num_pages: 296
description: The Coca Boom and Rural Social Change in Bolivia is an exploration of a Bolivian peasant community's progressive incorporation into the international cocaine market. Harry Sanabria clarifies the contemporary struggle over the control of coca in Bolivia, asks why it surfaced, and illuminates what it means to the peasants themselves to be producing a valuable, "illicit" product for consumption primarily by North Americans.With the faltering of Bolivia's economy in the 1970s, the elite agrarian class seized control of the cocaine trade. Concurrently, policies intended to keep down the cost of foodstuffs in the urban marketplace made the cultivation of such crops unprofitable. By arguing that these changes in local economic structures were necessary responses to the impact of external programs and policies, Sanabria links the changing social conditions of this rural highland community to regional, national, and international events. The Coca Boom and Rural Social Change in Bolivia demonstrates that despite widespread economic and social disruptiveness of the international cocaine trade on this community, the peasants have no real alternative.
language: English
title: The Coca Boom and Rural Social Change in Bolivia
titlecomplete: The Coca Boom and Rural Social Change in Bolivia (Linking Levels Of Analysis)
publisher: University of Michigan Press