PERIODICO OFICIAL

Peasant agriculture has been studied from different theories and approaches. Most tend to separate it or differentiate it from entrepreneurial agriculture, based on some key features, typical to both, or sometimes based on what they are supposed to be. Some of these approaches, on the contrary, tend to define what peasant agriculture is not or cannot achieve in comparison with modern entrepreneurial agriculture, as if the latter were the only ultimate goal to attain. There have been two main groups of approaches. Within the first, Marxist currents analyze peasant economy as part of a larger economic system, linked to broader social processes and regulated by "social relations of production." These approaches concentrate on politically analyzing these relationships in terms of labor-force exploitation and transference of surplus to a ruling class. The second group, neoclassical approaches, analyze peasant agriculture from an individual level, from the economic rationality of maximizing returns by maximizing productivity and reducing costs (Lehmann 1982a, 1980; Ellis 1998, 2000).

These theoretical discussions reveal a "scale" or "continuum" of conceptions and judgments about peasant agriculture. At one end are those who consider it excluded from the global economy or in some respects subordinate to the capitalist system (and to capitalist ruling groups) and therefore doomed to disappear (Kay, 2006). These approaches often say that these farms are operated "… almost devoid of capital and technology" (SOS FAIM, 2004:2). Approaches at the other end of the "scale" claim they survive and reproduce, because of their non-capitalist production relationships. Others take a more “transitionalist” approach, arguing that they are in a sort of transition from "primitive" to "modern" forms of production, progressively constructed on market relations (Lehmann, 1982b; Mayer, 2002).

These and similar approaches have also been adapted for the Andean region, influenced also by currents of economic anthropology, and others that could be called indigenist or "Andeanist” approaches. The latter describe peasant agriculture as a core activity of life in the Andes, expressing this notion (often in romanticized ways) as "Andean agrocentrism" (Grillo, 1993; PRATEC, 1996; Valldolid, 1994). Some authors explain this agrocentrism and "Andean cosmovision" by the close relationship of the Andean human community with the natural environment and its intangible world of deities. This relationship is manifested concretely in the "peasant field” (la chacra campesina), which is the center of life in the Andes. One of the principles that this approach proposes is the reciprocal interplay between these three domains (humans, deities and Nature) and diversity and heterogeneity as predominant features (Valladolid, 1994).

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In this section, peasant agriculture is approached with several analytical elements considered central to understanding what was identified as the focus of this study: "peasant dynamics". The unit of analysis will be discussed, including its key features (Section 2.7.2). Section 2.7.3 introduces the concepts of peasant strategies and styles of farming, as analytical categories to understand peasant agriculture, its dynamics, and its expressions as localized patterns of agrarian landscapes.

The unit of analysis in peasant agriculture. Production decisions – about what, when, how

and what for – in peasant agriculture are made within the family production unit. Different approaches raise different theoretical elements of how to conceive this production unit (see Ellis, 1998; Golte, 1980; Lehmann, 1982b; Mayer, 2002) and the analytical possibilities of linking peasant agricultural production with the national economy, or to attempt to explain this unit’s functioning or internal coherence.

For instance, approaches based on "hard" systemic models conceive the peasant production unit as a "black box" converting inputs into outputs, looking how to value the economic implications of that process. Others focus more on individual behavior, looking to attribute or assess this unit’s economic rationale for optimizing resource use to maximize profits and cash flow.15 _{From these neoclassical economic approaches, (peasant) families are conceived as}

purely economic units, void of any socio-cultural or political link with the broader context. Under this perspective, production functions (equations) are perceived as a faithful representation of production and technological processes, however, issues such as family labor and consumption within households are unresolved aspects. These however, paradoxically, constitute the essence of peasant farming units (van der Ploeg, 2008). Other studies focus on cultural and social elements embedded in production processes, for example on kinship and authority governing those processes (Mayer, 2002; Sanchez, in Lehman, 1982).

This study summarizes the following elements and arguments to define the "peasant family production unit" as the crucial unit of analysis:

• It is a unit based primarily, but not exclusively, on blood or ritual kinship. According to the context of the cases analyzed, this defines some flexibility between the "nuclear family" and the "extended family". According to their own dynamics, sometimes families move between these limits, without an absolute division (Mayer, 2002).

• _{Access to land is defined by various mechanisms that may coexist simultaneously. These} may be based on collective agreements and communal norms, or on individual property regimes, which may or may not be officially recognized by the state. These property rights, or other forms of access to land are attributed to an individual (usually the man or "head of household"), sometimes to various family members (e.g. through hereditary succession to

15 _{Mayer (2002) discusses the weakness of neoclassical approaches in sustaining the logic of individual economic}

rationality to analyze peasant agriculture, for example in understanding flows of goods and services based on commercial and non-commercial relations and also analyzing energy flows in various productive areas.

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the wife and husband), or to the entire family unit. Despite access or tenure mechanisms, land constitutes a key factor (not only a quantifiable asset) to mobilize labor, water, knowledge and other interlinked resources around peasant agriculture (Zoomers, 2001). • It is the household production unit where production decisions are made about what, how,

when, where and what for. Besides, this is not only a production unit but also a consumption unit, where products themselves have both a monetary exchange value and an important use value (Boelens, 1998).

Therefore, contrary to a capitalist entrepreneur, Andean peasants see their household as a production unit that is strongly related to their home and consumption unit: the market logic of decreasing marginal benefits cannot be applied as in a commercial enterprise, because peasants face the need to satisfy household necessities. In times of crisis, (low prices, low rewards to labor), the peasant family increases its labor efforts instead of decreasing them as would the capitalist enterprise. It also means that peasant irrigation systems always try to find a balance between production for self-consumption and for the market, and that the user organization cannot and should not be structured in a similar way to purely mercantile organizations. The often made distinction between ‘domestic’ and ‘productive activities’ generally blurs, since they combine and overlap, and boundaries tend to be very fluid or not even existent. Contrary to static presentations, Andean peasant households and communities are not relatively closed, corporative units of consumption and production, but highly dynamic, transcultural and even transnational migrant entities. In other words, reference to the peasant family as the unit of analysis does not intend to isolate it from the larger context in which it operates, but rather, to understand its dynamics and relationships with the communal context, socio-cultural repertories, and the broader economic context.

Indeed, the Andean peasant household (and peasant economy) expresses itself in relation to specific interactions and relations of exploitation between peasants and social groups in the wider society. It is characterized by a variety of mechanisms of unequal exchange. Andean peasant households are neither autarchic nor self-sufficient, but interwoven in the commoditized/mercantile and community/non-mercantile spheres of production, reproduction and consumption (Boelens, 1998; Boelens and Hoogesteger, 2017; Golte and De la Cadena, 1983; Zoomers, 2013).