1997 and 2004 barely reached 85,000 Colchane-Pisiga border complex, which connects per year, but numbers have increased strongly since the Tarapacá Region in northern Chile with Oruro 2005 reaching 400,000 in 2012. In terms of goods, Department in western Bolivia. The economies of measured in tons, there is also a significant increase to these areas have become more dynamic due to the 317,330 tons in 2012, according to the same source. development and growth of goods and passenger Although these numbers are still well below those of transport in recent decades (Figure 1). The work the Chungara Pass, which captures traffic between La is based on two periods of ethnographic work in Paz and the port of Arica, they nevertheless reflect the towns of Colchane, Pisiga, Bolívar, Cariquima, strong growth in flows across that part of the border Enquelga, Chijo, Pozo Almonte and Alto Hospicio (Tables 1 and 2). (Iquique), between January and March 2013. Based on ethnographic observation, we During the 1980s, International Route 15-CH attempt to show some aymara practices which (formerly A55), linking the Chilean town of Huara have sometimes been presented as pure economic

1 Universidad Católica del Norte, Instituto de Investigaciones Arqueológicas y Museo Gustavo Le Paige. Calle Gustavo Le Paige 380, San Pedro de Atacama, CP: 1410000, Chile. [email protected], [email protected]. *Autor correspondiente. 2 Universidad Central de Chile, Facultad de Ciencias Sociales. Calle Lord Cochrane 417, Santiago, CP 8330507, Chile. [email protected]

Recibido: julio 2015. Aceptado: febrero 2016. http://dx.doi.org/10.4067/S0717-73562016005000010. Publicado en línea: 4-abril-2016. 442 Alejandro Garcés H. y Jorge Moraga R.

Figure 1. Map of the Iquique-Oruro corridor (making: Ignacio Manríquez). Mapa corredor Iquique-Oruro (elaboración: Ignacio Manríquez).

Table 1. Border ground passenger traffic (number of passengers). Tráfico fronterizo (número de pasajeros).

Customs 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 Visviri 10, 575 11, 372 9, 409 8, 134 7, 033 4, 115 2, 942 3, 473 Chacalluta 3, 733, 427 4, 135, 374 4, 315, 140 4, 003, 856 4, 110, 642 4, 508, 000 5, 009, 029 5, 150, 971 Chungara 275, 515 338, 184 409, 925 442, 906 470, 471 480, 266 550, 015 566, 945 Colchane 151, 786 214, 374 248, 189 303, 849 295, 354 282, 726 314, 202 432, 598 Ollague 7, 252 13, 605 14, 686 19, 917 16, 990 18, 154 20, 747 25, 288

Source: monthly averages of Customs border crossings.

Table 2. Border ground goods traffic (tons). Tráfico fronterizo de mercancías (toneladas).

Customs 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 Visviri 36, 075 42, 470 62, 107 49, 115 32, 690 18, 682 5, 039 5, 493 Chacalluta 316, 339 301, 328 286, 461 319, 602 294, 261 375, 721 370, 830 385, 798 Chungara 999, 390 1, 022, 785 1, 253, 838 1, 763, 630 1, 661, 881 2, 003, 982 2, 508, 137 2, 773, 226 Colchane 72, 011 132, 274 178, 261 234, 581 192, 522 172, 784 220, 320 317, 330 Ollague 17, 832 33, 700 37, 214 73, 613 46, 366 62, 414 62, 484 70, 777

