The value of transformation: Agricultural labour and shifting bodies in the Bolivian highlands

Abstract

This article explores transformation as a way of being in the rural Andes. It traces how transformation connects, and produces value within, multiple different spheres of life, specifically agricultural labour, personhood, identity, and space and movement. As an analytical lens, transformation allows us to revise prevailing understandings of how value is attached to agricultural work in these highland communities, moving away from theories of social cohesion, and towards emic logics of transformation and sociality as material enmeshment. Arguing that transformation is a crucial and valued part of being human in the Bolivia highlands, this piece offers an analytical gateway to better understanding Andean cosmology. Simultaneously, the ethnography contributes to wider debates about the place of transformation within conversations on labour, personhood, and sociality.