The Displacement of Peasant Settlers in the Amazon: The Case of Santa Cruz, Bolivia

Abstract

Unlike peasants in many other parts of the Amazon, those settling on much of the frontier in Santa Cruz, Bolivia, have shown little tendency to be displaced by large farmers. This article attempts to identify the reasons for the persistence of peasant settlement. These include ambiguities in state support for the large farmer, the lack of dynamism of commercial agriculture, different spatial patterns of expansion of peasant and commercial farming, the occupation of land by peasant farmers in legally recognised agrarian unions and the Andeanisation of the frontier with the extension of a distinctive social and economic space originating in highland Bolivia into the lowland environment.