UPC: 9781503630949 | Acts of Growth: Development and the Politics of Abundance in Peru (Paperback)

UPC lookup results for: 9781503630949 | Acts of Growth: Development and the Politics of Abundance in Peru (Paperback)

Over the last decade Peru has experienced a spectacular mining boom and astronomical economic growth. Yet for villagers in Peru s southern Andes few have felt the material benefits. With this book Eric Hirsch considers what growth means–and importantly how it feels. Hirsch proposes an analysis of boom-time capitalism that starts not from considerations of poverty but from the premise that Peru is wealthy. He situates his work in a network of villages near new mining sites agricultural export markets and tourist attractions where Peruvian prosperity appears tantalizingly close yet just out of reach. This book centers on small-scale development investments working to transform villagers into Indigenous entrepreneurs ready to capitalize on Peru s new national brand and access the constantly deferred promise of national growth. That meant identifying as Indigenous where few actively did so; identifying as an entrepreneur in a place where single-minded devotion to a business went against the tendency to diversify income sources; and identifying every dimension of one s daily life as a resource despite the unwelcome intimacy this required. Theorizing growth as an affective project that requires constant physical and emotional labor Acts of Growth follows a diverse group of Andean residents through the exhausting work of making an economy grow.