Organizing for change - organizing for modernization? Campesino federations, social enterprise, and technical change in Andean and Amazonian resource management
Bebbington, A.J.
Traditional and modern natural resource management in Latin America: 125-156
1999
Document Number: 523188
The modernized indigenous institutions and their actual and potential roles in natural resource-based livelihood intensification are the theme of the paper. It begins by outlining several reasons for looking at these organizations, rather than concentrating on NGOs and public organizations as institutions options for fostering rural intensification. The paper elaborates on what constitutes these modernized indigenous institutions, their structures, their qualities, their origins. It then looks more closely at several experiences of these organizations in natural resource-based intensification and draws some lessons from these experiences. Two cases reviewed from Ecuador and Bolivia suggest two of the key factors in understanding how, why, and how effectively a campesino federation engages in natural resource and technology development work: the origins and original objectives of the federation; and the criteria upon which membership is determined. From this, the paper identifies three different trajectories whereby federations become involved in technology and natural resource activities: from organized campesino politics, from resource accessing, or from economic and productive activities. The paper also identifies three broad types of roles the federations play in this area of activity: the technology service deliverer, the natural resource management-based social enterprise, or the natural resource pressure group.