Cecilie Vindal Ødegaard

Informal Trade, Contrabando and Prosperous Socialities in Arequipa, Peru

Abstract The article explores trading activities at an outdoor market in the city of Arequipa, Peru, with the intention of discussing how notions of ‘the market’ are negotiated in terms of moralities. More specifically, it seeks to address the way in which the moralities of ‘the market’ are made the object of negotiation in a context where trade is of a more or less informal kind. In particular, the article describes the practices of smuggling (contrabando) across the border with Bolivia, an issue that has been only briefly discussed in the literature on the Andes. The argument is that the practices of petty trade and ‘informality’, ritual payments and brujería (harmful acts, or witchcraft) in the market context should not necessarily or exclusively be seen in terms of resistance as is often suggested. Instead, these practices should be seen in terms of Andean notions of reciprocity and circulation as significant for the establishment and maintenance of prosperity, that is, prosperity understood as relationally created.

Losing fat, gaining treatments: the use of biomedicine as a cure for folk illnesses in the Andes

BackgroundThis article explores how people in the Andes incorporate beliefs from both biomedical and ethnomedical systems in treating folk illnesses that often involve spiritual beings. The article focuses on the kharisiri—one who is believed to steal fat and blood from unsuspecting humans to make exchanges with the devil. The kharisiri in turn is rewarded with good fortune. Victims of kharisiris, however, fall ill and may die if untreated. Historically, kharisiri victims relied on ethnomedicine for treatment, but it appears biomedical pills are now perceived by some as an effective treatment. By drawing on participants’ attitudes towards biomedicine, and how people in the Andes conceptualize health, this article theorizes as to why biomedical pills are sought to treat kharisiri attacks but not for other folk illnesses.MethodsFieldwork was conducted in Arequipa and Yunguyo among market vendors, who make up a significant portion of Peru’s working population. This type of work increases the risk of different illnesses due to work conditions like exposure to extreme temperatures, long-distance travel, and social dynamics. Biomedical and ethnomedical products are often sold in and around marketplaces, making vendors a compelling group for exploring issues relating to treatment systems. Qualitative data was collected in 2011 with a follow-up visit in 2013. Participant observation, informal conversations, and unstructured interviews with 29 participants informed the study.ResultsParticipants unanimously reported that biomedical pills are not capable of treating folk illnesses such as susto and mal de ojo. Several participants reported that pharmaceutical pills can cure kharisiri victims.ConclusionsIn comparison to other folk illnesses that involve spiritual beings, those who fall ill from a kharisiri attack lose physical elements (fat and blood) rather than their soul (ánimo) or becoming ill due to a misbalance in reciprocal relations—either with humans or non-human beings such as Pachamama. Because the kharisiri is typically a stranger to the victim, the Andean concept of reciprocity appears to be irrelevant in terms of preventing and treating attacks. The association between kharisiris, biomedicine, and exploitation may also play a role in the use of biomedical pills.

Alterity, Predation, and Questions of Representation: The Problem of the Kharisiri in the Andes

Odegaard raises important issues about anthropological approaches to difference and inequality, by re-interpreting the problem of kharisiris in the Andes. Considered to steal blood or fat from un-suspecting humans, the kharisiri has generally been analyzed as a symbol of power abuse and inequalities in the region. Such interpretations may obscure the ontological underpinnings of such attacks, however, reducing the kharisiri phenomena to a symbol of something else. Drawing on notions of predation from Amazonian ethnography, Odegaard argues that kharisiris must be understood in light of Andean notions of earth beings as powerful non-human persons, hence entailing a different conceptualization of alterity and boundaries. In “Alterity, predation, and questions of representation” kharisiris are understood as part of ontological dynamics where humans are potential prey to different powerful beings, human and non-human, due to their common reliance on vital substances.

Border Multiplicities: At the Cross-Roads between Improvisation and Regulation in the Andes

ABSTRACT Focusing on illicit trade between Peru and Bolivia, this article is concerned with border-work as it unfolds at the cross-roads between improvisation and regulation. The argument of the article is two-fold. First, it argues that cross-border trade in this context must be understood as socially and spatially embedded. The trade involves a sense of local autonomy and networks of cooperation and exchange that not only facilitate illicit trade, but also adds legitimacy and value to cross-border trade, despite its illegal dimensions. Second, the article argues that commodity flows in this context actualize questions about what, where and when the border is. Due to the social and spatial embeddedness of cross-border trade and the authorities’ difficulties to limit the smuggling, border-work is multiplied, taking place in various sites beyond the delineated border. The article illustrates how the flow of a particular commodity, namely fuel, has resulted in an intensification and multiplication of border-work due to smuggling.

Land and Labour in Processes of Urbanisation: The Dialectics Between Popular Practices and State Policies in Peru

Questions regarding Indigenous peoples’ rights to land are most often addressed in terms of their struggles for land in rural areas. This article is concerned with Indigenous people’s access to land in an urban context, and explores the spatial dimensions involved and negotiated in processes of urbanisation in Peru. In particular, it will focus on the collective occupations of land on the outskirts of urban centres, and relate this to the development of state policies regarding the growth of new urban neighbourhoods. Since the 1940s and 1950s, marginalised people in Peruvian cities have taken part in collective occupations of land for purposes of housing, and creating new urban neighbourhoods where infrastructure is constructed through collective work and efforts. In response to these practices, Peruvian authorities have created different policies and institutions to facilitate the formalisation of land ownership and to coordinate popular organisational efforts. This illustrates how the approach of the state to these practices has often involved the co‐optation of the initiatives of local movements into official policies, e.g. by making compulsory the collective construction of infrastructure in these neighbourhoods. The article discusses these collective practices of work in relation to the increasing significance of individual land titles and loans, and explores some of the responses of inhabitants to official policies. It demonstrates how this coexistence leads to what can be seen as the re‐creation of a vaguely defined, hybrid space for citizenship.

Market Liberalisation and the (Un-)making of the ‘Perfect Neoliberal Citizen’: Enactments of Gendered and Racialised Inequalities Among Peruvian Vendors

Odegaard provides a much-needed analysis of gendered and racialised inequalities in Peru’s informal economy under neoliberal regimes. Considering the country’s market liberalisation and stimulation of entrepreneurship in recent decades, the many informal vendors – often women – may appear as ‘perfect neoliberal citizens’; as market-friendly and flexible. Yet vendors seek to develop their economic tactics on their own terms, and the chapter demonstrates how they mediate between formality and official demands by relying on relational and symbolic resources. More specifically, the chapter explores how gendered and racialised inequalities are enacted in vendors’ encounters with public functionaries. By discussing the potential of recent economic policies to reinforce long-standing economic and socio-cultural inequalities, Odegaard argues that market liberalisation needs to be understood through an ethnography of the class, ethnic and gender relationships through which economic processes are actualised.

‘Made in China’. Contraband, Labour and the Gendered Effects of ‘Free-Trade’, China-Peru

Abstract In Peru, textiles have increasingly become contested as commodities and objects of consumption, especially following the free trade agreement between Peru and China, signed in 2009, which accommodates increased importation of Chinese textiles. This article discusses how local intermediaries, often women who have found a livelihood working with the importation and vending of textiles, are affected by increased border regulations and competition from over-seas, more formalised forms of importation. Reflecting on enactments of femininities and the social and spatial embeddedness of trade in the border areas, the article discusses the multifaceted and gendered implications of a de-localisation of commodity flows.