The preceding chapters have emphasized the thriving nature of economic and social life in the central highlands which is based on a pattern of small-scale activities and considerable spatial mobility. This dynamic structure continues to exist in the face of increasing centralization of resources in the metropolitan area of Lima-Callao, generating, as was pointed out in chapter seven, a considerable return migration from Lima to the villages of the area and to the city of Huancayo.

Yet, despite this evidence of the region's capacity to retain and attract population, it is clear that, since the 1940s, there has been substantial out-migration and that most of this has been towards Lima. During the apogee of the agro-mining economy, labour migration to the mines and to the plantations was the predominant pattern. The surveys carried out by the project, in 1972, in the villages and in Huancayo itself showed, however, that this type of migration was increasingly replaced by direct migration to Lima (Roberts, 1973: 259; Samaniego, 1974: chapter VII). In this chapter, I look at a sample of migrants from the central highlands who now live in Lima, focussing, in particular, on the nature and significance of their ties with their area of origin.

A main aim of the chapter is to explore the implications of regional and village commitment for urban social life. In so doing, I hope to throw light on the nature of the interrelationships of metropolitan city and province in Peru, arguing that an integrated field of action has evolved in which the analytic distinction between rural and urban becomes redundant.

In this and the next two chapters, we look at the implications of the dominance of the mining economy for the class relations that developed in different types of rural and urban location. The expansion of mining created opportunities and constraints and stimulated a diversity of responses from a highly differentiated peasant sector which was closely interrelated with local towns and cities. The struggles that took place focussed on the appropriation and control of the new resources generated by the mining economy.

The cases that follow have been chosen to illustrate this complexity, contrasting the impact of the mining economy on economically differentiated, agriculturally based villages in the valley with its impact on less differentiated, predominantly pastoral villages in the highland zone. The valley villages have a history of ‘independent’ smallholder production, complemented by crafts and commerce; whereas the livelihood of the highland puna villages has been more dependent on external factors, such as relations with the owners of the large livestock estates bordering them and with the valley merchants and farmers.

In the present chapter, we focus upon Huancayo, the administrative and service centre of the central highlands. Huancayo illustrates, more than any other location in the region, the workings of the mining system of production since it is the place through which a great deal of the inputs and outputs of the mining sector are organized. We analyse the class composition of Huancayo at the height of the dominance of the mining economy. By this time, Huancayo had become the main centre of the central highlands and was the place of residence of a regionally important class of businessmen.

Post Second World War industrialization in Peru marked a new phase in regional development. It resulted in the undermining of the regional system of production based on large-scale, agro-mining enterprise and led to an increasing centralization of population and resources in the metropolitan area of Lima-Callao. In this chapter, we explore the significance of these changes for contemporary patterns of socio-economic activity in the central highlands. We claim that, despite the disarticulation of the region, the previous mine-based system of production continues to influence the ways in which local groups attempt to handle and interpret the significance of these new forces of change. In the following chapters, we identify some of the more important sociocultural mechanisms and relationships which are characteristic of this process. The present chapter focusses upon Huancayo in the contemporary period, as its role shifts from that of an administrative and commercial centre of the agro-mining economy to that of a centre for government services surrounded by a burgeoning small-scale economic sector.

The period following the Second World War is one in which the Peruvian population increasingly concentrated in the metropolitan area of Lima-Callao. In 1940, the metropolitan area contained 10 per cent of the national population while, in 1972, its share had increased to nearly 25 per cent. This population concentration was due, in large part, to the increasing importance of manufacturing industry and the concentration of that industry in Lima-Callao. By the 1970s, the metropolitan area concentrated a growing and major part of Peru's industrial production (Wils, 1979: 41; Gonzales, 1982: 262). Growth in the industrial product averaged between 7 and 8 per cent a year from 1950 to 1975.

In this and the next chapter, peasant responses to the expansion of capitalism are examined. Peasant communities entered into direct relations with highland mining centres and with commercial plantations of the coastal area where there was a growing demand for labour. Much of this labour, however, retained a base in the village, continuing to own or have rights to individual or communal land and leaving wives and children behind to care for livestock and the upkeep of family property. The situation that developed between the mines, plantations and peasant villages was akin to that characterized by De Janvry and Garramon (1977) who argue that ‘cheap’ labour is a critical element in the functioning and profitability of capitalist enterprise in peripheral economies.

Although we do not wish to debate the issue here of whether or not the peasant subsistence base is essential to the logic of capital accumulation in the periphery, we claim that the relationship between capitalist enterprise and peasant villages in the central highlands served the interests of both parties. For the first half of the twentieth century, the best available labour force for the mines and plantations was located in the villages of the central highlands; conversely, the increase in village population in relation to land resources made wage labour a necessary complement to agricultural production. In this sense, the expansion of export production shaped the pattern of development of both puna and valley communities. This expansion created new resources as well as undermining some existing economic activities. Moreover, it had an uneven impact on the region, depending on the resources available to the villages and their type of integration into the export economy.