Source: monthly averages of Customs border crossings. Ground transportation and new interconnections between Aymara society and the economy 443

strategy in the framework of a rational-utilitarian the last forty years in Chile, especially after the logic, but which, in the subjects’ practice, are application of a neo-liberal model during the Pinochet conditioned by other areas of social life that refer government. This new phase of capitalist expansion us to the legitimacy spaces common to a political, has directed the processes of indigenous integration ritual and communitarian order. and differentiation, installing structural barriers that The text is composed of two main parts. First, have reconfigured local and kinship processes in we describe the emergence of a transport industry aymara communities. These structural barriers have elite in Colchane and Pisiga, led to a great extent mainly taken the form of a new institutionality that by members of the aymara world – mainly families has tended to “municipalize” Andean space in both and individuals who already possessed a certain Chile and Bolivia (Burguete 2011; Gundermann economic position and symbolic or ritual leadership 2003; Orellana 1999); to “privatize and alienate” within the communities. It is of interest to observe the natural resources, especially water and soil resources appropriation and juxtaposition of economic, political (Perreault 2006; Yáñez and Molina 2008); and to and symbolic capital in these communities, which encourage the introduction of individuals of these fluctuate between the deterioration of aymara identity communities into private entrepreneurship policies in some cases to the reinforcement of traditional or directed by the needs of commerce and national historic hierarchies in others. Second, we address the and transnational capitals1. Thus, a profound emergence of another transport economy which is reorganization of the Andean system has taken on the fringe of the capital accumulation by the elite. place, which cannot be understood either as pure In the face of the competition established by the big disorganization or as pure continuity or anchorage transport enterprises -aymara, Chilean or foreign- in tradition, but as following a dynamic of change significant numbers of individuals or groups have and re-composition understood as two aspects of become small transport entrepreneurs, an economic a single group of phenomena (Gundermann 2003). activity that they complement with traditional farming These structural readjustments have resulted in and live stock activities and with the differentiated use two intertwined phenomena which have reconfigured of spaces, both rural and urban, exploited within the the indigenous landscape, allowing the consolidation framework of contemporary aymara trans-locality. of the transport business: the strong migration of Here we must note an exception. In expounding the high Andean plateau dwellers to the coastal cities, following distinction, our object is not to present especially during the 1990s; and the re-integration these indigenous economies exclusively as traditional of local spaces in practices that tended to increase or non-capitalist formations, but to illustrate how their heterogeneity and social complexity. These they coordinate and appropriate the new capitalist, phenomena were driven by the growth of commerce national and technological contexts in which they around the Iquique Free Trade Zone (Zofri) which, find themselves. As Tassi and other authors have although established in 1975, gained importance after noted in the case of Bolivia, Aymara economies the 1990s due to the flexibilization of entry permits lead to the formation of new ethnic elites which for Bolivian trucks; the creation of the Oruro Free become integrated with global markets by using local Zone (Zofro) in 1991; and the increased flow of patterns and strategies, both long-established and goods that resulted from substantial improvements contemporary. In this way they constitute a critique to Route A-55 (currently 15-CH International) of the essentialist perspectives which explain these between the town of Huara and the Colchane-Pisiga economies by comparison with ancient reciprocity border crossing, paving of which was completed in systems and traditional family relations (Tassi 2015; the 2000s. The last stretch of road on the Bolivian Tassi et al. 2014). side was opened by President Evo Morales in 2012. Noting that aymara communities have not The Development of an Aymara Transport presented themselves as passive actors in these Industry Elite changes, we will investigate the mechanisms by which the current transport business elites were formed in This section will attempt to analyze the their need to adapt and resignify these structuring mechanisms by which a transport industry elite has frameworks. These elites tend to concentrate -not become consolidated within the so-called second entirely without conflict- both economic and political phase of modernization processes taking place over local power, besides commanding the processes of 444 Alejandro Garcés H. y Jorge Moraga R.

