Ethnicity, Markets, and Migration in the Andes: At the Crossroads of History and Anthropology.

This is a satisfyingly hefty tome, full of scholarly delights. Every article is the result of serious research, whether in modem communities or colonial archives; no one, however conversant with Andean studies, could read it without discovering facts previously unknown. The book overall is remarkably successful, in large part because the ambitious time span from just before the conquest to the present - is balanced by a narrow topical focus and the close correspondence of theoretical and methodological approaches among the various authors. It is rare indeed to find an edited volume in which the articles work so well together; yet the result is not bland homogeneity but a lively discussion among a group of like-minded but independent scholars - as though one were listening in on the "series of conversations in a favorite London pub" said to have been the book's genesis. (p. 5) The authors' enthusiasm for Andean studies is also infectious; one begins to imagine the great piles of as-yet-unread documents in Andean archives as a sort of scholar's version of Potosi, the fabled silver mines that occupy such a preeminent place in this book, as they did in the economic history here recounted.

The articles are divided into three large sections, partly topical and partly chronological in nature, with two significant essays as bookends. The introduction by Brooke Larson outlines the history of Andean studies, acknowledging ethnohistorian John Murra as the great patriarch of the field. Appropriately enough, an essay by Murra follows, opening a section entitled "From Inca to Spanish Rule: The Making of Indians and Markets." His article reiterates his position about the non-existence of markets "before the European Invasion," while the rest of the section discusses early colonial history. Steve Stern, in a short but provocative piece, sets the tone for much of the book when he asserts the existence of two economic models in the Andes, "European colonial" and "traditional Andean," but warns that "This 'European' model . . . refers more to a cultural logic associated with early modern Europe than it does to the biological ancestry of its practitioners." (p. 75) Assadourian's article complements Stern's, presenting more empirical evidence and less speculation, but toward the same end. Ramirez's article, which closes the section, was a high point for me both because of its depth and intelligence and because it is the only essay on the northern Andes in a collection that focuses almost exclusively on the south.

The next section, on "Tribute, Migration and Trade," deals primarily with late colonial data, but follows a similar pattern: first, a rather theoretical essay by Saignes, who emphasizes the mutability of individual ethnicities that were less expressions of personal identity than tools to achieve specific economic ends in the face of a legal system predicated upon ethnic categorization. The multiauthored essay that follows offers more in the way of empirical data, but a very interesting argument about the involvement of native Andean traders in late colonial exchange is marred by confusing prose, perhaps the result of poor translation. The final article, by Larson and Leon, illustrates the heterogeneity of indigenous areas often treated as unitary. Core and periphery relations pertain at a microlevel as well as at larger scales, and the relationship between large and small systems is not predictable. In the case of Tapacari, the decay of a market town made irrelevant by changing regional commercial and transit patterns, actually promoted renewed economic vigor in the rural hinterland previously stifled by the town. The third section of essays, on "Negotiating the Meaning of Market Exchange," begins with Platt's article on the nineteenth century, which likewise documents the ecological, economic and temporal complexities that obtain even within a relatively small and apparently homogeneous region. His larger argument concerns the uneven trajectory of Indian participation in commerce over time, in rebuttal of the notion of a unidirectional progression from greater to lesser involvement; he also reminds us of the importance of seasonal and calendrical considerations for Indian peasants, in their decisions to seek or shun involvement in cash-generating activities.

The two ethnographic contributions that follow are both substantive, but they sit a little uncomfortably within this mostly historical collection. De la Cadena's piece is welcome for its sophisticated attention to gender, and Harris' for its willingness to explore the cultural meanings of money and exchange, thus pushing analysis beyond the narrowly economistic; but these two essays, taken together, leave the reader caught between mutually incompatible images of the Andes. Harris' Aymara harken too much to romanticized visions of indigenous communities as anticapitalist isolates, while De la Cadena presents a disenchanted image of Peruvian peasant society as permeated by inequality and conflict and dominated by the ideologies of capitalist patriarchy. In the book's concluding essay, which offers a useful if necessarily very general history of the changing meanings of ethnicity throughout Andean history, Harris in fact defends such stark dualisms, against the book's prevailing insistence on more nuanced readings of the interactions between market and non-market, Indian and non-Indian, and more fluid understanding of how economy and ethnicity interrelate.

The underlying conceptualization of "Indians" and "mestizos" in this concluding essay, like Stern's opposition between "European" and "native" economies some two hundred pages earlier, point to the need to distinguish carefully between analytical categories imposed by the researcher, and the ideologies created by those we study. When Harris asserts that ethnic difference in the Andes "recalls the classic sociological opposition between Gemeinschaft and Gesellschaft," (p. 373) when Stern speaks of actors motivated by a "modified 'traditional Andean' model," (p. 78) the boundary between heuristic devices and empirical social reality seems to vanish. While the present volume moves us far beyond earlier models of the interactions between native Andeans and Europeans, this increasing sophistication only points to the need to further disentangle ourselves from the racialized thinking that is as much our own intellectual and cultural legacy as it is a part of Andean history. We understand now that actual people have moved between ethnic categories as they felt the need, and that "natives" have long been involved in "European" markets; but we still systematically mistake political economy for timeless cultural tradition: "Europe" becomes shorthand for the profit motive, "native" for the moral community. The present volume does much to historicize our vision of native Andeans; ironically, it is now "European" culture and "European" actors who appear monolithic and without history, representatives of modernity even before its invention. It was not only in the Andes that the penetration of global economic processes into rural communities caused enormous upheaval. The imposition of alien languages, the violent extirpation of local religious traditions, the separation of masses of people from their traditional lands, the dissolution of corporate kin groups, the creation of new economic opportunities in the midst of general immiseration: these events belong as much to European history during the centuries discussed here, as they do to the Andes. If we begin to think of these as part of a global process more aptly called "modernity" than given ethnic labels such as "Western" or "European," we may be able to perceive this history yet more clearly, and to understand both its local particularities and its larger significance.

This volume, then, could potentially be of great utility to scholarly research outside the Andes. However, the liberal use of specialized language as well as the assumed familiarity of the reader with Andean history and historiography, would make reading this book a challenge to those who work in other parts of the world. It is clearly intended primarily as a research tool for Andeanists. But in the latter context, it has several weaknesses. Most notable are the lack of a good index or an extensive bibliography; I was also unhappy with the absence of the original Spanish versions of quotes. Since the authors often discuss linguistic ambiguities and questions of interpretation, I was frustrated by not having the exact language in front of me. But these are minor quibbles; I congratulate the authors as well as the press for this significant contribution to our understanding of Andean history.

Mary Weismantel Occidental College