ABSTRACT
By law the campesinos are full Panamanian citizens, but this is a legal entitlement only. In most of their relationships with the larger society power lies with the persons from the outside, and such relationships tend to be transitory. Within the village several voluntary associations bring diverse people together on different occasions, but these groupings, too, are relatively non-enduring and are not community inclusive. To show in what way the primary relationship systems are influenced by aspects of the broader social organization, I consider here the countrymen's formal political life, some of the ties they have to outsiders, and the formal community associations.