ethnic and religious reconfiguration in the Colchane jilakata2 of the town, a traditional aymara authority commune (administrative district). We will attempt equivalent to the tribal leaders that the Chilean to prove that these elites have been able to maintain Aymara area attempting to establish in their sector. and even streng then their hegemony over local On March 2013 he headed the occupation of customs power (in Bolivia and Chile) by coordinating, to their offices in the Colchane-Pisiga border crossing advantage, the relationships of “equal” recognition complex, protesting together with a group of hauliers within the framework of symbolic-political national and other traditional authorities (among them his power, as well as the “hierarchical” relationships of relative Ludger Colque) against the change of Pisiga subordination and debt that have been established customs officers, who -they claimed- hindered the traditionally within their own ethnic communities. introduction of goods from the Zofri. The distinction between hierarchical relations and Among the Chilean aymara, David García those of equal recognition, here presented between Mamani, a member of the family that owns quotation marks, tends to omit the multiplicity of “Transportes García”, confirms the necessary nuances in which the interlocking economic, social stage of accumulation of economic capital in the and political fields manifest themselves, diluting city. His family managed a chain of butcheries in the hegemonic dichotomy between modernity and Alto Hospicio, developing contacts with providers tradition. in Osorno, Lo Valledor (Santiago), Paraguay, The courses by which families have formed Argentina and the United States. He worked in the and accumulated economic capital have allowed us family meat business until 2009, when he decided to observe the emergence of these processes. The to gather together part of his wealth and return most significant cases of concentration and control home to Colchane in the high plateau, where he of power in a family are sketched in the careers of established a hotel to exploit tourism: the García Mamani and Choque families in Chilean territory and the Colques on Bolivian soil. In all I worked in (…) one of the butcher shops three examples the experience of trans-locality that that I owned, I managed the shop and so on; characterizes the contemporary moment is exposed, currently my brothers are there working, in manifesting the need to move to other Chilean or other words, the business is more or less Bolivian cities in order to commence the process of established. We have been in the business obtaining and accumulating symbolic and economic for about 20 years, so you get a bit saturated capital (Bordieu 1997), either through study, work too, because you have to be there everyday. contacts or business. Among the Bolivian aymara, Eddie Colque The story of “Transportes García” is typical. is the owner of the main transport company in In 1994 they began with rural passenger transport Pisiga-Bolívar (Bolivia) and member of a transport between Iquique and Colchane. Towards the end cooperative. He remembers his childhood in which of the decade, taking advantage of Alto Hospicio’s life was shared with Chilean aymaras (now important explosive population growth, they introduced two political and transport business figures, according small taxi-buses to serveroutes covering the 12 to him), and he mentions with pride that he is an kilometers down a steep cliff that separate the agronomist and that he started his studies in the town from the port of Iquique. At that moment they Universidad de Tarapacá (Chile): started a trade association “Transatélite A. G.” and in 2004, after Alto Hospicio was officially made a I have known the mayor [of Colchane], commune, they obtained the concession to operate Teófilo [Mamani].... from childhood. He the local transport business. Currently they have a was a haulier. I was an agronomist. I am big passenger transport fleet serving the Collahuasi, an agricultural engineer […]. I know the Gaby, Zaldívar and other mines. University of Iquique, because I had to study The “Buses Palomo” transport company, which there... but the costs were a bit... too high, enjoyed its golden age in past decades, is also so that I stayed here [studying] in Bolivia. linked specifically to the Mamani García family. After some years offering a strong alternative for Colque was mayor of Pisiga-Bolívar between passenger transport between Iquique and Oruro, it 2009 and 2012. Currently he is recognized as the is now in evident decline due to the competition of Ground transportation and new interconnections between Aymara society and the economy 445

