To Make the Earth Bear Fruit: Ethnographic Essays on Fertility, Work and Gender in Highland Bolivia

This volume brings together previously published ethnographic essays based on anthropological fieldwork in Northern Potosi, Bolivia, spanning the final 25 years of the 20th century. The articles discuss key concerns and cultural symbols of the indigineous peasants of the Andes: the importance of the land and practices relating to its continued fertility; the cult of the dead; the complex division of labour and forms of circulation within the indigenous economy; the work of gender; and the mythological figure of the Earth-mother.