Negotiating Collective Land Rights in the Andes: Insights from contrasting trajectories on the Bolivian-Chilean altiplano, 1880s-1930s.

Abstract

This article discusses and compares two case studies on land rights transformation in Andean highland communities situated across the Bolivian-Chilean border. Their trajectories demonstrate a striking divergence in the context of the breakthrough of liberal land legislation in late 19^th century Latin America. Communities in the Bolivian province of Carangas were able to resista privatising pressures, while communities of the Arica highlands, once annexed and incorporated in Chile during the War of the Pacific, adjusted to a more homogeneous regime that left little room for communal land relations. Despite the start contrasts, this article questions simplistic dichotomic framings of the unchallenged “survival” of communal land rights in Bolivia versus complete “disappearance” of communal arrangements in Chile. Based on empirical ethnographic data, it points to the social reconfigurations and creative strategies through which the community as a collective legal entity and daily practice transformed. The article sheds light on the causes and longer-term implications of these regional trajectories within the context of a globalising land regime.