Frontier expansion and settlement in lowland Bolivia

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Abstract
This article examines the expansion of cash crop production into the lowland Bolivian frontier and explores the dynamics of class formation that shaped peasant political consciousness. It discusses the factors that moulded local‐level response to the conditions created by capitalist development: the process of social differentiation that affected settlers and the relationship between subsistence agriculture and wage labour; the tensions between settlers and large‐scale entrepreneurs; and changing state policies and economic conditions. It concludes that rigid analytic distinctions between peasants and proletarians ignore the historical development of production relations in Bolivia.