Inventing Indigenous Knowledge

This volume provides a multi-sited and multivocalic investigation of the dynamic social, political and economic processes in the creation and implementation of an agricultural development project. The raised field rehabilitation project attempted to introduce a pre-Columbian agricultural method into the contemporary Lake Titicaca Basin.

1. Introduction 2. Ethnic Groups and the State: From Tiwanaku to National Revolution in the Lake Titicaca Basin 3. Agrarian Policies, Indigenous Social Movements and Sustainable Development: The Contexts for Implementing a Bolivian Agricultural Development Project 4. Inventing Tradition and Development: The Representation of Raised Field Agriculture 5. Traditional Agricultural Practices: Contrasting Representations of Raised Fields with Production Factors at the Local Level 6. The Myth of the Idle Peasant Revisited: Access to Labor for Agriculture 7. Conclusion: Inventing Indigenous Knowledge and the Maintenance of Class and Ethnic Boundaries