national lines, both Bolivian and Chilean. Buses immediately elected to another important post: Palomo offers only two buses per day from Iquique, “indigenous deputy mayor”. In his own words: a small share in the daily flow of over twenty buses offered in total by other companies. According Then in 2009 I was deputy mayor, 2009- to one member of the family: “Currently in the 10. Last year I was leaving office, on April Colchane region there is only one entrepreneur, 28-29. Now, once again, they have chosen well actually a micro-business, right? And he... the me as indigenous deputy mayor, what I one with buses [Palomo], is the only one, the only will to do is to pay a service to the people, person here in the region...”. with that I feel whole, I have passed my Despite its small share in the passenger market, positions... the local transport business has enabled an important accumulation of capital in the region. The Choque The power of the “Colque clan” can be clearly family, for example, is also part of this elite that appreciated by looking at the names of the authorities has reinforced its capital by expanding the business, elected last year: councilor, Jorge Colque; municipal increasing the social differentiation now present in deputy mayor, Williams Colque; president, vice communities of original peoples. In his statement, president and secretary general of the Pisiga civil one aymara small businessman, who currently only society committee, Daniel Colque, Ramiro Moya operates one truck and offers small cargo services and Edwin Colque respectively. Secretary of the in the city, criticizes the disadvantages faced by Safety Committee, Elizabeth Colque. small hauliers in competition with the powerful Among the Chilean aymara, family relationships families of Colchane: are also responsible for organizing local political power around traditional lineages, both in national the Choque too, they have grown a lot; representation and in “indigenous” posts. In 2012, Gregorio Choque they are called... uuuh!, the people of Colchane also saw the office of mayor they are big businessmen now. They grew as transferred from Honorio Mamani to Teófilo Mamani, a family...of course! (…) That’s it, because both in the transport business. Despite representing the rest of us, we are doing so-so, one little different political views, they both belong to the truck, two little trucks. same family. A similar case is found among council candidates such as Doris Mamani, sister of the current The Choque family has also become famous mayor, who accused her relative of blackmail before for establishing associative links that defend the the Election Qualifying Court (TRICEL). interests of the aymara transport group. According The current native chief of Isluga is the mayor’s to the same informant: father, in a fusion of family interests that summarizes indigenous and national representativeness. The case suddenly they made more associations that of the García family, mentioned above, confirms these have offices now, some associations in the fusions: the mayor of Camiña is Sixto García, another Zofri such as “Transportistas de Autos para example of the same legitimation mechanism. And Bolivia” (Car transporters to Bolivia). That’s so it goes on, as we find that the current community where the Choques are also involved, but leaders of various towns were direct relatives of that is another Choque... but here there almost all the candidates for councilor and mayor is another Choque, Elvis Choque... the of Colchane in the 2012 election. Choques are a big family. These elites achieve a position within the community based on the recognition of an external The development of these economic capitals has third party (trade associations, labor unions, national been accompanied by the accumulation of political political legitimacies) and they reinforce their inter- capital; these families have established themselves ethnic position by appealing to the re-signification as new actors in national political systems. Such is and even the re-establishment of ethnic structures the case of transport entrepreneur Eddie Choque, at commune level. This need for recognition from mentioned above, who was deputy mayor of Pisiga- the community of local elites usually privileges Bolívar. Later, in 2009-2012, the position was filled two mechanisms, both of which are applied in by his relative María Colque Caniviri. But he was reinforcement of existing hierarchies: 446 Alejandro Garcés H. y Jorge Moraga R.

