ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the shift in La Granja’s productive system, from an almost exclusive farming economy—based on a combination of subsistence agriculture and extensive livestock—to a more diversified economy, based on services. This diversification, nevertheless, is fragile as far as it is heavily dependent on the development of the mining project. The opportunities presented by the mining project have created room for increasing women’s physical and economic autonomy, especially for those of younger generations. In addition, the shift to a more diversified economy should not be seen as a linear and progressive movement of agrarian societies integrating into urban economies. La Granja’s productive shift is certainly very unstable, owing to the country’s productive weakness and lack of industrialization as well as the cyclical nature of mining itself. In this context, local families have adapted long-standing Andean practices involving the vertical control of ecological niches. Consequently, members of these families move to the cities when the country’s economy expands; when the economy slows down or if, as in the examined case, there are significant business or employment opportunities in the village presented by the mining project, they return to the village. In the execution of this strategy, the Granjinos have created extensive and mobile kinship networks over large territories.
