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Population and Development in a Peruvian Community*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 January 2018

J. Oscar Alers
J. Oscar Alers*
Affiliation:
School of Industrial and Labor Relations, Cornell University
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Extract

In December of 1951, the Cornell Peru Project, created under an agreement signed by Cornell University and the government of Peru, undertook a systematic program of research and development in the depressed highland Indian hacienda of Vicos, located in the Callejón de Huaylas, an intermontane valley some 270 miles north of Lima. In subsequent years Project personnel, in co-operation with functionaries of the Peruvian government, carried out a comprehensive program of development that significantly transformed the economic, educational, medical, and political institutions of the community. This program has included the introduction of innovations in farming techniques, the construction of an educational system, the building of a medical facility, and the transfer of local political power into the hands of the Indians.

This paper considers some of the ways in which the activities of the Project have affected population structure and change in the community and, in turn, how some of these population changes have affected, and are likely to affect, the efforts of the Project in the development of the community.

Type
Research Article
Information
Journal of Inter-American Studies , Volume 7 , Issue 4 , October 1965 , pp. 423 - 448
Copyright
Copyright © University of Miami 1965

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Footnotes

*

This paper has been prepared under contract AID/csd-296 between Cornell University and the United States Agency for International Development and is based on the analysis’ of data collected with the support of grants awarded to Cornell University by the Carnegie Corporation of New York. The conclusions, however, are the sole responsibility of the author and do not necessarily reflect the opinions or policies of any supporting agency.

References

1 The most comprehensive description of these efforts is contained in Holmberg, Allan R., “Changing Community Attitudes and Values’ in Peru: A Case Study in Guided Change,” in Council on Foreign Relations, Social Change in Latin America Today (New York: Vintage Books, 1961)Google Scholar. See also the recent collection of articles in “The Vicos Case: Peasant Society in Transition,” The American Behavioral Scientist, VIII, No. 7 (March 1965), 3-33.

2 Vázquez, Mario C., “A Study of Technological Change in Vicos, Peru” (unpubl. Master's thesis, Cornell University, 1955), p. 47 Google Scholar.

3 Vescelius, Gary S., “The Area of Vicos,” Memorandum, January 1965, and Dobyns, Henry F., “Monetary Credit and Transculturation,” Lima, Cornell Peru Project, 1962, p. 12 Google Scholar.

4 The total population of Peru as a whole rose from 8,333,000 to 10,931,000 during the same period, an increase of 31 per cent. See United Nations, Economic Commission for Latin America. Statistical Bulletin for Latin America, I, No. 1 (March 1964), 17

* Estimates were compiled from the following sources: for 1593—Toribio A. de Mogrovejo, “Libro de Visitas, 1953”, Revista del Archivo Nacional del Perú, I, Entrega 1, 1920, pp. 64-65; for 1774 and 1850—Mario C. Vázquez, “La antropología cultural y nuestro problema del indio: Vicos, un caso de antropología aplicada”, Perú Indígena, II, Nos. 5 y 6 (Junio 1952), 36; for 1876—Perú, Ministerio de Gobierno, Resumen del censo general de habitantes del Perú hecho en 1876 (Lima; Imprenta del Estado, 1878), pp. 14-16; for 1940—Perú, Ministerio de Hacienda y Comercio, Censo nacional de población de 1940, III (Lima: Imprenta Torres Aguirre, 1944), 115; for 1952—Cornell Peru Project census of Vicos, corrected five per cent for underenumeration; and, for 1963— Cornell Peru Project census of Vicos.

Annual rates of growth were calculated by fitting the population estimates to a logistic curve of growth, as described, for example, in Barclay, George W., Techniques of Population Analysis (New York: John Wiley, 1958), p. 207 Google Scholar.

5 Oscar Alers, J., “The Quest for Well-Being,” The American Behavioral Scientist, VIII, No. 7 (March 1965)Google Scholar.

6 Center of Latin American Studies, University of California, Los Angeles, Statistical Abstract of Latin America, 1962 (Los Angeles: The Center, 1963), p. 17 Google Scholar.

7 Ibid.

8 That Vicosino women are concerned about their frequent pregnancies is evidenced by the fact that they often approach female visitors to the community for information about modern methods of birth control.

9 Vázquez, Mario C., The “Castas“: Unilinear Kin Groups in Vicos, Peru (Ithaca, New York: Comparative Studies of Cultural Change, Cornell University, 1964), pp. 34–37 Google Scholar.

10 The fact that they do so increases the degree of confidence that may be placed in the reliability of these data.

11 Gale, Arthur H., Epidemic Diseases (London: Penguin Books, 1959), pp. 42–50 Google Scholar.

12 Vázquez, Mario C., “Proceso de migración en la comunidad de Vicos, Ancash”, in Dobyns, Henry F. and Vázquez, Mario C. (Eds.), Migración e integración en el Perú (Lima: Editorial Estudios Andinos', 1963), pp. 95–96 Google Scholar. See also Oscar Alers, J., Vázquez, Mario C., Holmberg, Allan R., and Dobyns, Henry F., “Human Freedom and Geographic Mobility,” Current Anthropology, VI, No. 3, (June 1965), 336 Google Scholar.

13 Holmberg, , in Social Change in Latin America Today, pp. 91, 94Google Scholar.

14 This closely parallels the characteristics of migration for Peru as a whole. See Matos Mar, J., “Migration and Urbanization — The ‘Barriadas’ of Lima: An Example of Integration into Urban Life,” in Hauser, Philip M. (Ed.), Urbanization in Latin America (New York: Columbia University Press, 1961)Google Scholar; and Stycos, Joseph M. and Dobyns, Cara Richards de, “Fuentes de la migración a la Gran Lima”, in Dobyns, Henry F. and Vázquez, Mario C. (Eds.), Migración e integración en el Perú (Lima: Editorial Estudios Andinos, 1963)Google Scholar.

15 Vázquez, , in Migración e integración, pp. 96–97 Google Scholar.

16 Ibid., p. 98.

17 Statistical Abstract, p. 26.

18 Vázquez, Educación formal, p. 34.

19 Perú, Ministerio de Trabajo y Asuntos Indígenas, Informe del plan nacional de integración de la población aborigen (Lima: Ministerio, 1963), p. 83.

20 Vázquez, , Educación formal, pp. 3–4 Google Scholar.

21 Ibid., pp.26, 55-57.

22 Ibid., pp. 83-84. It is not at all uncommon for adolescents to attend the primary school in Vicos.

23 Vázquez, , A Study of Technological Change, pp. 80–81 Google Scholar.

24 Holmberg, , in Social Change in Latin America Today, pp. 86, 95-96Google Scholar.

25 No data are available on the total number of animals of each type owned per household. Guinea pigs are a local culinary delicacy.