(a) Appropriation and reinvention of the community’s The second mechanism, mediation and ritual space. The need to re-appropriate traditional distribution of the official offer, is clearly expressed authority spaces is present in ceremonial or in the allocation of benefits to the community, either symbolically important practices, such as through the application of “particular” criteria in the anatas and carnivals. In them, the big men invite distribution of subsidies, or the assignment of tenders the rest of the community to collective feasts -with the same criteria- to be carried out by public that reaffirm, through enormous ostentatious works contractors. Examples of this mechanism are: expenditure, their prestige and superiority. the construction of the new Colchane Square, a big (b) Mediation between community and state and infrastructure work on which the government spent its offer. The need to control the distribution hundreds of millions of chilean pesos; the delivery of benefits and other concessions offered by of “participative pavements”; and the construction the state, through the appropriation of political of the new offices of the Colchane-Pisiga border mediation possible within the national space. control point. All of the projects are carried out by The case of the García Mamani family, in contractor or subcontractor firms linked to the big Colchane, is a good example of the first mechanism. families. All of them are also somehow linked to Despite the devaluation of traditional authorities, the transport business, either directly through truck expressed in the very scarce competition to give or bus fleets, or indirectly through ownership of the continuity to the alférez figure of the Isluga necessary machinery to build and maintain the roads5. carnival, David García Mamani accepted this The mechanisms that we have highlighted position in 2012. The person who assumes this in an analytical manner, as the manifestation of role becomes the host and must cover all the costs relationships of solidarity or reciprocity in the social of this community festivity that takes place in body, are coupled consubstantially to agonistic February each year. In a lavish display of excess, movements that compose hierarchies and chains of this local potlatch reaffirms the symbolic power debt, operating in parallel in the political, economic and authority of the hosting family, in a scene that and ritual fields (Mauss 2008). In other words, the overwhelms social competence. The generation of relationships of reciprocity and debt generated in prestige based on collective debt thus generated the ritual occurrence of these communities can be tends to pervade all the activities of the community, resolved in the political field in which the state burning the surplus obtained through successful offer also participates6. external relations. The alférez for 2012 explains the main The Construction of the Transport characteristic of this ostentatious expenditure for Business Fringe the community, corroborating that a large family stands behind him. Thus the practice of ayni3 tends The processes of accumulation that have allowed to be reduced to the strengthening of kinship bonds, a certain transport business boom in Colchane and losing its previous capacity to maintain tight union Pisiga, and the development of a transport elite within the community, in which the social whole within aymara communities, are closely related participated more of solidarity than of agonistic forms. to the development of a group of small transport entrepreneurs (the fringe or margin). They are in This is from me, but not just me, all of fact the majority, who are unable to get enough the support of my family; family is the capital together to become part of the small group most important, the family nucleus, either which owns bus and truck fleets for passenger and brothers or cousins and our customs, the goods transport (the elite). We will describe how this famous ayni as we call it. It’s like (...) today fringe of the transport business is formed and then it benefits me, tomorrow it benefits you. declines, opening towards other forms of economic In fact, my sister, for example, brought activity. Some of these are traditional while others me a tarkeada4... from Bolivia, that has a are related to the development of new global markets, price. To get it here too, so she gives it to such as is currently the case of quinoa production me with love. Tomorrow when she needs and commercialization. something, or her son, I will have to respond The entry of aymaras or aymara families from too... that’s the way it’s done. Colchane into the goods and passenger transport Ground transportation and new interconnections between Aymara society and the economy 447

business is marked by the decline of the agricultural This scenario, in which traditional economic and livestock economy, as has been discussed by activities have receded, leaves an empty space that various authors, and the consequent depopulation of is somehow occupied by the transport business. towns in the interior (the high Andean plateau and We do not mean to say that this has been the only the Andes mountains) (Gundermann and Vergara economic sustenance of aymara families in recent 2009; Van Kessel 2003). This process has currently decades - on the contrary, there has been a general resulted in the overwhelming presence of indigenous insertion of young people into the educational population in the urban areas on the coast or along systems and labor markets. But somehow, the the roads leading to it, for example Pozo Almonte, transport business is an activity with quite an Alto Hospicio and Iquique in Chile. Beyond the important anchorage in traditional territories, due perspectives that see in this process an essentialist to the fact that it makes use of the newly paved loss of aymara substrate, the concrete fact is that the road between Iquique and Oruro in Bolivia. From old communities, traditionally linked to economies here, the aymara follow one of two access paths and organization systems closely related with or courses to this activity. extensive use of interior territories, are currently On the one hand there is access to this industry in fact disseminated trans-locally, with economic by aymaras and their families who have already activities that are often complementary, but for the migrated to the cities. Once inserted in the educational most part with a large part of the population being systems of the cities, and often without having had economically active and well inserted in the labor any previous contact with the transport industry, markets of the big cities. As time goes by they visit they carry out jobs linked to the economy of the their towns of origin less and less frequently, almost Zofri, which makes extensive use of the road that only for events that are exclusively ritual, linked to crosses Colchane to send goods to Bolivia. Once in the continuity of certain traditional festivities such the city, the young people finish their compulsory as anatas and carnivals. basic education and later follow technical studies In this sense, David García’s memory fixes a such as car mechanics, etc., which bring them time in which livestock represented the center of into contact with the world of transport through a the local economy, while at the same time activating diversity of jobs, often as truck drivers. the communities’ exploitation mechanisms: This course, similar to the one followed in the case of the elite, can be represented by the family Cattle herding was always, not the same, of Apolinario Castro in the town of Enquelga –some that has also been lost, for that reason the 20 km from Colchane and in the same commune– number of cattle has decreased, because that illustrates this dynamic well. I can remember, but it has always been Apolinario’s immediate family is composed of common that people help each other or go himself and his wife, and three sons who finished to certain places, because my mother used elementary school in Colchane. After finishing they to tell me that earlier, before for example moved to Iquique, specifically Alto Hospicio, where this time, starting March, you had to migrate they finished high school and became associated with the animals to the foothills, to the high with the Zofri in different jobs related to transport, plateau, to the foothills, but not through from truck loaders to drivers. As Apolinario explains, the gorges, but higher up...And then, there through hard work in a number of different fields were, there were places to arrive at, houses, his sons have achieved economic independence small houses, and then the people would and insertion in this economy through the purchase get organized, I am going, yes I am going, of a truck. because you had to go, there was grass for the cattle at that time, then the main thing They went down there. Of course, it is was the organization, I had 100, the next good for them because you find a job guy and we would get 500 head together quick, they go there, what do you call it?, and go stay up there for three days, whatever to look for a job... With their trucks, a lot the trip lasted, then it would come and of of people there have their trucks, they are course that was all organized and everyone loading and unloading they still keep on in the same direction. doing that. From here they are all staying 448 Alejandro Garcés H. y Jorge Moraga R.

