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live harmoniously in them; of course, there were numerous exceptions of
communities that were unsuccessful in managing their environments or
who succumbed to challenges from other social groups throughout the
region known as the Americas, even before the arrival of the European
conquerors.
This chapter will examine the ingredients that went into developing
constructive strategies to facilitate the survival of the hundreds of ethnic
groups that continue to inhabit the highlands of Latin America. Many of
these productive and cultural building blocks have endured until today,
undergoing a continuing process of adaption, the result of culling of old
practices that proved to be obstacles to survival and of integrating new
discoveries, accumulating knowledge, and the direct appropriation of
contributions from other communities and other social systems, including
the very peoples who might be threatening them.
1
Perhaps the point of departure for this analysis is the changing
confi guration of the world in which they operate, one that has evolved
from membership in regional empires, like the Aztec, Mayan, and Incan
confederations, to a complex and variegated process of integration into
nation-states and the international economy. Without going into an
historical discussion of these developments, this chapter offers a suggestive
examination of the concerted efforts by communities throughout the region
to maintain their identities, to develop mechanisms to assure increasing
degrees of autonomy in the face of intensifying efforts to integrate them
into the ranks of the poorest people in national societies and global markets.
Far from isolated efforts by individual communities, the current efforts
by myriad communities throughout the region refl ect explicit attempts
to forge alliances and propose collective strategies for strengthening their
organizations to better enable them to confront the external forces of
homogenization. As such, this proposal for understanding the activities of
the mountain communities in Latin America offers a direct counterpoint
to much of the literature that examines growth and 'development' in terms
of society's progress, or lack of such progress, in advancing along the road
of capitalist development and fuller participation in global markets; this
literature attaches little importance to the serious collateral damage that
causes great harm to the human and natural settings in which it occurs,
increasing processes of social exclusion and reducing natural resilience
while the State abdicates its historic responsibilities to assure some modicum
of balance among distinct groups.
2
Communities throughout the Latin American highlands are
increasingly militant in the face of these problems, defending their right
for self-determination, for local empowerment, to thwart the dynamics of
globalization. In many places this takes the form of a demand for autonomy,
a claim that they receive the political guarantees to govern themselves and,
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