In The Rural State: Making Comunidades, Campesinos, and Conflict in Peru's Central Sierra, Javier Puente argues that over the twentieth century, the rural population, rather than isolated and abandoned, was closely connected to the nation-state, international capital and civil society. The book tells a story of how various state and non-state actors as well as agrarian folk themselves sought to transform the central Andean highlands, particularly in San Juan de Ondores, Junín. Puente's work will be of significant interest to students of Peruvian history, indigeneity and agrarian studies.
The first chapter of the book traces how in the early twentieth century travel writers and government officials tried to recast popular perceptions of the highlands from a bucolic and unprofitable space to one of great economic potential. The project aimed to attract greater incorporation of the countryside into national and international economies. What the first chapter does for economic designs on the countryside, the second does for political ones. Puente tracks legislative changes from the 1920s that allowed rural groups to seek juridical recognition as an ‘Indigenous Community’. The legal frameworks required to seek recognition, he contends, also introduced close bureaucratic oversight of agrarian populations. Not merely a top-down venture, the chapter also details how Indigenous people actively sought official recognition. The core of the book, Chapters 3, 4 and 5, moves the story forward to the middle decades of the twentieth century and zooms in on the central highland community of San Juan de Ondores. At the national level, these years saw a cabal of policy-makers champion various agricultural development projects; a vision which reached an apogee with the expansive 1969 agrarian reform. In Ondores, the agrarian reform established an agricultural cooperative, the Sociedad Agrícola de Interés Social (SAIS) Túpac Amaru. At first the cooperative was welcomed by ondorinos, who ‘appropriated and adapted the language of state reformism’ (p. 155). The cooperative, however, centralised control over land and production. And community desires for an autonomy soon led to unrest among the cooperative's supposed beneficiaries. In the final chapter, Puente argues discontent sowed by agrarian-reform efforts to intervene in rural life, particularly the exacerbation of existing local divisions, pushed community ties in Ondores to breaking point. Moreover, the author argues, the initial success of Sendero Luminoso (Shining Path) – who, like others before them, set their sights on transforming the highlands − can also be understood through growing internal fractures caused by the cooperative. In sum, The Rural State narrates a century of external interventions in the countryside and their repercussions for rural life.
The Rural State accomplishes many things. First and foremost, Puente offers an important contribution to Peru's republican history. In an ambitious century-long history, the book touches on many of the definitive events in the countryside over the last hundred years (community legislation, rural development, agrarian reform and the internal armed conflict). Others, like Anna Cant, Cynthia McClintock, Enrique Mayer and Gavin Smith, to name just a few, have studied the impact of these key moments on rural life in situ. Yet rarely do they operate at the necessary timescale to trace deeper-rooted dynamics. By taking a longer view, however, Puente convincingly argues for an important historical throughline connecting the major episodes of the twentieth century: repeated attempts by state and non-state actors to intervene in the countryside. Secondly, through diligent research, Puente gained access to an enviable source base that offers an intimate view of rural change from the perspective of those it affected most. Drawing on 40 books of minutes from assemblies and council meetings, The Rural State shows ondorinos as dynamic participants also driving changes in the countryside. In so doing, Puente offers a gentle challenge to a still too-common view of rural and Indigenous social organisation as strictly governed by ‘moral economies’ and operating as ‘closed corporate communities’. Last, but not least, the author develops a detailed history of agrarian legislation throughout the book. A clear picture of Peru's agrarian history over the twentieth century is impossible without understanding the juridical forces that sought to shape the countryside. Puente thus offers an important demonstration of why agrarian studies must closely consider the history of rural legislation.
Like all good studies, The Rural State opens new lines of enquiry too. One question left somewhat unresolved in the text is the novelty of interventions in the countryside. At times, Puente presents state and non-state involvement as a peculiarly twentieth-century phenomenon, while at other points he recognises the roles of earlier colonial and republican governments and economies in reorganising rural life. Further study is required to clarify just how stark a departure the last century makes from previous efforts, or whether they constitute an entrenching of a much older relationship between broader political economies and agrarian populations. Likewise, it would be interesting to see just how far efforts to transform the countryside went beyond the written word of legislation, government bureaucrats or political actors. All case studies, of course, are limited by scope and availability of sources. And Puente offers some very suggestive examples of how the people of Ondores engaged with top-down attempts to alter rural life. But to see just how deep rural changes went beyond compliance of community legislation, to take one example, further bottom-up evidence from the perspective of rural populations is necessary. But these are additional intrigues. Scholars interested in Peruvian history, indigeneity and agrarian studies will learn much from Puente's book. This reader certainly did.