here, the young ones, my sons, they all go thus constituting the last stronghold of attachment loading and unloading. to the soil of a family most of whose members now -And have they bought trucks? live in Alto Hospicio or Iquique. Yes, yes they have, and it has been good... Sergio is now over 60 years of age. He has Of course, in a day they got almost 60 or devoted most of his life to the goods transport 80 lucas [thousand pesos] because, but business; he has even owned a truck or two, but has you have to hit it hard, you’re not gonna not come close to becoming part of the transport be sitting down there, in that time you have elite we have described. Sergio himself recognizes been unloading about five vehicles... so that one of the reasons is the unequal competition off you go to unload and (whistling) fast, established by the big transport enterprises based sacks, for example, it goes fast, you put in Iquique, while another is the unfair competition the other one, how to make it bigger, how from Bolivian businesses. In his own words, this to make it bigger. part of the businesses takes place on the informal fringe, evading taxes that people like him have to Although in Colchane there is only one pay. From our observations and conversations in the entrepreneur working with passenger buses, the field we can infer that a part of the introduction of registry of the Internal Revenue Service (SII) indicates goods takes place illegally through unauthorized that of the 26 enterprises registered in Colchane border crossings in the proximity of towns near to in 2010, twenty were in the commercial transport Colchane (where the bi-national border crossing sector, automobiles or auto parts (Biblioteca del is located)7. Entry of car transporters (known Congreso Nacional 2013). as cigüeñas [storks]) and other merchandise is As we have stated before, this migration to the controlled by merchants linked to the communities cities is explained by or results from the depopulation and the territories where these illegal crossings are of the towns of the interior and the decline of the located8. It is in this context that car transport has agricultural economy. In the specific case of this become an important business in this region. Legal family, the participation of the sons in the economy and illegal traffic, in the hands of the big families, that their parents sustain in Colchane has been ignites struggles for power over aymara territory. reduced to a minimum and they return almost Transport by cigüeña makes a gross income of exclusively for festivities or to invest in the prestige US$1,000 per vehicle taken to Bolivia. The margin that becoming an alférez of some feast implies. increases if the traffic takes place through an illegal Apolinario constantly talks about the difficulties border crossing, meaning a considerable profit of maintaining the animals and an agriculture that considering that a cigüeña transports an average of provides more than mere subsistence. All in all, the 10 vehicles9. No clear distinction can be made of the story of this family enables us to recognize forms legality or illegality of the products transported in of social mobility within these spaces, in terms this way; both possibilities must surely exist. What of the formation of a market logic that enables interests us here is the coordination of economies, movements and new forms of accumulation of networks and the uses made of the territory. power that can be expressed in both the economic All in all, the many ways of carrying on this and the political-ritual fields. business, either formally or informally, have not On the other hand, we have an example of been sufficient to enable merchants such as Sergio insertion in this market through the acquisition to step outside the “transport industry fringe” which of inherited knowledge from the family. Route we have described. The possibilities of greater 5 connecting Huara with Colchane, and thence economic accumulation are severely restricted Bolivia, was paved during the last decade, but has by the strong local (also aymara), national and existed for much longer. Sergio Esteban’s father was transnational competition affecting this route working in this activity in the decade of 1960s, and between Chile and Bolivia. In Sergio’s specific although he died young he managed to transfer a case, after decades working in this activity, which is sort of “transport knowledge” to his son Sergio. The physically strenuous, he has sold his goods vehicle Esteban family is linked to the town of Chijo, near and taken a job as a small goods carrier for a well- Cariquima, still in Colchane commune. Sergio’s known construction materials and furniture store uncles, brothers and stepbrothers still live there, in Alto Hospicio. Ground transportation and new interconnections between Aymara society and the economy 449

In this scenario, the transport business fringe that enable them to reconfigure their dominance over sees in the latest global development of the quinoa local power (both on the Chilean and the Bolivian market a way out of a complex situation in one sides of the frontier), using to their advantage the new of Chile’s poorest communes, becoming a sort of relationships of “equal” recognition in the framework utopia that begins with the viability and economic of national political power (Gundermann et al. 2003) efficiency of quinoa harvesting in the Andean plateau and the “hierarchical” relationships that they have and ends with the repopulation of the territories. traditionally managed within the communities. The members of this elite operate as “ethnic there we were, we had no other source of mediators” who enter this new market as differentiated work, only to go to Cariquima and harvest actors competing for control of cross-border traffic quinoa, but our great ability is to get the with national and transnational enterprises. They best out of our land... Oh man, but if there control and channel the new relationships, and state were any possibilities, if a door would open benefits directed towards the local communities and someone would tell me to put half for and ethnic groups, to their own advantage. We this machine and I finance you the other observe a trend for the current identity redefinition half I …..shhhiuuuu (whistling) I’d go to and the strengthening of market relations in these Chijo in a second, because I know that I am communities to end up reinforcing traditional a farmer, I am a cattle herder, I am a bus lineages already operating in these spaces; they driver and a truck driver, I’ve been there and prove incapable of dissolving hierarchies that done that, I went to Calama, Antofagasta, are allegedly weakened by exposure to market where have I not lived already, but I am processes and free competition. The overlapping not as happy anywhere else as I am on my of political, economic and symbolic powers within land, I go to my town and I rest. In fact, these communities speaks of further consolidation today I still grow quinoa and I grow quinoa of these hierarchies. in Cariquima, we have land there. Nevertheless, the personal histories that describe the transport business fringe speak of how individuals Confidence that quinoa will trigger the economic and families act within the same market processes rebirth of these high regions is part of a common and opportunities that the free trade zone and the understanding that is quite widespread among the new road have created. Elite and Fringe participate various actors of these communities, based among other jointly in town dominance in a force field that is no things on the support available in terms of resources longer closed (recent hegemony of the trans-local), and education delivered by the state through the nor is it organized around a purely economic or municipality and the National Institute of Agricultural instrumental dynamic. The practices observed are Development (INDAP)10. In the framework of a helping to define the interlocking of the political, transport economy that does not produce enough economic and ritual spheres. It is certainly not a surplus for everybody, quinoa farming constitutes mere continuity of earlier organizational structures the newest imaginary for development in Colchane. and forms of transport (e.g. those observed in the 19th century). Here we have important new Conclusion differences, such as the influence of the context and influx of globalization, the central role assumed by We have shown how a group of structural the formation of national boundaries, the resulting opportunities, linked to the development of cross- new population flows between countries, and the border transport and commerce, have allowed an technological factor. Together they lead to the elite group of businessmen to emerge in passenger construction of a new phenomenon and to social and goods transport, and additionally a group of relations linked to these elements. small entrepreneurs on the fringe; together they have displaced the centrality of agriculture and livestock Acknowledgements: This work was supported by farming in the economies of these territories (Van Fondecyt project 11110246 “Etnicidad y procesos Kessel 1992), thus constituting the current symbolic translocales en espacios de frontera: migraciones and productive nucleus of the region. The new internacionales en el norte de Chile”. We also thank transport entrepreneurs have developed strategies the evaluators of article. 450 Alejandro Garcés H. y Jorge Moraga R.

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Notes

1 The problem of tension between individualist and leaders. Originally the role of the jilakata was to observe communitarian forces in aymara culture have been recorded the development of community crops and to protect them diachronically by Albó (2002). from damage caused by livestock. The post is passed on by 2 Civil appointment with strong religious connotations, turns with a yearly duration; a person is appointed once in which are what currently differentiate it from the new union a lifetime and it constitutes an unavoidable responsibility Ground transportation and new interconnections between Aymara society and the economy 451

(Delgado 2001:170-172; Jiménez and Delgadillo 2010; fields for value struggles, where specialized mercantile Zenteno 2009). symbols are negotiated with and such a commerce has an 3 Collective work system based on reciprocity between families, influence, through economies of status, power or wealth especially used in agricultural and construction activities in the most mundane of mercantile flows” (Appadurai and in other actions linked to schools and neighborhoods 1991 [1986]:50). (De Munter 2010; Mendoza 2007). For Murra, in the 7 The main goods that are introduced into Bolivia, both Andean economy this means reciprocity among relatives legally and illegally, are motorized vehicles, machinery, and neighbors, including agricultural, cattle herding and major appliances, electronics, used clothing, etc. construction activities (Murra 1975). 8 Within the Colchane commune we distinguish two illegal 4 Traditional dance to the music of tarkas (small Andean passes that are commonly used to smuggle merchandise flutes). to Bolivia. On the north side of Colchane there is a pass 5 A phenomenon with similar characteristics, of condensation through Pampa Parajalla (better known as Puerto Rico), and of political power in pressure groups linked to the transport through the south, in the Cariquima sector, there are passes industry, can be seen in some of the town halls of the Santa through the towns of Ancovinto and Panavinto, next to the Cruz department, Bolivia, in a parallel phenomenon that Coipasa salt flat. should be further investigated (Sandoval et al. 2013). 9 It should be recorded that in 2011 Evo Morales’ government 6 According to De Munter, in the Andean world cultural passed Law Nr. 133, Legal Regularization of Vehicles, to –political, ritual and economic– practices intertwine different regularize the status of those that had been introduced reciprocities that expose both positive and negative facets, illegally into the country. In the four months of its application such as the duty of vengeance and duties generated by gifts 67,077 vehicles were registered, all of which entered the (De Munter 2010). On the same topic, Appadurai develops a program and were legalized in the National Bolivian Customs comparative focus to understand these types of interrelations (Zamorano 2012). between economy and society, simultaneously articulating 10 Merchants and landowners identify two areas as important traditional systems of reciprocity with modern or capitalist for the development of quinoa crops in Colchane. Access to forms of relationship. Appadurai states: “Of course there soft loans that enable them to invest in machinery in order to exist many differences of scale, media, context and goals practice more intensive agriculture, and diversification of the between the kula and the merchandise markets of future agents that buy their production, in order to free themselves delivery. Nevertheless, the similarities are real and, as I from almost exclusive dependence on the Bolivian buyers have already pointed out, many societies create specialized who currently have the upper hand in this business.